Really Him

9

Really Him

    “Dorothy! Quick! It’s him!” gasped the Puriri County Deputy Librarian, rushing into her boss’s office without ceremony. –Fairly easy, Dorothy almost never closed her door.

    Dorothy looked up from the contemplation of next year’s projected budget as opposed to this year’s budget—spent, committed, or left over. Very little in the last category, it was all those ruddy large-print Barbara Cartlands...

    “Eh? Who, him?” she said vaguely.

    Janet was very pink—only partly from having given herself away so completely; more from simple excitement. “Adam McIntyre!” she beamed.

    Dorothy winced. “Ten o’clock on a Monday morning is far, far too early for that sort of leg-pull, Dr Watson. Especially when I haven’t even had me black Instant.”

    “It is!” insisted Janet. “With a lady!”

    “Ah. Has the lady got a pale primrose bird’s nest on her head, and a layer of red paint on her nipples?”

    “No!” gasped Janet, going ten shades deeper.

    “Can’t be him, then.”

    “It is! Really! The lady’s— Um, maybe she’s his mother,” said Janet dubiously.

    “Rubbish, Janet: fillum stars in spangled green tights do not have mothers. Well, only mothers that cry on TV and tell ya what a lovely son he’s always been to them, and if his has ever done that, I for one missed both it and the full-page spread it would have got in the Star next day.”

    “All right: stay there. But you’ll miss him!” warned Janet, rushing out again.

    Dorothy heaved herself up, moaning gently. She looked round vaguely for her pen, then realized it was in its usual position. Retrieving it from behind her right ear, she scratched her well-frizzed short, grey-sprinkled dark mop slowly, screwing up her face horribly as she did so. “Does this prove he can read after all?” she muttered. “No, me first supposition was correct: he learns his lines from a tape that someone’s made for him. Well, keeps all those little tape-makers employed.” She went slowly over to her open door. “He’ll be here to give his old mum a supporting arm while she chooses a large-print Barbara Cartland, that’ll be it!”

    Before she could take another step—or utter another disillusioned pre-Monday-Instant remark—the workroom door opened and the Children’s Librarian rushed in, all flushed and excited. In fact she was about the colour of the cheerful pink smock she insisted on wearing to mark her status as Children’s Librarian. Dorothy didn’t mind: if Cynthia was happy shrouding her form in pink smocks, good on her. Never mind that the carpet in Children’s Corner was a particularly bright scarlet.

    “Dorothy! It’s him!” she gasped. “Quick!”

    “Cynthia, if the Pied Piper of Hamlin is determined to lure away all your kiddies from Kiddies’ Corner, I’m afraid there is nothing I can do about it: I have no magic powers, Rumour has lied in this instance.”

    “Silly!” gasped Cynthia. “Adam McIntyre! Quick!”

    Gayle, the Mobile Librarian (the oddness of this usage, in that all of Puriri’s librarians were mobile, had been pointed out by few, though Dorothy was certainly one of them) had followed her. “Yes, it’s really him!” she gasped.

    “Really him,” said Dorothy glumly. “Have ail my staff gone mad?”

    Cynthia gulped. Gayle looked horribly disconcerted.

    “Go on,” said Dorothy, waving a limp hand. “Go and gawp. Such a chance comes but once in a lifetime.”

    “Uh—yes,” said Cynthia uncertainly.

    “Well, I’m going!” gasped Gayle. She shot out.

    “Come here,” said Dorothy heavily. She endeavoured to twitch Cynthia’s smock into position and straighten her collar. “I suppose he is used to primrose bird’s nests,” she sighed, looking at Cynthia’s head. “Go on: you’ll do, he must have iron nerves if he’s proposing to display himself to the assembled multitude in pale green spangled tights.”

    Cynthia gave a smothered giggle and shot out.

    “There’s a pen behind your ear,” muttered Dorothy, sotto voce, as she did so.—“GO!” she bellowed at the one pleading face that hadn’t abandoned its post and was looking up at her pathetically from its desk. It beamed, and shot out.

    Dorothy sighed and looked hard at the nearest phone. “Do—not—ring,” she warned it, pointing at it with her pen. She put the pen back behind her ear, sighed, and wandered out.

    … “I did warn you,” murmured Melinda.

    “It’s very pleasant,” Adam replied, looking round the airy, bright Puriri County Library.

    “Physically, yes. Fortunately they seem to stock enough junk to satisfy your father’s baser needs, and they also run a very efficient interlibrary loan service. And there’s the university library in town for his professional reading, of course.”

    “Mm.” Adam looked around him with a tiny smile.

    The adult sections of the library had a bright blue carpet and although the actual shelving was fawn-painted steel, quite an amount of lightly varnished knotty pine was also featured—walls, ceiling and so on—with an assortment of comfortable seats in light blue and fawn. The tables were also knotty pine, and the curtains at the long windows, at the moment all drawn back, were bright scarlet. At the moment all these features of the décor were very clearly visible.

    “Busy, isn’t it?” he ventured.

    Over at the big table where the magazines were still, at this time of the morning, very neat, old Mr Potter from Hinemoa Street was slowly leafing through a National Geographic. At the far end of the table a boy who looked like a student—white tee-shirt with jeans, brown hair tied back in a neat pony tail, three silver studs in one ear—had spread out a newspaper and was looking in a depressed way at the “Work Available” columns. Shortly, the library staff were in no doubt, Mr Potter would get up and complain about him, because although he was entirely quiet and unobtrusive the newspapers were Not Supposed to Be Read There, they had their own stands further round that wall.

    Over by the Rental Fiction two teenage girls had spotted Adam immediately on his entrance and were now in a state of puce, shaking, clutching excitement. Neither of them was as yet capable of speech and with any luck they would remain in that state for some considerable time. In the adult stacks two fawn-headed boys aged about twelve or thirteen were deep in argument over whether one of them could build a Sopwith Camel like the one in the book he was clutching, and hadn’t noticed a thing.

    Old Mrs Potter was also in the library. She was standing with her shopping trundler next to the wall of large-print Romances, looking carefully inside them for her special mark that she always put round the page number of page 17 of the books she’d read. This sort of thing was an extremely common practice with ladies of Mrs Potter’s age and the library staff were indifferent to it. Well, if they weren’t Dorothy just sat on them, firmly but kindly, and then they were. It had never dawned on Mrs Potter, just as it had never dawned on any of her fellow practitioners of this art, that the library possessed more than one copy of each large-print romance.

    A little further down from Mrs Potter, old Mrs Tonks and her daughter Mrs Baxter had worked their way down to the W’s. Moana Baxter worked at The Deli in The Arcade and she was looking nervously at her watch, she should have been back at work ten minutes ago: she’d only popped out to see that Mum didn’t take out fifteen heavy books that she’d already read.

    “You’ve read that, Mum!” she said loudly.

    “Have I?” asked old Mrs Tonks dubiously.

    Moana took it off her and put it back. “Yes. Last week.”

    “Oh. Well, this looks nice.”

    Moana took it off her. “That’s a detective story, Mum, it’s the wrong colour—see?”—Old Mrs Tanks peered at it.—“You wouldn’t like it, Mum. Um—what about this?”

    “Um... haven’t I read that, dear?”

    Moana was by now past caring. Why couldn’t her rotten sister-in-law come to the library with Mum once in a blue moon—or Hayley, she could come with her grandma, she was at home with the kids all day, she didn’t have anything better to do! Thinking hard thoughts about her daughter, Moana said loudly: “No. Come on, Mum, I’ve got to get back to work!”

    “You go on, dear, I’ll just—”

    “Mum, you won’t be able to carry a great pile of— Oh, hullo, Dorothy,” she said sheepishly.

    “Hi, Moana. Hullo, Mrs Tonks.”

    Mrs Tonks’s crumpled brown face broke into a beam. “Hullo, Dorothy, how are you? –Look, that’s that film star over there, have you seen him?”

    Mrs Tonks was slightly deaf (not nearly as deaf as old Mr Potter, though) so she said this very loudly.

    Dorothy replied cheerfully, and perforce loudly: “Yes, what a sight for sore eyes on a Monday morning, eh? –I don’t think you’ll like that one, it’s got a murder in it.”  Mrs Tanks had once more picked up the detective story; she took it off her and tucked it under her armpit for reshelving. “Why don’t you nip off, Moana, I’ll look after your mother,” she said kindly.

    “Um—yes. Um—ta, Dorothy. Ya know she can’t manage a bag of heavy books with her arthritis, don’t you?’“ she gasped.

    “Yes. We’ll be right—are you meeting Moana after the library, Mrs Tonks?” she said loudly to the old lady.

    “Eh? No, I don’t think so, dear... Am I?” she said.

    “No, I’m working all day today, Mum,” replied her daughter loudly. “Um—look, I really must go. If you’re sure?” she gasped to Dorothy.

    “Yes. Someone’ll give her a lift home if she ends up with lots of books,” said Dorothy kindly.

    Moana knew it would probably be Dorothy herself. Or maybe the nice girl with the van, Mum adored getting a lift in the van, so that was okay. “Thanks!” she gasped. “’Bye, Mum!” she said loudly, departing.

    “Ta-ta, dear,” said Mrs Tonks vaguely. “This looks good,” she said to Dorothy, picking up a Jack Higgins that—wrong letter, wrong colour-coding and all—had mysteriously found its way to the Large Print Romances.

    “It’s got lots of fighting in it,” said Dorothy clearly,

    “Oh—silly men. I don’t like that. I like a really nice story, dear,” she said, putting it back.

    Dorothy retrieved it and tucked it under her armpit with the other book. “Yes. What about this?”

    Over by the New Books stand Adam hissed ecstatically to his mother: “What a lovely old lady!”

    “Mm.”

    “The woman helping her sounds a bit of a character,” he murmured cautiously—Puriri County Library was not really very big.

    “Dorothy Perkins. She’s the County Librarian.”

    “Ah. Not impressible by sights for sore eyes on Monday mornings?” he murmured.

    “Or at any other time,” said Melinda drily.  “Have you read this, Adam?”

    “Uh-huh. Feminist. Turgid. Too much emphasis on the menstrual period and none on the grammatical one.”

    “When did you think that one up?” asked his mother drily, putting it back.

    “When I made the mistake of reading it. I’ve been saving it up for the right moment,” replied Adam cordially.

    Melinda smothered a tiny sigh. She picked up a new biography. “Don’t you know anyone you can talk to about books, Adam?”

    “What? Uh—no, suppose I don’t. Clem can actually read, but he doesn’t read books. Um... Bernie only reads maths. And the Financial Times, but I think that is maths, isn’t it?”

    “What about Marilyn?”

    Adam rubbed his chin. “Let’s see. She’s got over her militant feminist stage—she would have enjoyed that thing while it lasted—and she’s got over her short fling with political biographies, and she’s long past the ethnic cookbooks stage... Last time I was round there she was just getting over the ‘Black is good however semi-literate or manifestly straight off the bandwaggon’ stage and, um, actually, she’d gone back to Beatrix Potter,” he said with a smile.

    “As an antidote?” –Melinda knew Bernie’s and Marilyn’s children were in their late teens and early twenties.

    “I think so: mm. Oh, she was doing the stone-ground-flour bit, too. A touch of the back-to-natures coming on, I’m afraid: poor Bernie!”

    “I thought he ate anything she put in front of him?”

    “Yes, but can the fifty-year-old colon stand a sudden leap from chilli-pepper gumbo to stone-ground wholemeal bread?”

    Melinda had to gulp. “I see. Poor Bernie, indeed.”

    “Mm. –You can’t talk books with Marilyn,” he explained: “she’s only interested in the ones she’s currently hooked on, and she’s so fiercely partisan about those that even if you’ve mildly enjoyed them there’s no common ground!” He looked at her with his glinting smile.

    Melinda reflected in a depressed sort of way that he probably knew just how charming he looked when he did that, and wondered briefly whether to tell him not to waste it on his aged ma.

    “That’s very clear; thank you, dear,” she murmured.

    Adam laughed. “And much though I love Roger and Alaric and Jack, they’re all so young that their idea of discussing liter-achewer is to put me down relentlessly the minute I open me mouth! –Gawd, I must be getting old.”

    “Well, at least you’re starting to wake up to it,” said Melinda. She replaced the biography and picked up the next book.

    “Mm.” Adam picked up a novel by a writer he’d never heard of. He looked at the dustjacket. Oh. Local. He opened it.

    Anyone overhearing their conversation might not have deduced it, but Bernie and Marilyn were not the parents of Roger, Alaric and Jack, so Melinda then said: “What about Charles and Norah, darling?”

    “What? Oh, old Charles never reads anything but his scripts. And half the time he never reads those, he picks up his lines from the prompter. And Norah’s a darling, but she’s never got much beyond Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book—and I think she found parts of that hard going.”

    “Darling!” protested Melinda with a little gurgle.

    “It’s quite literate,” he said with that glinting smile.

    “You’ve read it,” diagnosed Melinda in a hollow voice. Adam couldn’t boil an egg. In fact he couldn’t even cut a slice of bread without ruining the loaf—let alone toast the result.

    “I’ve read most of Norah’s cookery books—the Jane Grigsons are the best by a million miles, the woman can really write.”

    “I know that, Adam, I’ve been using her books for years.”

    “There you are, then,” said Adam. “—This is really vile, has Dad read it?”

    Melinda looked at it. She swallowed. “Um—he read it when it first came out. Surely you must have—” She swallowed again.

    “I never read things that win things,” Adam assured her. He put it back.

    “Oh, no: I forgot,” said Melinda in a hollow voice.

    Adam smiled. “I’ve read that,” he said, nodding at it.

    Melinda looked at it weakly. Why was it on the New Books stand?

    “Why is it on the New Books stand?” he asked blandly.

    “Don’t be silly, Adam, I suppose it’s—um—a new edition, or something.”

    Adam picked up Barnaby Rudge. He looked inside it. “1841,” he said with interest.

    “Don’t be ridiculous, Adam! –Was it as early as that?”

    “Apparently, mm.... God, I’d love to play Barnaby. Remember that black and white thing we saw on telly? I must have been about... Eleven or twelve, I suppose.”

    “No, I don’t,” said Melinda definitely. She swallowed. “Isn’t that more—uh—more Joel’s sort of part, dear?”

    “Hidebound thinker,” said Adam sourly. He put the book back.

    Melinda picked it up and investigated. “‘Reprinted 1987!’” she read out crossly.

    “Well, there you are “ said Adam laconically, sounding very bored. “New.”

    “Go away, Adam, if you’re only going to be a pest.” Melinda replaced the Barnaby Rudge and quested further. “Ooh, this looks...”

    Adam sighed. He’d read everything on the New Books stand that looked faintly interesting, and much that didn’t. And the only one that he was even slightly tempted to re-read was Barnaby Rudge; in fact, why in God’s name didn’t he have his own copy of it? He must get one. He’d— No, he wouldn’t, it was Lombard Street to a China orange this library had had to import it specially. For whatever obscure reason: building up their Dickens collection and had just reached the Bs? Very likely. He’d go to his own branch of Smith’s when he got home and if they didn’t have it he would ask them to get it. Not if it was that awful young man on the counter, of course. If it was the nice girl, or the nice older man. Anyway, where were the Dickenses? He looked round uncertainly.

    —“Go on!” hissed Paula, over by the Rental Fiction.

    “No!” gulped her friend Jenny.

    They went into another puce clutching fit.

    —In the depths of the adult stacks the argument continued: “Well, I bet I could build this one!”

    “Nah! Look, it’s got gear wheels—see?”

    “Well, I could get some from the hobby shop in town!”

    “No, ya couldn’t, you’ve spent all ya pocket-money!”

    “Well, I could make them! I’ve got a bit of metal that’d do. Anyway, there’s all that stuff we found down the new Development, I bet I could make them out of some of that!”

    “No, ya couldn’t, gear wheels have to be machined, don’t you know ANYTHING?”

    “Well, I could make the body, I’ve got plenty of balsa wood!”

    “If ya make it out of balsa wood it won’t—”

    And so on.

    “I was just going to have a cup of coffee, would you like one, Mrs Tonks?” said Dorothy clearly to the old lady as they walked slowly to the Issues Desk. Or rather, to that part of the counter that constituted the Issues Desk.

    Mrs Tonks fluffed around a bit and finally decided she’d better not. Dorothy then said firmly that Gayle would give her a lift, she was just about to leave for her Pohutukawa Bay van round, and marched firmly over to where Gayle, the Cataloguer, and the part-time Book-mender had taken root in the lee of a potted Monstera deliciosa.

    “‘Drag your eyes away from Mr Universe, you’re taking Mrs Tonks home,” she said firmly.

    Gayle jumped. “Ssh! He isn’t!” she hissed, turning puce. The Cataloguer and the Book-mender gave explosive squeaks.

    “All right, drag your eyes away from ‘Really Him’, and move it,” said Dorothy.

    Gayle looked at her watch. “I’ll be early,” she protested.

    “Good. Get to your first stop, park on it, and stay there until it’s time to take off for your second stop. Mrs Tonks is ready now,” said Dorothy pointedly.

    “Aw... All right,” said Gayle sadly.

    “I’ve got a ticket to the show. I’ll sell it to you at black market rates: five hundred dollars,” offered Dorothy, quite loudly.

    “Ssh!” hissed Gayle, turning puce again. “He’ll hear you!”

    “Go on,” said Dorothy in a bored voice.

    Gayle retreated reluctantly.

    “See that man over there?” said Dorothy to the Book-mender and the Cataloguer.

    They jumped. “Yes,” they said weakly, looking at Adam.

    “Not him—him!” Dorothy screwed the Cataloguer’s head round firmly between her hands.

    “Ow!” she gasped. “Mr Blake!”

    Mr Blake had just come in. He was standing at the Inquiries Desk, looking bewildered, because there were no staff behind the counter at all.

    “Mr Blake. Mr Blake, to my certain knowledge, is waiting for that history of lawn tennis that needs MENDING,” said Dorothy—the Book-mender jumped—“and for that new biography of John McEnroe that hasn’t even been CATAL—”

    “I’m going!” said the Cataloguer hurriedly. “Come on!”

    They vanished.

    Dorothy hurried over to the Inquiries Desk. Sure enough, Mr Blake did want those two books, so Dorothy assured him he could have them this afternoon without fail, in fact if he liked to wait for half an hour—

    Mr Blake thought he might take a look round and if they weren’t ready when he’d finished, he’d send his young grandson to pick them up after lunch. Dorothy agreed to this and vanished into the workroom to give the Book-mender and the Cataloguer the good news.

    Mr Blake headed doggedly for the Sports section. In fact, for the Tennis section of the Sports section. Mr Blake was Secretary of the Puriri & District Lawn Tennis Club. You could say this for him, he was consistent.

    Adam wandered back to his mother. “Where in God’s name do they keep their literature?”

    “Mm? Over there, dear,” said Melinda vaguely.

    Adam sighed. He wandered off again

    —Alison and Sue had come in and joined Paula and Jenny. Alison wasn’t literate: she’d come because Sue was coming, and Sue was the stronger character. Sue was very literate, she was going to get a Georgette Heyer she hadn’t read. Last time she’d tried to take out five but Miss Perkins had said very nicely that there was nothing against it but if it was her she’d save up one or two, sort of like not eating a whole birthday cake at once, and Sue had thought that was kinda brill’, y’know? And she might get an Emma Lathen, her sister Carolyn reckoned Emma Lathen was ace but Sue, who’d only recently graduated from Agatha Christie to Dell Shannon, wasn’t too sure. However, all thoughts of definite Georgette Heyers and possible Emma Lathens went immediately out of her head—and whatever was floating around in the great empty spaces between Alison’s ears went immediately out of hers—because Jenny and Paula immediately pointed out HIM! –Now brooding disconsolately under the sign that said “800: Literature”.

    Mr Potter went over to the Inquiries Desk with an annoyed frown. Only Miss Perkins was there, and if Mr Potter had been afraid of anybody Miss Perkins would have been it, but Mr Potter wasn’t, he knew his rights as a ratepayer. So he immediately lodged his complaint about the student reading the newspaper at the magazines table.

    Dorothy replied soothingly—also loudly and clearly, because Mr Potter wouldn’t admit how deaf he was and wouldn’t wear a hearing aid: “Yes, I know, but there’s no hard and fast rule, we just prefer people to read the newspapers on their stands.”

    Mr Potter then gave her a long speech about when he had been a young man. Somehow the Depression and the War both got dragged into this, they always did when Mr Potter started to tell you about anything, only the more so of course when it was about when he had been a young man, because apparently Mr Potter had been a leading light in both events. During this speech the student sighed, folded up the newspaper and went out with it, looking glum. So it was presumably his own newspaper and Dorothy, who had better eyesight than Mr Potter and generally looked before she leapt into the bargain, had in fact spotted this quite some time ago, because all the library’s newspapers were mounted on special rods first thing by Kathleen, before she even emptied the returns basket that lived under the slot in the front door.

    During the speech, also, several young mothers dragging small children came in looking harried, and beaded for Children’s Corner, and several sulky-looking older children pretending they weren’t in charge of the small, scruffy objects accompanying them came in and also headed for Children’s Corner. Mrs Potter in an absent-minded way put three large-print books into her shopping trundler but Dorothy was on the look-out for that and spotted it.

    Also during this period Dorothy’s entire staff apart from the absent Gayle and the luckless Cataloguer and Book-mender shut away in the workroom working on tennis books for Mr Blake shifted position in what they fondly imagined was an unobtrusive manner, in order to keep the 800’s under observation.

    And also during this period—things were hotting up at Puriri Library, especially for a Monday—John Mackay from Pohutukawa Bay, who was Elspeth Macdonald’s maternal grandfather, came in, mercifully minus Elspeth, waved at Dorothy with a little smile, and made for the New Books stand; and a small, harried-looking blonde woman dragging a yellow-haired female child came in and disappeared abruptly into the adult stacks in the region of the 600’s with an annoyed cry of: “There you are! I told you to meet me in The Arcade at a quarter past ten, come ON!” Explications and expostulations regarding Sopwith Camels ensued.

    Mr Potter finished his story, looking quite pleased, and, quite possibly forgetting why he’d spoken to Dorothy in the first place, ambled off to the large-print Jack Higginses without ever noticing that the offender had disappeared.

    John Mackay said quietly: “Good morning; it is Mrs Black, I think?

    Melinda looked up with a smile. “Yes—Melinda. It’s John, isn’t it?”

    He agreed and asked after Christopher politely. Melinda responded politely. Then they both plunged without further ado into the new books.

    The little blonde woman came out of the stacks looking cross. The fawn-haired twin boys trailed in her wake, looking sulky.

    “Andrew can’t take this out, can he?” she said to Dorothy without preamble.

    “He can lift it, he can borrow it,” replied Dorothy simply.

    “It’s an adult book,” she warned.

    “That’s okay. No ageist demarcations here, Meg.”

    “Well—um—on his own card?”

    “Yep. Or yours, if he’s forgotten it.”

    “Him!” said his mother witheringly. She produced a wallet, un-stoppered it and extracted therefrom an immense strip of library cards in the sort of plastic container in which more affluent and possibly less literate people would keep credit cards.

    Dorothy moved down three feet to the Issues Desk and wanded Andrew’s card and the book unemotionally.

    “Um—can I leave Connie here? I’ve got to take these two to the orthodontist,” explained the little woman in tones of huge apology.

    “Yeah, sure; it’ll be Story Time in a few minutes.”

    “Yay! Story Time!” cried the yellow-haired child, jumping. Blue rubber jandals and all.

    “Just go on over to Children’s—” began Dorothy, but Connie was halfway there already.

    “Um—I’ll be back—um—in about an hour, I suppose,” said her mother.

    “That’s okay. She can always listen to a tape, if you’re a bit late.”

    “Or read a book!” said one twin with a hoarse laugh. His brother immediately gave him a shove, also with a hoarse laugh, and cried “Yeah!” It was evidently a piece of huge irony.

    “Come on,” said their mother resignedly, grabbing one by his bony arm and pulling. They exited in a sort of tangled bunch.

    Dorothy smiled. She glanced round for her staff and the smile faded. “Jesus, this had better be a once-in-a-lifetime Really Him,” she muttered.

    “Um—Cynthia, isn’t it Story Time?” murmured Janet.

    Cynthia jumped, and dragged her eyes away from Adam drooping over the 800’s.

    “Ooh—heck!” She looked at her watch. She looked round wildly. “Where’s Annabel?” she gasped.

    “She might have come in while you were goggling at Mr Wonderful,” said a grim voice in her ear—Cynthia leapt—“but actually she didn’t, I was looking out for her. It looks like it’s you for Story Time, Cynthia.”

    “I’m hopeless at story-telling!” gasped Cynthia.

    “Read,” said Dorothy briefly. “Do something, anyway: we don’t want a riot.”

    “Um—yes. Oh—heck!” Cynthia hurried off to Children’s Corner. –Actually a fair-sized chunk of the library, though it did occupy a corner of the building.

    “Now at this stage,” said Dorothy in a thoughtful voice—Janet gulped—“I could victimize someone young and untried—like Kathleen, here, or even Debbie, she’s only a student,” she said kindly to the student helper who was on duty on Monday mornings. “But I won’t, because guess what! Here are two of my senior staff, all ready to bear the responsibility their salaries suggest they oughta bear!”

    “Come on, Simone,” said Janet. “I think that’s a hint.”

    Simone swallowed and croaked: “Yes—coming. Sorry, Dorothy.”

    “Be my guest. If Mrs Potter sets off the blasted alarm system again with her trundler-load of books, who am I to complain? I have it on the best authority that the Town Clerk may actually not be lurking at his desk just across that weeny, weeny path there, waiting for this to happen on this particular Monday mor—” But Simone had shot off like a rocket to the Issues Desk.

    “Just a minute, Dr Watson,” said Dorothy, as Janet was creeping off to the Inquiries Desk.

    “Um—what?”

    Dorothy looked at the knotty-pine ceiling. “Where is my Acquisitions Librarian?” she wondered in a mystified voice.

    “I’ll do it!” gasped Kathleen.

    Dorothy’s right arm shot out and grabbed her apparently of its own volition. “No: youth and juniority—is that a word? Never mind; youth and juniority dictate, Kathleen, that you should stay here gawping at Adam McIntyre in all his male beauty falling asleep over the 800’s, while our Bridie unpacks that ruddy great carton of stuff from Bennet’s like she should have an hour since. –Where- is—she?” she said to Janet.

    “Well—she had to take her car in to be serviced—”

    “That was an hour and a half ago: is she holding it down while Greg Anderson operates?”

    “No!” said Janet crossly. “She came back, only—um…” She glanced guiltily at the 800’s.

    “She’s, um, round behind the New Zealand stack, I think,” said Kathleen in a small voice.

     You got a very good view of the 800’s from round behind the New Zealand stack. And admittedly the whole library knew that Adam McIntyre had been Bridie’s heart-throb since—well, since before she could walk, apparently—but—

    “Get her, take her out the back, and point her at the carton,” said Dorothy to her Deputy in a rising inflection which indicated a sort of mad resignation combined with a sort of mad desperation.

    “Right. Heil Hitler!” agreed Janet, marching away.

    Dorothy grinned amiably at the two juniors. “Luverly, in’ ’e?”

    “Yes!” they gasped, turning puce.

    “I wonder if he wore a chest-wig in that film?” she wondered dreamily.

    Kathleen and Debbie went into strangled paroxysms. Half horror at the lèse majesté, diagnosed Dorothy, and half delight. Plus a good deal of relief that they weren’t For It, of course.

    Dorothy ambled away, smiling.

    Adam drifted back towards the New Books but his mother was now comparing notes over a New Book with an elderly spruce-looking gent whom he didn’t know. The elderly gent looked suspiciously intelligent and sardonic, and really at this hour on a Monday after being soaked in warm toffee for most of the preceding day Adam didn’t feel he… He wandered disconsolately over to the magazines table, perched a hip on one edge—Mr Hipgrave glanced up without interest and looked back at his magazine, he never went to the pictures—and picked up a National Geographic.

    —“Go ON!” hissed Paula. “Quick, he’s going!”

    “Where is he?” hissed Alison. The girls edged further down the Rental Fiction. Ooh, there he was, what a relief!

    “Go ON!” repeated Paula.

    “Do it yourself, if you’re that interested,” Sue advised her, disregarding the fact that her heart was beating as wildly as anyone’s.

    “It’s not my autograph book!” hissed Paula. “Go ON, Jenny!”

    “I can’t!” hissed Jenny, writhing.

    “Why collect autographs at all, if you can never work up the courage to go and ask for one?” wondered Sue.

    “I’ll do it!” choked Alison, turning purple.

    “No! You’ll only giggle!” objected Jenny.

    This was true. Stalemate.

    Dorothy emerged from the workroom and cast an eagle eye over the place. She could hear Cynthia reading—it sounded like The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch. She sighed slightly. Fair enough, Cynthia not could not tell stories—story-telling was an art, and they’d never had a children’s librarian who could do it, which was why they got the unreliable Annabel in. Oh, well. Penalty of relying on volunteers. Especially arty ones from The Hill whose husbands were architects and who had apparently never had to do a day’s work in their lives. Or certainly not any sort of paid employment where you had to clock on.

    Over by the scarce-used 100’s Debbie and Kathleen were still standing with their mouths open, only the angle indicated— Yes. Over by the mags, now. Looking bored. And if he hadn’t been a Fillum Star, Dorothy would also have said looking lost. She took another look. Oh. She looked at her senior staff. So-called. Janet was leaning on the Inquiries Desk looking over at the magazines with her mouth open. Simone was wanding a book—probably a Jack Higgins—for Mr Potter, but she had her mouth slightly open and was looking over Mr Potter’s shoulder towards— Yeah.

    Little Rosemary must have had a fit of conscience, because she was now at the Returns Desk with a big pile of returns in front of her. But she wasn’t wanding them, just standing over them with her mouth open looking at— Yeah, well.

    Dorothy sighed. She popped back into the workroom. “Is that done?” she said to the Cataloguer.

    The Cataloguer had had to process the book herself because the very junior staff, who would normally do it, were out in the library goggling at Adam McIntyre. And the Book-mender didn’t process, she only mended, one routine at a time was all that what passed for her brain was capable of grasping. She looked up crossly from a tangle of sticky clear plastic Duraseal and said: “It’s done, but it’s not elegant. Is he still there?”

    “Yes. Have you barcoded it?”

    “Yes.”

    “Good,” said Dorothy with a twinkle. “Well, why don’t you pop out to the Issues Desk with it, you’ll get an excellent view of the magazines from there, where you may spot something to your adv—” The Cataloguer had popped.

    “This is done,” said the Book-mender hopefully.

    “I’d take it out to the Issues Desk if I was y—” She’d dashed out, eyes shining.

    Dorothy groaned. “I’ll give them twenty seconds,” she muttered, “and if none of the silly moos has—”

    “...twenty.” She went out into the library. Her senior staff were just gawping gormlessly at him, in fact as super-gormlessly as persons like Debbie or Rosemary, whom you might have expected—and did expect—to gawp super-gormlessly.

    Dorothy took a deep breath. She went out past the end of the counter, turned left and headed for the magazines. She could feel the eyes of all her staff boring into her back. Well, up theirs.

    “Excuse me,” she said with a twinkle: “but do you need any help? –If you don’t, we’ll forget this conversation ever occurred,” she added hurriedly.

    Adam looked at the tall, bony woman with the short, frizzy greying dark curls, the twinkle in her clever brown eyes, and the pen behind her right ear, and laughed. “Yes, I do, thanks! I was looking for your Dickenses, but there don’t seem to be any novels in your Literature section.”

    “Well, there’s a brand new one on the New Books stand, but I think you might have spotted that,” grinned Dorothy.

    “Yes. It was exciting, mind you: how often does one see a brand-new Dickens?”

    “Must have been marvellous when they were first coming out,” she noted.

    “Wonderful! Imagine the suspense, waiting for the next episode!”

    “Yes; a friend of mine compared it to waiting for the next episode of a really good English TV serial,” she said thoughtfully. “On the one hand you can’t wait for it to come; on the other, there’s the awful feeling that it’ll come, you’ll gobble it up, and then it’ll be over!”

    Adam forbore to ask which really good English TV serial. He laughed again. “Precisely!”

    “Just as well Dickens isn’t as ephemeral as TV,” she said mildly. “They’re all over here, in the Free Fiction. No fiction is classified in the New Zealand system, that’s why you didn’t find any in the literature section.” She began to lead the way.

    “I see,” he said. “It’s a very pleasant library.”

    “Yes, it’s not bad. Gets too hot, of course, at this time of year, but then ail architects are morons. At least this one provided a service bay at the back. –Oh, yes,” she said, looking at his face: “I’ve worked in places where they didn’t: the carriers would just dump huge cartons of books that none of the staff would be strong enough to even move, let alone lift, as and where they thought fit.”

    “Help!” he said with a little laugh.

    “Yes, that was frequently my call. Especially in midwinter when it was pouring with rain. Here we are. Free Fiction.”

    Adam had stopped by the Bs. “B,R,” he muttered. Dorothy looked at him dubiously. “I’m sorry!” he said, looking up with a smile. “It’s just— Every time I go into a library or a bookshop I look— Only they never have ’em.”

    “Who?” she said simply.

    “You won’t have heard—” He looked into her friendly, plain face and said: “Caryl Brahms and S.—”

    “S.J. Simon. Out the back. Scarce as hen’s teeth and worth their weight in gold. There’s thee and me, and a couple of mates of mine, and I don’t know of anybody else in the whole world that’s ever heard of ’em.”

    Adam smiled. “Well, one or two people in England might have, I think: but the books seem to be out of print.”

    “Yes. I’ll get ’em. Dickenses that way.”

    She vanished.

    She was back before he’d had time to do more than squat and open Little Dorrit.

    “Here! There’s these two, you can borrow them, and this one’s a duplicate I picked up on Free Disposal—don’t worry, I’ve got a set of my own; I might just let you keep it if you haven’t got it, for a big favour.”

    Adam stood up quickly. “Which—” His face lit up. “God! I’ve been looking for it for years!”

    “Good. The favour is, our story-teller’s let us down, and you can hear what a hash our Children’s Librarian’s making of the story she’s reading those unfortunate kids. Could you take over Story Time?”

    “On a permanent or temporary basis?” he asked with his glinting smile.

    Dorothy groaned. “Don’t tempt me! –No, just for this morning, if you’re free. We’ll come and tell you when to stop, but it’ll be about lunchtime.”

    “Fine. I—er—I do have an appointment in town at two.”

    “So’ve I. Are you driving in?”

    “Er—well, I hadn’t thought.”

    “Well, if you are, we’ll break it up around twelve-thirty. But if you’re getting the bus, it’ll have to be earlier, I think: the one-ten won’t get you there in time. Not unless the appointment’s at the bus station?”

    “No: the university,” he said with a smile.

    “I thought it might be.” She rubbed her nose. “The twelve-ten, then? Or would you like a lift?”

    Adam hesitated. “I— Well, if it wouldn’t be inconveniencing you. Where are you heading?”

    She smiled. “The University Library: Library Association meeting.”

    “Oh, good! –Hang on, what about lunch?”

    “Never heard of it. –No,” she said with a grin, “I was planning to nip into the Graduate Club and grab a beer and a sandwich.”

    “Graduate Club? At the university?”

    “Yes—the city campus.”

    “I see. I’m just wondering why my delightful uncle, who’s the professor of English Literature at that establishment, has never mentioned it to me.”

    Dorothy looked dubious. “Is he mean as sin?”

    “Got it in one.”

    She smiled. “It is a bit pricy. And he’d be entitled to eat in the S.C.R., of course. I’ve been there a few times as a guest. The food’s a lot better at the Club.”

    “Good. The Club it is. And now I suppose I’d better sing for me book.”

    “Great. –Oh,” she said in some confusion, “I’m Dorothy Perkins—I’m the County Librarian.”

    Adam held out his hand. “So my mother informs me. Nice to meet you, Dorothy.”

    Dorothy shook hands uncertainly. “Your mother?”

    “Melinda Black,” he said with a little smile. “McIntyre’s my stage name—Ma’s maiden name, actually.”

    “Oh—good Lord! I should have realized, you’re very like your father.” She raised her eyebrows. “Great excitement for Kowhai Bay?”

    “Well, so far only for two little girls and a black dog, and a certain Mrs Robinson over the road who’s done an awful lot of gratuitous lawn watering.”

    Dorothy choked.

    “And I did see the purple house’s owner, but I was much more interested in him than he was in me.”

    “Lovely, isn’t it?” she agreed. “Does the soul good to find something like that in the refined precincts of Kowhai Bay.”

    “Absolutely!” choked Adam. “Look, I’d just better let Ma know what I’m up to.”

    Melinda, concealing her immense astonishment—Adam and his father would both do some odd things in pursuit of their favourite authors, but really!—came over to Children’s Corner with him and listened for a while.

    Before long she was aware that most of the library staff and a clutch of puce-faced teenage girls had also gathered round, but whether the spellbound expressions were because of the teller or the tale... He was reading a Church Cat book. The round-faced blonde girl in the pink smock had another copy of it and she held it up and showed the children the pictures. Melinda was amused to see her son adapt his style quickly to this technique. He really was very good... After a while she gathered up her traps and crept quietly away.

    Dorothy was on duty alone at the counter and received her with a smile. “He’s good,” she said.

    “He’s always loved reading aloud.” Melinda hesitated and then said: “It’s silly—typical maternal fears: you know; but I’ve always felt that—well, that if he was in an accident or something—crippled, you know—he’d be all right if he could get jobs reading: radio work, recording, that sort of thing.”

    “Yes,” she said simply.

    Melinda sighed. “I must go, Christopher’ll be wondering where on earth I am. Oh: Adam’s books; shall I leave you my card?”

    “No, I’ll issue them on mine,” said Dorothy simply. She glanced over at Children’s Corner. “Hope he didn’t think—you know. I suppose it was a bit much, asking him out of the blue like that; I didn’t give him much of a chance to refuse, I suppose.”

    “Don’t worry. Christopher says he’s too biddable, but— Well, it isn’t a very nice trait, but I have to admit when it’s people he doesn’t need to impress, Adam can be very off-putting. He’s doing it because he wants to.” She hesitated. “I hope. My husband’s other theory is that Adam’s an obsessive rôle-player and that at the moment—during this visit, that is—he’s playing the rôle of the simple man of the people—words to that effect, Christopher had some fancy phrase. Anyway, don’t worry: he’s doing it because he wants to—for whatever reason.”

    “I see,” said Dorothy thoughtfully.

    Melinda sighed. “He’s got some dratted television interview coming up; if he puts himself over on that as the simple Kiwi boy at heart Christopher’ll never let me hear the last of it . Oh, well—fathers and sons!” she said with a grimace. “Sorry, Dorothy!”

    Dorothy smiled at her. “That’s okay. Nice change, to talk about something other than the merits of the large-print romance collection. And for what it’s worth, I’d say he’s genuinely enjoying himself at the moment. And he was genuinely glad to get that book!”

    “Yes: his funny old books are about all Adam is genuine about, I sometimes think. Oh, well. The children are enjoying it, I suppose that’s what really matters!” She gave her a lovely smile, and Dorothy perceived that if he got most of his lineaments from his father Adam got a good deal of charm from his mother.

    “Yep: kids is what matters in the end!” she said with a cheery laugh.

    Melinda bade her good-bye and went off, somewhat ruefully telling herself she was developing into one of those gossipy wrinklies that burst out with the intimate details of their private lives to anyone they happened on behind a counter.

    Dorothy rubbed her nose thoughtfully. She’d look forward to that TV interview. And, come to think of it, to this Opening that he was apparently going to do for Ariadne Nicholls and Bruce Smith...

    The day of the old folks’ home’s Opening having duly rolled round, neither of its featured Overseas guests was in a particularly good mood.

    “Should I wear my very best shirt?” asked Joel, poking his head into Adam’s room.

    “No.”

    “Then what’ll I wear?” he squealed distressfully. “All me clothes are rags!”

    “That’s true,” muttered Adam.

    “Well, what are you wearing?” said Joel glumly.

    “Something cool,” Adam replied sourly.

    Joel retorted with some annoyance: “Cool as in bathers, cool as in Bermuda shorts, cool as in slacks and shirt, cool as in silk safari suit, or what?”

    “I don’t know,” said Adam with a sigh, abruptly sitting down on his bed.

    “Melinda says she think’s the humidity’s dropped,” said Joel hopefully.

    Adam snorted.

    Joel came in. He fingered a tie that was lying on the back of the bedroom chair. “This isn’t bad.”

    “Take it: I certainly won’t be wearing it.”

    “I get it! First you throw out everything you won’t be wearing, then whatever’s left, you put on! Of course, of course: I should have realized that years ago.”

    “Push off.”

    “Well, is it going to be formal-ish, or not?”

    “Ma’s wearing a hat,” replied Adam glumly.

    “She wears a hat in the garden, dear boy!”

    “Not a hat, fool: a Hat!” said Adam with his sidelong smile.

    “Oh, Gawd,” replied Joel simply.

    “Mm.”

    “Could ring Polly?” he suggested.

    “Go on, then.”

    “I have not been favoured with the local billionaire’s prayvate number, dear boy!”

    “Then how do you propose ringing them, Joel?”

    “Since you’re being so helpful an’ all, I’ll tell you. First I ring Jill, see, and then she gives me Polly’s number, and then—”

    “In my diary. On the dressing-table,” sighed Adam.

    “Under what, dear lad?”

    “At the back. Under telephone numbers,” he sighed.

   Joel picked up Adam’s very ordinary little pocket diary. “Darling, what a down-market wee diary! What happened to that very, very trendy, up-market—”

    “I could never find anything in it.”

    Joel chuckled. He found Polly’s number. “Uno momento,” he said impressively, and went out.

    Adam sighed. He went on sitting on the edge of his bed with a towel round his loins, looking depressed.

    … “Hat,” reported Joel briefly, sticking his head round the door.

    Adam groaned.

    “Dark green straw, wide-brimmed, with one large gold-centred very pale apricot—”

    Adam chucked a pillow at him.

    “—rose,” said Joel from the far side of the door. “With emerald earrings and the hair UP!” he yelled from the far side of the door.

    After a moment Melinda’s head appeared round the door. “Darling, are you in a glum?”

    “I’m hot,” said Adam grumpily.

    “And you wish you’d never agreed to do this bazaar-opening, quite.”

    “Bazaar or bizarre?” choked Joel from the passage.

    “You’re right: bizarre, of course!” gasped Melinda, withdrawing her head. She put it back to say: “What about those pale blue silk slacks?”

    Adam groaned.

    “Ooh, yes, he’s got a blouse that matches them!” squeaked Joel.

    “That would be very suitable, dear. And you could wear that nice panama with the blue ribbon,” decided Melinda.

    Adam groaned again.

    “And yer blue sandals!” squeaked Joel.

    “I was thinking of my cream linen suit,” said Adam faintly.

    “You’ll be too hot in it, Adam,” said his mother firmly.

    “I bet Uncle Evan’ll be wearing a suit,” he said gloomily.

    “He’s a doctor, dear,” replied Melinda firmly.

    Adam groaned.

    “Hurry up, Adam, we mustn’t be late.”

    Adam groaned again.

    Melinda withdrew her head. “Wear those lovely burnt-orange slacks with that super cream silk shirt, Joel.”

    “But all the other men’ll be wearing suits, Melinda!” he squeaked.

    —Alone in his bedroom, Adam smiled faintly.

    “That’s all right, Joel dear, no-one expects actors to dress like all the other men,” said Melinda firmly. She winked at him and went on down the passage.

    Joel had a terrific giggling fit just outside Adam’s door. Then he poked his head in again and—ignoring the fact that Adam had taken off his towel and was looking dubiously at a pair of underpants—said: “I’ll wear my blouse if you’ll wear yours.”

    “Done. Do you think these things are all cotton?”

    “Oh-cyune iday,” said Joel in execrable French. “Where’d you get ’em?”

    “Um...” Adam read the name on them. “Calvin Klein,” he said blankly.

    “Ooh, you and Michael J. Fox both!” squeaked Joel. Adam looked at him blankly. “Never mind, dear,” he sighed. “I’d say you got ’em in America. But don’t worry: if you got them within the last three years or so, they’ll be cotton. Why don’t you patronise Mr Marks and Mr Sparks like the rest of normal humanity? –Don’t answer that.”

    “I can never seem to find anything there,” said Adam glumly.

    Joel winced. “Well, I’m off to put on me blouse. Are you going to wear those pansy blue sandals, dear boy?”

    “I suppose so,” said Adam glumly, climbing into the underpants.

    “Good. Me spies tell me Sir Jake’s wearing a grey silk suit and Gucci loafers,” said Joel, retreating very fast. He heard something hit the door behind him but he didn’t pause to find out what it was.

    It was still pretty humid, though Melinda had been right and the humidity had dropped somewhat. On the other hand, the wind had got up—though as Adam and Joel had by now discovered, northern New Zealand in late January was more than capable of being simultaneously unbearably humid and exhaustingly windy. The locals went round muttering about “El Nino” but in Joel’s expressed opinion it was simply ’Ell. The powers that were of the new Puriri old folks’ home—which wasn’t called the Puriri Old Folks’ Home, just to confuse you, but Glen Osmonde, possibly because it was in Osmonde Street—had organized a three-pronged Opening: the opening proper on the lawn with short speeches; the reluctant Adam and the even more reluctant Joel doing their thing in the Refectory Hall, and finally afternoon tea—on the lawn for the more ambulatory and those who weren’t given to spilling their tea all over them. Or worse. Ariadne Nicholls in person had explained to the cowed Adam and Joel that many of the residents were senile (Ariadne Nicholls was not a woman to mince words) but that those who weren’t would probably enjoy it. So long as it was kept short and simple. Joel had replied that that would probably cut out Adam doing “To be or not to be,”—not simple; and him reciting The Rime of the Ancient Mariner—not short; but Ariadne had merely repeated: “Something short. And simple. Not sophisticated.”

    The wind blew fiercely, the sun shone fiercely, the small awning erected in the middle of the lawn at Glen Osmonde (“Osmohnde” with a very tight “oh” according to Joel) flapped fiercely, and the words of the Chairman of the Puriri County Council, who was doing the Opening itself, as he thanked Sir Jake for his magnificent gift that had made the whole project—blah-blah, and thanked Adam and Joel who had so freely given of their time to—blah-blah, were mercifully either borne away on the wind or drowned by flapping.

    On the small but shaky platform Adam’s blue silk clothes were whipped against his body, Joel’s frightfully trendy orange trou—very tight- and high-waisted but almost plus-four width in yer actual leg—flapped like banners, the gauzy skirt of the Chairman’s wife’s pastel flowered dress was whipped into a frenzy, and the Chairman’s, Evan Black’s, and Bruce Smith’s ties were all blown over their shoulders. Sir Jake’s wasn’t, but Joel, squinting at it, couldn’t determine why not.

    Ariadne Nicholls’s skirt wasn’t whipped—not only because no wind would have dared but because it was a narrow cream linen one, surmounted by a short-sleeved cream linen jacket of a somewhat safari cut, worn over an excessively plain coral silk blouse. Not so much as a button in sight, let alone your actual collar, drape or frill. A severe gold hoop brooch was allowed to appear on the left lapel. She was a quite shatteringly handsome woman and would have made a splendid—well, Medea, frankly, decided Joel. The hair was pitch black, whether helped along by art Joel couldn’t determine, fullish on top, very short at the back, and combed severely off the face. It didn’t stir during the entire ceremony. Possibly she had sprayed it but even more possibly she had merely given it a hard look in her mirror.

    Lady Carrano’s skirt was not whipped because it also was a narrow one, also linen, in a charming emerald shade that exactly matched her fine straw hat. The outfit was not a suit, but a sleeveless dress, very plain you thought, until you looked at the intricacy of the cut of the cross-over bodice and then you realised some atticful of little Parisian slaves had sewn their fingers to the bone on it under the glow of the midnight oil for three weeks on end. The skirt was mid-calf length and she was one of the very few women on earth who could wear such a length without looking like a cross between an Austrian Hausfrau and something off the back streets of Manchester, in Joel Thring’s considered opinion. The high-heeled black patent sandals with the ankle-straps round the delicious ankles undoubtedly helped. The little boxy purse was also black patent but it had a big enamelled catch in green, apricot and gold: Joel hadn’t realized heretofore that handbags could be made to order but he would have bet his last penny that that one had been. Livia was going to hate her! Oh, frabjous day: roll on the 15th of Feb.!

    In the wind Lady Carrano, smiling like—no, better than—a Royal, held her hat serenely. How could anyone look as if they were actually enjoying such a do? Joel himself was aware it was all he could do not to look as if he was actually suffering. Adam was looking politely interested: that meant he wasn’t listening.

    Outside the main block of Glen Osmonde on the seats provided for guests of second-rank distinction who wouldn’t fit on the platform—they had the best of it: those on the platform had to stand—Melinda held firmly to her hat (straw-coloured straw with a large silk bow in lilac, pale pink and pale lemon, matching her best silk dress) and wished she’d had the guts not to wear one. Only then her hair would have been all over the place, how on earth did Dr Nicholls do it? Dr Ariadne, obviously: Dr Keith, who was sitting behind her and Christopher, looked as if he’d just been through a carwash. Without the car. As for Polly Carrano—how could anyone look as if they were enjoying having to hold onto their hat, without actually being married to Prince Charles? She jumped when Dorothy Perkins, who was sitting on her left, muttered in her ear: “Hatty, isn’t it?”

    “And windy!” hissed Melinda, smiling.

    “Yes! Good thing I didn’t wear mine.”

    Melinda swallowed a chuckle. Dorothy’s hat only got trotted out for extremely hatty occasions, such as Prize-Giving at the High School, or when the Governor-General had opened the new gymnasium at the Puriri District Community Centre in Pohutukawa Bay. It was a very nice hat, being a scarlet straw with a turned-up brim and a natty navy and white grosgrain ribbon, and in very good condition, because it was hardly ever worn. But it was rather a noticeable hat. Especially with Dorothy’s cheerful, bony brown face under it.

    Ariadne must have told the Chairman to keep it short, because he did. Then Bruce Smith announced very loudly and clearly that the entertainment would now begin in the dining-room—Sir Jake looked at his Official Programme in a puzzled way and pointed to something on it, nudging his wife, but she ignored him—and thank you, Matron, if you would—? Matron descended the steps of the small but shaky platform briskly and began marshalling her staff. Matron’s skirt hadn’t been whipped and her cap had remained motionless but this had been unsurprising to the point of going virtually unnoticed. Matron was the sort of woman who could stand up to Ariadne Nicholls.

    “This’ll take ages,” said Dr Smith cheerfully to Adam and Joel.

    They could see that: what with the ones in wheelchairs, the ones that were tottering off under their own steam in the wrong direction, and the ones flat on their backs in huge wheeled carts that had to be manoeuvred by two uniformed attendants.

    “Good: let’s nip off to your office and take a medicinal nip of medical alcohol,” said Joel immediately.

    Grinning, Bruce replied: “It’s not my office: it’s for any visiting medico, which at the moment means it’s Ariadne’s.”

    They looked at his tall, thin, rather uncoordinated figure sourly.

    “And this is the man what’s reputed to dole out black jelly-beans from his very own surgical jar at the drop of the trou,” said Joel sourly.

    “Green,” corrected Adam firmly, settling his panama.

    “Black,” Joel and Bruce corrected firmly, grinning.

    “Green,” corrected Polly firmly, coming up to them with a smile. “Bruce, Jake wants to know if the dining-room’s the same as the Refectory Hall, or different?”

    “One of those, yeah,” said Bruce with a grin. “She’s addicted to those foul green ones, too,” he said to Adam unnecessarily.

    “That makes four of us,” said Polly to Adam. “You, me, Tom Overdale, and a fawn-haired twin—or twit, according to his parents—aged about thirteen.”

    “One of your many twin relatives?” asked Adam, smiling, and offering her his arm with supreme grace.

    Polly took it with supreme grace, remarking by the way: “Just as well I wore this dress, that apple-green I was thinking of would really have screamed at your pale blue. –No, he’s the son of friends of ours from round these parts.”

    Adam’s eyes gleamed. In fact he actually removed his sunglasses and they could see his eyes were gleaming. “Fawn-haired? Thirteenish? If I mentioned the words Sopwith Camel—”

    “Have you met Andrew?” gasped Polly, digging her fingers into his forearm and standing stock-still.

    “Ow! No!” gasped Adam. “But I was in your local library a few days back, and he and his twin were having a loud argument on the subject. No-one could possibly have missed it, or the fact that they were twins.”

    Having heard about this episode, Joel was able to agree: “Or the fact that neither of ’em noticed the giraffe in their midst.”

    Adam’s lips twitched. “Totally oblivious.”

    “This made ’em memorable,” explained Joel unnecessarily.

    “Yes,” said Polly, smiling.

    Joel then urged: “Put your trendy sunglasses back on, Adam, the squint’s spoiling the image.”

    Adam replaced his sunglasses. “The sun’s so strong, here: is it something to do with the hole in the—er—that layer?”

    “Probably. There’s a lot of ultra-violet around, too,” replied Polly calmly.

    “I’ve noticed that,” he murmured, looking at the Chairman’s wife’s gauzy floral dress, now whirling madly in the wind as she crossed the lawn.

    Polly chuckled. “That reminds me: Jake’s threatening a garden party. Will you come?”

    Adam replied instantly: “In morning dress?”

    “Of course, we wouldn’t dream of asking you otherwise!”

    “I’ll have to hire some, I left mine at home,” said Joel sadly.

    Polly replied with a wrinkled brow: “I don’t think you can, out here.”—He gave a surprised giggle.—“No, hang on, I tell a lie: those wedding-hire places have them! In all different colours, too!”

    Joel choked involuntarily. “Ooh, goody,” he said faintly.

    “Shall we?” said Adam, grinning.

    “Yes, do, it’d set a new standard in Anty-podean culture!”

    “That’s mine, he pinched it off me!” squeaked Joel indignantly.

    “I’m sorry, Joel,” said Polly with her lovely smile: “in future I’ll give you a credit every time I say it.”

    “In’ she luverly?” he sighed, taking her free arm. “I’m only wearing these trou ’cos Melinda made me,” he explained earnestly.

    “They’re lovely: I was admiring them all through the ceremony. Well, in the intervals of wondering whether Evan and the Chairman were going to pass out in those silly suits.”

    “Darling Polly, slave for ever,” sighed Joel.

    “Make that two!” agreed Adam, laughing.

    “How can they do it?” asked Joel.

    “Don’t ask me, I’m not a man. And you can’t count Jake—”

    “I think he is a man, dear!” gasped Joel in horror.

    “Yes,” said Polly, biting her lip and for a moment not looking in the least like Royalty, “um—I think he might be. Um—no: for one thing he has his summer suits made for him by a little man in Hong Kong from the best butter, and for another thing he doesn’t really mind the heat.”

    “Has he got Maori blood?” asked Joel promptly.

    Adam winced. “We usually keep him shut up, I do assure you, Polly. Unfortunately the doctor advised an airing today.”

    “That’s all right, Joel,” said Polly, twinkling at him. “He must have, obviously, but nobody knows for sure, he was a Norphan, left on the good nuns’ doorstep in a Norphan basket at the age of approximately three weeks.”

    “Pull the other one,” he said faintly.

    “No, honest, Joel: it must be true, it was in the mags,” said Polly earnestly.

    Joel collapsed in helpless giggles.

    ... “Luverly, isn’t she?” he sighed, when Polly had been kidnapped by Matron and led to a seat of honour in the bunting-draped Refectory Hall.

    “Totally delightful,” Adam agreed, smiling.

    “And so unexpected!” he squeaked.

    “Shut up. –You ready?”

    “No,” said Joel glumly. “And for God’s sake remove those bloody glasses, I refuse to read Puck to a trendy sun-glassered Oberon.”

    Adam took his glasses off and blinked. “You prefer a trendy blind Oberon?”

    Joel groaned. “You’re going to have to give in and get contacts, dear boy.”

    “No, they’d drive me mad like those damn braces I had to wear on my front teeth when I was about eleven. Well, are we on?”

    “No, wait, here comes Medea, she’ll look after us.”

    Sure enough, Ariadne propelled them to the front of the Refectory Hall with an iron hand. A shaky little stand was erected there. “You won’t want to move, will you?” she said.

    “No,” agreed Joel in horror. “And we won’t want that, either,” he said, looking with distaste at the mike. “We are ac-tors, dear lady.”

    “It was that idiot Keith’s idea,” said Ariadne unemotionally. “KEITH!” she bellowed.

    Her tallish, brown-haired, nondescript, wind-blown husband emerged from the crowd, looking meek. –Without his blazer, noticed Joel. “What?” he said meekly.

    “Take that stupid microphone away, I told you they wouldn’t need it!”

    “Adam could pitch his voice to the back of Wembley Stadium, dear boy,” sighed Joel by way of explanation.

    “A Pommy reference,” explained Keith to his wife with a wink at Joel.

    “Get on with it,” Ariadne replied, unmoved.

    Keith removed the mike with a lot of scraping, shuffling and clattering.

    “Some of us thought he was a Fillum Star—sorry,” he said, coming back and winking at Adam.

    “What a lovely man your husband is!” said Joel enthusiastically to Ariadne. Loudly, but it didn’t matter, all the inmates were now talking at the tops of their voices. Mostly on the subject of where was their afternoon tea.

    “I think so,” she agreed with what in a lesser woman might have been a flicker of humour. It wasn’t, Joel decided: because she then added unemotionally: “He’s very even-tempered: he’s an ENT man, most of them are, it’s not a stressful occupation. I think we’re ready,” she decided, mounting the podium without asking them if they were. “ATTENTION, EVERYBODY!” she boomed, pitching her voice to the back of Wembley Stadium without the slightest discernible effort.

    Joel quivered and looked at Adam in a crushed way. Adam just smiled blandly.

    “I think I liked the Biffalo-buffalo-bison one best,” decided Dorothy. –Adam had done it as an encore, explaining that he’d been to the zoo just recently.

    “I liked the speech from Henry V,” murmured Keith Nicholls.

    “Nah, too intellectual,” said Bruce Smith instantly.

    “What did you like best, then, Bruce?” asked Dorothy, grinning.

    “Adam reading ‘Everyone suddenly burst out singing’,” said Bruce simply.

    There was a little silence.

    “Yes, I noticed you had to blow your nose after it,” said Keith.

    “So did I and so did Jake, it was lovely,” said Polly.

    “The bit from A Midsummer Night’s Dream was nice, though my spies tell me it’ll be much more impressive in costume,” said Dorothy blandly.—They all eyed her suspiciously.—“Did you like the Sassoon best, too, then, Polly?”

    “No-o... No, not best. I loved the Kipling—I adore Kipling.”—Several jaws dropped.—“But what I liked best of all was The Way Through the Woods; it’s one of my favourite poems, I thought Adam read it wonderfully.”

    “Flourish of hankies all round,” agreed Christopher drily. “No votes for ‘Little boy kneels at the foot of the bed’?”

    Everybody looked sheepish. That had been Adam’s final encore and it had left not a dry eye in the house.

    “Well, most of us have got children, I suppose,” said Catherine Whitmore with a sheepish grimace.

    “Either that or we’re hopeless sentimentalists,” agreed Dorothy, grinning sheepishly.

    “Mm,” murmured Melinda, smiling a sheepish smile.

    “I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with being sentimental,” declared Lady Carrano sturdily.

    “This is the woman that cast her vote for The Way Through the Woods,” warned Christopher.

    “Shut up, your hanky was flourished after that one!” said Melinda, taking his arm.

    “What was your favourite, Melinda?” asked Catherine.

    “Every word her ewe-lamb uttered, of course!” replied Christopher in astonishment.

    “Stop it!” she said with a laugh, shaking his arm. “Um... I think I’d have to agree with Bruce, but I don’t know whether it’s because Adam read that poem well, or because it’s always been one of my favourites.”

    “It must have been because he read it well, Melinda,” said Polly seriously: “your soul sort of cringes if you hear one of your favourite poems read badly, doesn’t it?”

    “She’ll have to admit you’re right, Polly,” said Christopher.

    Melinda smiled. “I have to admit you’re right, Polly.”

    “That was a good show, eh?” said Sir Jake, coming up to them minus his grey silk suit-jacket and with his tie loosened. “Went down quite well—not too arty-tarty, eh? Come on, the grub’ll be on in a minute.”

    “Hang on, Jake,” said Keith with a laugh in his voice: “Which part of the performance did you like best?”

    “Eh? Aw... Oh—yeah. Gotta be when Ariadne bellowed at the lot of ’em to pay attention.

    Everybody choked.

    “No,” he said, grinning, “I think it’d be a choice between that poem about the decent girls always getting married to the creeps—”

    “The Robert Graves! Isn’t it delightful?” cried Catherine.

    “Yeah,” he said, beaming at her; “um—well, choice between that and that last Christopher Robin one that Adam did, for my money.”

    Certain would-be sophisticates were momentarily reduced to silence. Well, Bruce Smith and Keith Nicholls certainly were, and there was no sound from Christopher Black’s direction.

    “Yes, that was lovely. Like the twins when they’re in their jamas after their bath,” agreed Polly, smiling at him. “Come on, Sir Jacob, lead the way to the grub.”

    “Righto!” he said amiably, putting his arm round her waist and ambling out with her.

    For somewhat obscure reasons, behind their backs Catherine blew her nose loudly and glared at her de facto, though Bruce hadn’t uttered, and Melinda said crossly to Christopher, who hadn’t uttered either: “See? And just be quiet!”

    Joel ate berries and cream greedily.

    “You’ll have a nasty tummy tonight, dear,” warned Adam.

    “No, I won’t, they’re very ripe.”

    “You’ll be up all night, dear.”

    “Worth it,” said Joel with his mouth full. He swallowed. “Go on, eat!”

    “I’m not very hungry...” He peered into his dish. “What are these blue things?”

    “Blueberries, didn’t you learn anything during those sojourns in the States having yer picksha took?”

    “Only that I hate the States. And the food there.”

    “Sir Jake tells me the breakfasts are good,” said Joel, spooning up a big fat strawberry, a couple of plump blueberries, and a goodly portion of cream. “Mm-mm...”

    “I never feel like a huge meal at the crack of dawn,” replied Adam glumly.

    “Waffles! Pancakes!” countered Joel wildly. “Blueberry muffins,” he added with a grin.

    Adam winced.

    “You all right?”

    “Yes, I’m just not very hungry... Is there anything to drink?”

    “Tea.”

    Adam winced.

    “Nice glass of water?” chirped Joel.

    Adam shuddered: the local water was heavily chlorinated.

    “Go and sit down in the shade,” sighed Joel.

    “I would, if there was any!”

    Even the flapping awning had been taken down. The milling crowd milled on the lawn, which was surrounded by nothing more than the three low, reasonably inoffensive brick wings of Glen Osmonde. On the fourth side of the lawn was a handsome brick wall in a scalloped pattern with the scallops filled in with white iron railings. Next to it there were some shrubs, but these were not even as high as the wall. Bright flowerbeds of salvias and gentians enlivened the prospect of the main, or central block, but naturally these afforded no shade. What shade there was, was in the lee of one of the other wings and in it were drawn up a line of wheelchairs and a cluster of flat carts. The tea urns were in the middle of the lawn and tea was being dispensed by a stout, florid, sweating woman in a white overall, flanked by two thinner, younger helpers, one a Polynesian, one a European, in neat flowered overalls.

    Ariadne came up to them with the Chairman. “Aren’t you hungry?” she said, looking hard at Adam’s scarce-touched bowl of berries and cream.

    “Not really,” he admitted weakly.

    “Reaction,” said Joel through a mouthful. “Takes you one of two ways: either you’re high as a kite and hungry as a hunter after the show—most of us, we’re not such sensitive plants as him—or you’re all effete and anti-climactical, can’t wait to crawl back home and into bed with a hottie and a mug of Bournevita.”

    “You’d better have a cup of tea,” said Ariadne firmly, taking the plate off Adam and handing it to the Chairman. She gripped Adam’s elbow fiercely. He winced. “And then you can come and talk to a few of the old people—the brighter ones, of course.” She bore him away.

    “Spiritually or mentally?” muttered Joel to himself.

    “Both,” said the Chairman gloomily.

    Joel jumped. “Er—yes. Give me that, I’ll eat it,” he said kindly, taking Adam’s plate from him.

    “Uh—thanks.” They eyed each other uncertainly but fortunately at that moment Sir Jake came up, bashed the Chairman on the back, and said: “There you are, Perce! Hey, listen, did old Ron tell you about that scheme he’s got in mind for...” He led him away, burbling about Developments and bits of land going to waste and— There went the Environment, thought Joel, looking after him with pathetic gratitude.

    “Is that really that film star, dear?” quavered old Mrs Meacham.

    “YES!” boomed Polly in her deepest contralto.

    “Eh?”

    “YES, DEAR!” boomed Matron, easily pitching her voice to the back row of Wembley Stadium.

    “I don’t like those nasty films with all that shooting,” quavered old Mrs Meacham.

    “No,” agreed Polly, using her normal voice but smiling a lot.

    “NO; DID YOU LIKE THE RECITATION?” boomed Matron.

    “Oh, yes! That was much nicer than these silly modern plays they have on TV these days, wasn’t it?” she beamed.

    Polly and Matron looked at each other in a disconcerted way. What modern—? There hadn’t been any modern— In fact intellectual sorts of people wrote to the New Zealand Listener complaining of this very fact, but naturally TVNZ didn’t take any notice of them, they were a minute minority of the viewing public.

    Matron, of course, recovered first. “THAT’S RIGHT, DEAR!” she boomed.

    Mrs Meacham nodded pleasedly. “What a pretty hat,” she said to Polly.

    “Ha— Oh, mine!” said Polly in confusion, touching it. “THANK YOU!” she boomed, smiling at her.

    “Eh?”

    Matron took Polly’s elbow firmly. “Come on, Polly;”—few people in Puriri called Polly “Lady Carrano”, and certainly not people who’d been privileged to share a meal of cold ham, cold lentil salad and sliced tomatoes at Ariadne Nicholls’s board with her—“we’ll say hullo to Mr Nicholson, I think he wants your autograph. –SAY BYE-BYE TO LADY CARRANO, DEAR!” she boomed.

    “Bye-bye, Polly, bring those dear little kiddies of yours next time!” said Mrs Meacham, suddenly quite bright and compos mentis.

    “Yes, I will,” said Polly, smiling and nodding. “Bye-bye! –Why does Mr Nicholson want my autograph? Does he think I’m Livia Wentworth?” she hissed to Matron.

    “No; his granddaughter collects autographs.”

    “That isn’t an explanation, Ann!” choked Polly.

    Matron’s eye met hers. “I’d say yes, it is, only we don’t want you having one of your giggling fits in the middle of the residents’ sitting-room, do we?”

    “I thought it was the Recreation Hall?” choked Polly.

    “That’ll do. Come on.” She led her over to Mr Nicholson. “HERE’S LADY CARRANO COME TO SAY HULLO!” she boomed.

    “Oh, there you are, Polly,” he said crossly. “That Ada Meacham’s a real gossip, you want to watch out for her, once she starts you’ll never get away from her.”—Matron’s face was expressionless.—“Now what was I— Oh, yes. Sheryl wants your autograph. Now, where’s it gone?”

    Matron picked up the autograph book that was open on the little table at his elbow and gave it to him.

    “All right, but I’m not famous,” said Polly weakly.

    “Eh?”

    “I’m NOT FAMOUS!” boomed Polly. –Matron’s face was expressionless.

    “Sheryl said I mustn’t forget.”

    “Um—no,” said Polly weakly.

    “It’s her birthday next week!” he added brightly. “She’ll be fourteen.”

    “Um—yes. I see. Where shall I— WHERE SHALL I WRITE IT, MR NICHOLSON?” she boomed.

    Mr Nicholson was fussing with the autograph book and didn’t look up. “Now, if you’ll just write it—um—well, never mind, write it on this pink page, I think that’ll do.”

    Polly looked at the pink page, and gulped. “All the best, Bob Charles,” was what the pink page said. Well, that was marginally better than saying “All the best, Charles,” she supposed, but—

    “Now where’s—?”

    Matron produced a pen.

    Polly swallowed. “Um—what’ll I PUT, Mr Nicholson?” she boomed.

    Mr Nicholson went into a terrific fuss because Sheryl had told him what Polly had to put but he’d forgotten. Matron calmed him down efficiently and ordered Polly to put: “Best wishes, Sheryl, and a happy 14th birthday, Lady Carrano.”

    “But—”

    “Write,” said Matron unemotionally.

    Polly wrote.

    “THERE, ISN’T THAT NICE?” boomed Matron.

    “I suppose it’ll have to do,” he admitted. “Come here!” he added to Polly. She bent down. “Send that woman away, I want to talk to you,” he said.

    Polly looked nervously at Ann.

    “I’ll rescue you in five minutes,” she said, walking away.

    Mr Nicholson clutched Polly’s arm and began to tell her how dreadful the food was here—manifestly a lie, the lady on the tea urns had made the scones herself and several people had assured Polly she always did scones for afternoon tea, and the scones had been excellent, as good as Polly’s own mother made on her East Coast farm—and how you had to watch the staff here like a hawk, they stole things from you if you took your eye off them for a moment, they’d stolen his RSA badge only the other day—manifestly a lie, it was on the lapel of his fawn cardigan—etcetera. Ad nauseam but not infinitum, because true to her word Ann came back in five minutes and rescued her.

    “Phew!” said Polly thankfully.

    “Don’t relax yet, there’s the bedridden ones,” said Ann grimly.

    “What about Adam?” protested Polly faintly.

    “Don’t worry, Ariadne’s doing the rounds with him.”

    They headed slowly for the door amongst the mingled armchairs, abandoned walking frames, and wheelchairs.

    “Um—some of them seem to think I’m the Princess of Wales,” said Polly faintly.

    “Naturally.”

    Polly swallowed.

    Matron’s face was expressionless. “However, Mrs Hunter thinks you’re the Duchess of York. And before you say anything, she doesn’t mean this one.”

    Polly’s jaw sagged.

    “Just smile graciously,” said Ann.

    “Yes,” she said meekly.

    “I’m ninety-two!” quavered Mrs Hunter.

    “Wonderful!” said Adam, pitching his voice to the back of Wembley Stadium and smiling a lot. –Ariadne had warned him that when they told you how old they were you mustn’t say they looked very young for their age, you had to congratulate them on their longevity. Joel had said: “Why?” so she’d told him he needn’t come. Joel had made a horrible face at Adam and run away immediately.

    “I saw your father, you know,” quavered Mrs Hunter.

    “Did you? Splendid!”

    “I was a very little girl... I wore my best blue dress and my new buttoned shoes... We lived in London, then, of course. It was a lovely Coronation.”

    Adam gasped.

    “GOOD!” boomed Ariadne. She belted him fiercely in the ribs with her elbow.

    “Fancy!” he gasped.

    “Ye-es...” said old Mrs Hunter, nodding, and closing her eyes. “Ninety-two,” she murmured.

    “Come on,” said Ariadne, steering Adam away.

    “Who does she think I am?” he gasped.

    “I don’t know. Some member of the Royal Family. Well, work it out, she’s ninety-two, how many coronations could she have seen?”

    Adam gulped.

    “Probably the Prince of Wales. –Not him, the Duke of Windsor!” she added irritably, as Adam goggled at her.

    “Good,” he said faintly, feeling the top of his head cautiously.

    Ariadne didn’t appear to notice. “Come on, there’s another ward through here. Now, most of these won’t know you from Adam, of course,”—Adam looked at her in a dumbfounded way but she appeared sublimely unconscious of her choice of phrase—“but if we leave them out of it there’ll be scenes.”

    “I see,” he agreed meekly.

    “I thought I’d found one that was totally compos,” reported Joel glumly. “We were having a lovely chat about how foul Piggy-Whiskers is in that bloody series; only suddenly she started telling me how the nursing staff spy on her!”

    “Most of them do that,” agreed Dorothy. “Who on earth is Piggy-Whiskers?”

    Grinning, Joel enlightened her.

    Dorothy laughed like a drain. “Come on, come and meet Miss Hathaway, she’s more than all there.” She became aware that Joel was standing stock-still with his mouth open. “Her father was Mr Hathaway and her mother was Mrs Hathaway, and she’ll ask you to call her Beryl—all right?”

    “Yes,” he whispered, swallowing.

    Dorothy led him off. Glory be, she was, even if she did have a bad leg, which, as she confided to them with a face, was playing her up a bit today. She’d enjoyed the readings, only of course most of those writers weren’t to her taste. The Sassoon had been pleasant but she found him relentlessly sentimental, to tell Joel the truth.—Joel swallowed.—And by the way, Dorothy should tell that nice child who brought the housebound readers’ books that it was pointless choosing anything new for Mrs Atkins, she was illiterate.

    “Literally?” asked Joel faintly.

    “I wouldn’t put it that way myself,” said old Beryl Hathaway with a twinkle. “But yes, she is. Grew up in a small country town, wagged school most of the time when she didn’t have to help her mother in the local shop—you know.”

    “I see.”

    “Which reminds me, is that new book of Maurice Black’s out yet?” the old lady asked Dorothy.

    “Not quite. I believe it’s being launched in a few weeks. Champagne cocktails, speeches from the P.M.—you know,” said Dorothy on a sour note.

    “Why? I thought he couldn’t read?” retorted Miss Hathaway with a chuckle.

    “I’m told he can, if the words are nice short ones. Well, I don’t know, Beryl, I only move in lit’ree circles, not political ones. Presumably they’re afraid Sir Maurice’s next one’ll slaughter their side, if they don’t butter him up.”

    “Is this Adam’s uncle?” asked Joel faintly.

    “Yes. The historian,” said Dorothy.

    “The new book’s a political biography,” explained Miss Hathaway kindly.

    “Oh.”

    “Its subject’s dead, and he was on the other side anyway, but that doesn’t mean this lot aren’t shaking in their shoes in case he picks on one of their side for his next one,” added Dorothy. “Don’t worry, Beryl, you’re first on the list. There’s only three on the list, actually,” she explained to Joel: “Beryl, Melinda, and John Mackay—you wouldn’t know him, he’s a retired historian and Elspeth Macdonald’s grandfather.” Her shrewd brown eyes twinkled: she’d heard all about the trip to the zoo over lunch with Adam at the Club.

    “Two claims to fame,” Joel acknowledged weakly.

    “What about Caro Roddenberry?” asked Miss Hathaway cautiously.

    Dorothy replied arcanely: “The Institute’s getting their own copy, in fact multiple copies, I gather. –Sorry, Joel, this must sound like Greek. Caro’s the librarian at the Institute of Political Studies on Puriri Campus.”

    “Yes,” said Beryl Hathaway with a smile, “but this doesn’t excuse her losing the public library’s only copy of a very interesting biography of Nasser.”

    “Before Beryl had read it,” clarified Dorothy. “It wasn’t entirely Caro’s fault, she was trusting her son to return it to the library, but on his way he met Elspeth Macdonald and her big black d—”

    “Please!” choked Joel. “Enough! All is explained!”

    Dorothy smiled. “They went down to Puriri Beach and threw things for the dog—”

    “I said enough,” moaned Joel.

    Grinning, she finished: “And the tide came in.”

    “You have to be twelve and absorbed in throwing things for a large Labrador not to realize it does that,” said Beryl drily.

    “Yes!” gasped Joel ecstatically.

    ... “She’s terrific,” he said to Dorothy a little later as she led him away.

    “Mm. Has a lot of pain from that bloody leg. The foot’s almost useless, did you see the damn surgical boot she has to wear?”

    “Mm.”

    Dorothy sighed. “They’re good here, they’ll save the foot if it’s within the bounds of human possibility, but—” She grimaced.

    “Life’s so bloody foul!” said Joel in a choked voice.

    “Yes. Well, a place like this bloody well brings it home to you, doesn’t it?”

    “Yes. There’s a retired actors’ place back home that’s not much different; I’ve been on a duty thing there… Oh, well.”

    “Beryl’s still got all her wits about her, though, thank God,” said Dorothy.

    “Does that make it better?”

    “So long as she’s got her eyesight, yes. –Sorry, Joel, I thought meeting Beryl might cheer you up, didn’t realize it was one of her bad days.”

    “No,” he said, swallowing. “Well, I must admit I’d never have known it was, Dorothy, if you hadn’t said.’

    “No. Look,” she said abruptly: “is your mate going to be able to hack being dragged round the wards?”

    “He’s used to it,” said Joel dubiously. “Does a fair bit of bazaar-opening at home... I don’t know, Dorothy; Charles—he’s a close friend of Adam’s—took him to that retired actors’ home once, he thought it might be therapy, I think, and, well, apparently it wasn’t.”

    Dorothy didn’t ask why Charles had thought Adam needed therapy. She merely said drily: “I never have believed in doing painful things because they’ll supposedly be good for the soul.”

    Joel looked at her in a startled way.

    “Presupposes the existence of the soul?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

    “Yes. How right you are!” he said fervently.

    “Mm. Well, shall we embark on an expedition of— Well, if not rescue, at least silent support?”

    “Can’t you stand up to Dr Ariadne either?” croaked Joel.

    “Nope. Never met anybody who— No, I tell a lie. Jake Carrano could, I have no doubt. But since she only wants money out of him, he’s never had to bother.”

    Joel looked across the lawn in a jaundiced fashion to where Sir Jake, the Chairman of Puriri County Council, Evan Black, Christopher Black and Dr Keith Nicholls were all in a male peer-group huddle. Smoking cigars, no prizes for guessing who’d produced them.

    “Yes, I noticed he refused to go round the wards.”

    “Did he? Well, that proves my point.”

    “Yes,” he said glumly, accompanying her inside.

    Polly poured champagne. “Quick,” she said to Adam with a twinkle.

    He took a brimming glass. “Life-saver!” he gasped, downing half of it in one swallow.

    “Oy, that’s not yer average pop, that’s my best—” began Sir Jake.

    “Shut up,” said Polly. She tore off her hat, shook out her hair, and filled glasses for herself and Joel. She downed half of hers in one swallow. “Help, wasn’t it ghastly?” she said. “One of them thought I was the Queen Mother when she was Duchess of York.”

    “You’re my sister-in-law, then,” said Adam sourly.

    They looked at each other in a startled way, and suddenly burst out laughing.

    “I did warn you,” said Sir Jake to his wife, sitting down on a squarish oatmeal wool sofa and removing his shoes and socks.

    Even though the party consisted only of Adam, the Carranos, and himself, Joel looked at him weakly.

    “Gimme a glass of fizz!” Jake said loudly.

    Polly drained the rest of hers and poured him one. “I know you warned me, but I could hardly refuse to go.”

    “Noblesse oblige,” noted Joel, also sitting down. Sir Jake had now put his feet up on his sofa. “Can I do that?” he said wistfully to Polly.

    “Yes. Take everything off, if you like, Joel. The air-conditioning’s lovely, isn’t it?” she said simply. She sat down in a big squarish tan velvet armchair and said to Adam: “You, too, Adam.”

    Adam collapsed into another square velvet armchair, this one a burnt orange about the same shade as Joel’s slacks. “Thanks. What a lovely room.”

    “It’s the family-room, but really we mostly sit in here unless we’re entertaining very formally,” she explained.

    The room featured a polished wooden floor, white hessian walls, a scattering of modern paintings, and lots and lots of pottery. Joel wasn’t particularly into pottery of the rough-hewn type, and he looked at it dubiously, but Adam then said enthusiastically: “What a wonderful collection of pottery!” so he knew it must be good.

    “Mm, one of my cousins is a potter, most of this is hers,” said Polly.

    Adam pointed to the squarish one that sat on the huge hearth of old brick. “That?”

    “Yes.”

    He looked at it longingly.

    “Darling,” sighed Joel, “would this go with the trendy trelliswork and the artful tubular steel staircase of ye trendy yuppie bachelor environment?”

    “I hate that flat,” he said grumpily.

    “Well, so do I, angel boy, but I did not choose it!” replied Joel, goggling at him.

    “Nor did I. Um... Clem put Jacky onto it, I think; he loves doing that sort of thing.”

    “Who’s Jacky?” asked Sir Jake with simple interest.

    “Adam’s tame publicity agent.”

    “I’d really like to live near Charles and Norah,” Adam said mournfully.

    “Hampstead?” gasped Joel. “Darling, it’s all huge detached places with gardens, in their street!”

    “I’d like a decent house,” he said grumpily.

    “Buy one, then, oughta be able to afford it with your percentage from that film,” said Sir Jake, yawning, and closing his eyes.

    “Oh, absolutely,” agreed Joel acidly. “And this in spite of the fact that he’s just got his money in the bank, gathering—”

    “WHAT?” he bellowed, eyes open, bolt upright on his sofa.

    “—taxes,” finished Joel redundantly.

    “Look, Adam, that’s not on!” he said in a shaken voice.

    “Not now, Jake, Adam’s had more than enough for one afternoon,” said Polly firmly.

    Adam drained his champagne, and sighed. “Yes.”

    “But—”

    “You can give him the benefit of your financial advice some other time. Tomorrow, over pre-dinner drinks, if you must,” she added.

    “Is that tomorrow? Good, I will, then.”

    “One person who is barely capable of managing himself in a central London flat would not cope with a large house let alone gar-den in Hampstead,” noted Joel in a hollow voice.

    Adam sighed. “I know.”

    Sir Jake—since financial matters were apparently off the agenda—had closed his eyes again. “Get married. Fill it with kids,” he advised briefly.

    “Excellent advice,” said Joel briskly.

    “Yes,” Adam agreed gloomily.

    Polly took a deep breath but before she could say anything Jake added—still with his eyes closed: “Seeing a dump like that Glen Osmonde place really brings it home to ya, eh?”

    “It isn’t a dump, it’s brand new,” said Polly faintly.

    “You know what I mean.” He opened his eyes. “Kids of your own, home of your own, before it’s too fucking late, that’s what it all boils down to,” he said to Adam. “Bloody glad I did it, I can tell ya.” He closed his eyes again.

    “Was that a compliment?” asked Polly in a hollow voice.

    “Yes,” said Adam definitely. He stood up. “May I have a shower, Polly?”

    “Yes, of course. I’ll give you a kimono of Jake’s to wear: you won’t want to put those sticky clothes on again.”

    “He won’t want to go back to Kowhai Bay in a kimono, either, will he?” said Joel faintly.

    “Yes: can’t deny Mrs Robinson the pleasure of seeing me in Jake’s kimono,” said Adam with a little smile, as Polly led him out.

    “Have some more,” grunted Sir Jake with his eyes closed.

    “Uh—thanks.” Joel got up and picked up the bottle. “You?”

    “Mm—ta.” Jake held his glass out, still with his eyes closed.

    Joel poured for them both, announced it was now a dead man, and sat down again. “Er—can we hope he’ll take your excellent advice, Jake?” he said timidly.

    “Eh?” he replied, opening his eyes briefly. “Oh! About kids and houses?”—Joel nodded dumbly.—“Depends how much sense ’e’s really got, doesn’ it?” he said, closing his eyes again.

    “Doesn’t it,” agreed Joel in a hollow voice.

    “It isn’t, it’s a Japanese lady!” gasped Mrs Robinson’s granddaughter, Carole.

    “Nonsense, dear, let me—” Mrs Robinson peered from behind her front venetians.

    Billy, the Robinsons’ grandson, who was only eight, had dashed outside to get a better view. He panted back inside. “He hasn’t got a gun!” he panted in huge disappointment.

    “Is it really him?” asked Carole dubiously.

    “Yeah!” Billy rushed out again.

    Carole, who was eleven, flew after him, all arms and legs and luminous shorts.

    Mrs Robinson went on peering.

    “Well, is it?” said Mr Robinson sourly. He was awfully sick of the topic of Adam McIntyre, it was all he’d heard morning, noon and night, ever the since the bloke had arrived. And judging by the get-ups he got round in he was no better than a—

    “I can’t quite— I think they’re all Japanese people, I don’t know what Billy was...”

    She peered uncertainly as the Carranos’ nanny’s help, Akiko, in a plain brown cotton kimono, Polly, in a plain grey cotton kimono—they were everyday kimonos—Jake, in a good navy silk kimono, Adam, in Jake’s navy cotton kimono, and Joel in a magnificent floral silk kimono of Polly’s with a huge scarlet and gold obi, and giggling madly, Akiko had made him up to match and Polly had provided a black geisha’s wig that dated from some fancy-dress party, all got out of the Carrano’s four-wheel-drive.

    “They are all Japanese,” she decided sadly.

    “Nanna!” panted Carole, bursting in bright red in the face. “Come quick, it is Adam McIntyre, he’s got a kimono on, it’s just like in that film when he had the fight with that horrible man with the big cutlass!”

    “Samurai sword,” corrected Billy scornfully. “Quick, Nanna, you’re gonna miss him!” They dashed out again.

    “Go and water the flaming lawn,” advised Mr Robinson sourly.

    “It can’t be... Why would he be going round Kowhai Bay dressed up like that? And who are all those other— That kiddy’s got red hair!” she gasped, as Katie Maureen Carrano in a very small navy cotton kimono, followed closely by Davey and Johnny Carrano, also in small navy kimonos, appeared on the opposite footpath. Katie Maureen was wearing a pink carnation behind one ear but this did not make her look in the least Japanese.

    Mr Robinson groaned.

    “I’ll just—” she said vaguely. She looked round frantically, and dashed into the kitchen. Then she dashed out with the milk carton holder in her hand.

    Mr Robinson sighed heavily. He closed his evening paper and got up very slowly. Slowly he crossed to the venetians and looked out. Ooh, it was really him, pansy Japanese kimono and all. Big deal.

    Mr Robinson returned to his armchair, sat down heavily, and opened his paper.

    “Grandpa, it was really him!” panted Carole, bursting in after about ten minutes’ blessed hiatus.

    “Yeah, you shoulda come! He looked neat!” beamed Billy, bursting in in her wake.

    Restraining himself with a great effort, Mr Robinson looked kindly at his grandchildren and replied: “Neat, eh? Good.”

    Mrs Robinson came in slowly, looking stunned. She had registered that the other man, the one who’d come out here with Adam McIntyre, was dressed as a woman.

    “Well, were they Japanese?” said her husband on a nasty note.

    “Um…” She swallowed.

    “That lady was!” gasped Billy.

    “Um, yes. One of the ladies— Well, possibly one of the little boys, too.”

    “Neh!” said Billy astonishment. “I know them, Nanna, I seen them at the pool!”

    “What about the lady with the fancy kimono?” asked Mr Robinson in a terrifyingly neutral voice.

    Mrs Robinson gulped.

    “That wasn’t a lady, Grandpa, that was a man!” cried Billy.

    “Yes,” confirmed Carole in rather a stunned voice—she was, after all, eleven. And it was the nineteen-nineties.

    “This would be his friend, I presume?” said Mr Robinson acidly to his wife.

    Mrs Robinson swallowed.

    “He was ace, he can walk like a real Japanese lady, he had a fan and everything!” revealed Billy.

    “Mm,” said Mrs Robinson, avoiding her husband’s eye.

    “Um—they do that in Japan, I mean the men play the ladies, I’ve seen it on TV,” said Carole.

    “Kabuki. This isn’t Japan,” mentioned Mr Robinson.

    “No... Nanna, why were they all dressed up like that?” demanded Carole abruptly.

    “I don’t know, dear,” she said faintly.

    —Billy was now killing imaginary opponents wielding imaginary Samurai swords, oblivious to the conversation.

    “Actors,” said Mr Robinson briefly, retiring into his paper.

    “Um—yes,” she agreed gamely.

    Carole still looked puzzled.

    “Hah! Hee—yah!” panted Billy, leaping on an imaginary opponent. “Adam McIntyre was ace!” he gasped.

    “If it was really him,” noted the driven Mr Robinson inside his paper.

    “Gra-an’-pa-a!” screamed Carole and Billy. “Of cour-wuss it was him!”

    “Oh, good,” said Mr Robinson inside his paper. “Really him, eh? Good.”