Scene One. Near Kowhai Bay

2

Scene One. Near Kowhai Bay

    “Are you in it?” gasped Georgy’s mother’s hairdresser.

    “Um—not really,” replied Georgy, eyeing her image in the mirror in trepidation.

    “Of course you are, dear,” said Georgy’s mother from the chair next to hers. “She’s assistant to the producer!” she told the hairdresser brightly.

    “Ree-ull-lee-ee?” trilled the hairdresser.

    “Don’t cut it,” said Georgy in a strangled voice.

    The hairdresser assured Georgy she was only going to shampoo it. The assistant who was gently towelling Georgy’s mother’s head assured Georgy the hairdresser was only going to shampoo it.

    Georgy’s hairdresser (really Georgy’s mother’s hairdresser, of course, Georgy only went to the hairdresser when dragged) went on ruthlessly combing tangles out of Georgy’s long, curly, deep auburn locks. Georgy went on trying not to wince.

    As she tortured Georgy the hairdresser said blithely: “You’ll get to meet him, then!”

    “Yes,” replied Georgy unencouragingly.

    “Ooh, I think he’s su-per!” sighed the hairdresser.

    “Oo-ooh, yea-ah!” sighed the assistant.

    They both sighed.

    “I think he’s wet,” said Georgy briefly.

    The hairdresser and her assistant gasped. Georgy’s mother winced and shut her eyes for a brief second.

    Then the hairdresser and her assistant assured Georgy eagerly that of course Adam McIntyre wasn’t wet, I mean, Ad-dum Mc-In-ty-yuh?—Trills of pitying laughter.—He was fab in that film! (the hairdresser: she was older). He was ace in that film! (the assistant: she was younger).

    “I thought it was tripe,” said Georgy. “I only went because Mum made me take my nephews. And actually the little one thought it was tripe, too: he went to sleep after that first stupid car-chase sequence.”

    The hairdresser and her assistant assured Georgy that the car chase had been fab. And ace.

    “Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of that film so much: to tell you the truth I barely noticed it was him in it,” said Georgy. –A bare-faced lie; but the hairdresser and her assistant were both far too unsophisticated to spot it. And they would never have understood why Georgy felt it necessary to lie.

    While the hairdresser and her assistant were still gasping, Georgy added: “I was thinking more of those awful things he was in on TV. You know, Mum: that Proust thing.”

    “Oh—that,” said Mrs Harris in a weak voice.

    “What was that?” asked the assistant with interest.

    Georgy didn’t attempt to really explain. She said it was one of those foreign films they showed late on Friday nights last winter, and that was enough for the hairdresser and her assistant to understand completely.

    “Oh!” said the hairdresser.

    “Them!” said the assistant.

    “They were all pretty dreadful, dear,” murmured Mrs Harris. “That Dutch thing... Was it Dutch, or German?”

    “Dutch. Yes, it was awful,” agreed Georgy.

    “What about that nice English serial, though, dear?” murmured her mother without much hope. Georgy was being dreadful over this whole Shakespeare thing. Dreadful. And it was all entirely her own fault, there’d been no need to let Professor McIntyre talk her into it—but that was just like Georgy, she let herself in for these things and then she made everyone else’s life a misery!

    “He was wet as anything in that, Mum!” said Georgy with immense scorn.

    Mrs Harris thought he’d been very sweet. She debated saying so, and then decided against it. Quite apart from anything else, Georgy was far too young to understand what she meant.

    “Um—was that that one on Sundays?” asked the hairdresser dubiously.

    “Yes. Prime Time,” said Georgy with a certain relish which most fortunately the hairdresser and her assistant both missed. Her mother didn’t, though, and she very nearly shut her eyes for another split second.

    “Aw. I never watched that, we always watch the Sunday Movie instead.”

    The Sunday Weepy, thought Georgy, considerately not saying it.

    “I saw some of it,” volunteered the assistant. “It was, um, very English, wasn’t it? Very pretty, though.”

    “So was Adam McIntyre,”  said Georgy sourly.

    At this Mrs Harris couldn’t hold herself back any more and did say: “Yes. Very sweet.”

    “Um—he was the brother, wasn’t he?” said the assistant.

    “Yes,” agreed Georgy without enthusiasm.

    “I thought he was lovely!” cried the assistant protestingly.

    “So did I,” said Georgy’s mother firmly.

    Georgy repressed a sigh.

    “He was good in that comedy series!” urged the hairdresser, holding out a hank of Georgy’s hair and looking at it dubiously.

    Georgy winced. He could not do comedy. The only word for what he had been in that comedy series was embarrassing. Embarrassing with a capital E. No wonder they hadn’t made a sequel.

    “It’ll need some conditioner, Sheryleen,” murmured Mrs Harris.

    In her normal off-duty state Sheryleen would quite likely have replied to this: “Too right!”—and with considerable feeling—but in her capacity as owner and manageress of Hair 2000 in Puriri she only replied in mincingly polite accents: “Yes, I think so, Mrs Harris. And I think we really should trim these split ends.”

    “No,” said Georgy.

    “Rubbish, Georgy, it’ll strengthen the growth!” said her mother robustly. “Won’t it, Sheryleen?”

    The hairdresser agreed, though the phrase was not one hairdressers of her generation commonly used. However, the usage was familiar to her, the busy little township of Puriri, and indeed Puriri County as a whole, being full of ladies of Mrs Harris’s age and even over: it was one of the most popular retirement areas in the country. Being far enough away from the metropolis not to be in it, but close enough for its amenities—the big public hospitals, the clusters of specialists that went with them like tick-birds on hippopotamuses, the big shops, the nice shops, and the nice coffee bars—to be within reach when needed.

    Georgy watched resignedly as Sheryleen got out her scissors and ruthlessly removed a good three centimetres from her hair. The assistant, whose duties apparently did not extend to such highly technical operations as applying the tint to Mrs Harris’s smartly curled crop, just leaned on the back of Mrs Harris’s chair, watching. After a while she sighed and said: “It’s rilly lovely, isn’t it? Rilly thick. Ya know what it reminds me of?”

    “What?” murmured Sheryleen, sizing up her efforts with the scissors with a frown.

    Mrs Harris thought glumly: A birch-broom in a fit; but didn’t say so. But she did feel it was rather a pity that Georgy was now much too old to have that sort of thing said about her in front of hairdressers and such persons.

    “That Australian film. You know: about that girl—um, I forget. It was in the Outback. Sam Neill was in it, isn’t he gorge-ous!”

    Georgy went very red.

    Mrs Harris swallowed. “Do you mean My Brilliant Career, dear?”

    “Yeah: that was it!” said the assistant pleasedly. “You remember, Sheryleen: she didn’t even want to marry him!”

    “Aw—that. Yes, it is a bit like hers. –Yours is prettier, you ought to look after it,” she said severely to Georgy.

    “There you are, what I am always telling you!” cried Mrs Harris.

    Well, she’d never told Georgy her hair was like the girl’s in My Brilliant Career, for a start. She had told her a million times it looked a mess, though. Or like a birch-broom in a fit.

    “I reckon we could put it up— No, hang on! Remember that series that Livia Wentworth was in? She could wear it like that!” cried the assistant.

    Mrs Harris went rather pink.

    “Yeah: why don’t I, Mum? Then Aunty Christine can buy me a see-through negligée to go with it,” said Georgy. “It be a change from those cotton dressing-gowns she gives me.”

    “That’ll do, Georgy,” said Mrs Harris in a stifled voice.

    “Livia Wentworth was love-ull-lee-ee... “ sighed the assistant. “Ooh, you’ll meet her, too!” she squealed to Georgy.

    “That negligée was fab,” said the hairdresser absently, inspecting bottles of conditioner. “I’d use this one, Tanya,” she decided.

    Tanya peered at it. “Yeah, r’I will, it rilly needs conditioning, eh?”

    “I wonder where she’ll get hers done... Some place in town, I suppose,” said Sheryleen glumly.

    “Who? Oh, Livia Wentworth! Yes, I expect she will, dear,” said Mrs Harris kindly. “Don’t they have salons at those big hotels?”

    Tanya immediately plunged into an excited confirmation of this speculation, ratifying it with a long, involved story about a friend of hers who was an apprentice at one of those salons…

    Georgy thought thankfully that all the stuff about Adam McIntyre must be over, but it wasn’t, because when Sheryleen was tinting her mother and Tanya was shampooing her, Tanya ceased momentarily to dig her huge magenta claws into Georgy’s scalp and said dreamily, gazing up into space: “Who do ya reckon is the most sexy? Adam McIntyre or Sam Neill?”

    “Um—” Georgy twisted uncomfortably in the grip of the plastic washbasin: her neck was breaking.

    “I think Adam McIntyre,” sighed Tanya. “Those eyes...”

    “I bet he’s short-sighted: don’t you think he’s got that sort of squint that short-sighted people often have? The ones that are too vain to wear glasses,” said Georgy disagreeably.

    “No, he hasn’t, you must be thinking of someone else. Do ya reckon he wears those tinted contact lenses?”

    “Um—how do you mean?”

    “You know!” said Tanya, amazed that Georgy didn’t. “The film stars all do it! –To make his eyes so blue,” she explained as her victim just peered up at her blankly.

    “Oh,” said Georgy weakly. She would have liked to say she was sure he did, he was undoubtedly as vain as most film stars, but her innate honesty forged her to admit: “Um—no. I wouldn’t think so, his father’s eyes are very blue, too.”

    “Who’s his father?” asked Tanya in a puzzled voice.

    Georgy swallowed. “Professor Black. He’s a physicist. He’s retired now.”

    “Oh,” said Tanya blankly.

    Georgy swallowed again. “Christopher Black, he’s Sir Maurice Black’s brother.”

    “Oh! I’ve seen him on TV!

    Yeah, thought Georgy, and the only reason you noticed him was because he’s got azure eyes and a voice like a sort of bass dove and knows exactly how and when to turn on the charm and turn all the ladies to mush! She’d done First-Year History in Maurice Black’s day and—whilst not being immune, considerably to her annoyance, to either the eyes or the bass coo, not to mention the questing, impatient intelligence, had got very fed up with the other female students’ oohing and aahing over him.

    “Only how come— Did he change his name?” said Tanya, getting somewhat side-tracked, to Georgy’s immense relief.

    “Yes. McIntyre’s his mother’s name. –Maybe he thought it sounded better than Adam Black,” she added tiredly. This subject had already been done to death by the female students in the intervals of, and frequently during, Mac’s rehearsing.

    “Oh. Um—I never saw that on the News or anything... That wasn’t in that article in The Woman’s Weekly, was it?”

    “I don’t know, I didn’t see it,” said Georgy tiredly.

    “Did-unt chew?” cried Tanya in horror. “Hang on, I’ll just—”

    She rushed over to Hair 2000’s pile of magazines and got it—not without a guilty glance in Sheryleen’s direction. “Here!”-she gasped, shoving it into Georgy’s lap and hurriedly getting on with the shampooing.

    “I can’t see it,” said Georgy in a strangled voice as the back of her neck was jammed even tighter into the plastic jaws of the handbasin.

    “Oh. Well, just hang on.”

    When Tanya had freed her from the grip of the handbasin and muffled her in a big towel, ushering her over to a combing-out chair, she said eagerly: “There! See!”

    “Mm.” Georgy looked glumly at a smudged colour photo of Adam McIntyre. Adam’s very blue eyes looked back at her and his wide mouth looked at her with that little twist that managed to be both mocking and oddly wistful at the same time, and Georgy felt that jolt in her stomach that she always did, and hated herself.

    “It doesn’t say anything here about his name not rilly being McIntyre,” said Tanya, breathing heavily all over her. “Are you sure, Georgy?”

    “Yes.”

    “Who is it, dear?” said Mrs Harris, suddenly coming up to them on her way to be dried and looking over Georgy’s shoulder with interest.

    “Adam McIntyre, isn’t he gorge-ous!” breathed Tanya.

    “He does look very like his father, doesn’t he, dear?” said Mrs Harris, not commenting on the “gorgeous” bit.

    “Um—yes,” Georgy admitted.

    At this the penny dropped and Tanya gasped: “Do you know his father, Mrs Harris?”

    “Yes: the Blacks are our next-door neighbours,” said Mrs Harris tranquilly. “Over here, is it, Sheryleen?” She went and sat down under a drier and Sheryleen fussed anxiously over the controls and gave her a magazine and promised her a cup of coffee.

    “He’ll be staying next-door to you!” squeaked Tanya.

    “Yes.”

    “Heck,” she breathed.

    Georgy sighed. “I suppose he’s only human. –His mother says he’s had an awful cold,” she volunteered abruptly. The azure eyes were still looking blankly at her so she closed the magazine.

    “Has he? Oh, well: he’ll soon perk up in the nice weather!” said Tanya cheerfully.

    In the swaddling humidity, yeah, thought Georgy.

    “When’s he coming, Georgy?”

    “I don’t know.”

    Tanya was stumped, but only for an instant. “Maybe we’ll see him round the shops and that!”

    Not if he’s got any sense, thought Georgy grimly. Only he probably hadn’t, judging by the tripe he acted in.

    “Have you ever met him?” asked Tanya, combing out Georgy’s wet tangles.

    Georgy gave an agonized gasp. “No. The Blacks only moved next-door to us a couple of years back.”

    “Aw,” said Tanya sadly.

    She then changed the subject, and went on at length about Livia Wentworth’s clothes in that lovely series—read, frightful English soapie, thought Georgy sourly—digressing only slightly to inform Georgy that of course her and Adam McIntyre were passionately in love, that was why she was coming out here with him!

    All the female students in the play had also told Georgy that, so she only said tiredly: “Yes.”

    That wasn’t all of it, of course; but it was the worst of it over. Some other clients came in as Georgy was being blow-dried, so Tanya had to get on with it and stop gossiping.

    “That place has got worse! Why did you drag me there?” she said to her mother with feeling as they stood outside Hair 2000 in the warm January morning.

    “Don’t be silly, Georgy, your hair had to have something done to it, you’ve been neglecting it dreadfully this past year.”

    “I’ve been busy,” said Georgy grumpily.

    Her mother sighed. Georgy’s first year as a lecturer had proved even more trying—though Mrs Harris hadn’t thought anything could be—than Georgy’s three years’ getting her Ph.D. She waved to an acquaintance on the other side of the street and said: “Well, come on, dear: shall we get some morning tea?”

    “I’m not hungry: I feel all boiled, or something,” said Georgy grumpily.

    “Well, you can have a cold drink,” replied her mother, heading relentlessly for The Primrose Café.

    At The Primrose Café Mrs Harris had a cappuccino and a piece of sponge with whipped cream and half a strawberry on it. Georgy had a large glass of pineapple juice. Then she got up and got herself a second glass of pineapple juice.

    “I still feel boiled,” she said grumpily.

    “Don’t be silly: you had to have your hair done for your cousin’s wedding.”

    Georgy made a rude noise.

    Mrs Harris’s lips twitched. “Well, just be thankful they didn’t ask you to be a bridesmaid!”

    “I’m too old and ugly to be a bridesmaid,” replied her daughter sourly.

    Mrs Harris looked at the normally pale oval face before her—rather flushed just now from Tanya’s ministrations with the drier. She looked at the delicacy of Georgy’s eyelids and nose, the sweet mouth, and the pointed chin she’d inherited from her dead father, and said faintly: “Georgina Harris, what are you talking about?”

    “I am: twenty-seven is over the hill in this beastly backward society,” muttered Georgy.

    Mrs Harris took a deep breath. “Well, perhaps if you’d go out with that nice Martin Ramsay when he asks you, Georgy, instead of—

    “I can’t stand Martin Ramsay! He’s as thick as two short planks!” cried Georgy angrily.

    Mrs Harris sighed. “Georgy, you can’t expect men in real life to be like—um…” She couldn’t remember what particular hero of literature Georgy was hooked on at the moment and so fell back weakly on an old favourite dating back about eight years or so: “Lord Peter Wimsey, or someone.”

    “I don’t!” choked Georgy.

    “Well, maybe not him, but like someone out of a book,” said Mrs Harris glumly. “Um—Mr Knightley, or somebody.”

    This fell flat. “Mr Knightley was an M.C.P. idiot.”

    “Rubbish!” cried her mother in astonishment.

    “He was, Mum, he patronized her unmercifully, he—” Georgy leaned forward over The Primrose Café’s bright yellow Formica table and expatiated at length on Mr Knightley’s male chauvinism.

    Mrs Harris got so carried away in fervently refuting this theory that she forgot they were only talking about a hero in a book.

    “Hullo, Georgy, how was the wedding?” said Christopher Black with a chuckle in his voice over their mutual back fence a few days later.

    “Foul,” said Georgy, without thinking what she was saying.

    At this Christopher did chuckle, and Georgy looked at him in a startled way and went very red.

    Christopher came right up to the fence, smiling, and said: “Has your silverbeet gone all spotty?”

    “Yes. It’s rust. You can still eat it, though. And the chooks don’t seem to mind.”

    You probably weren’t supposed to have chocks in up-market Ridge Road in up-market Kowhai Bay, but Christopher wasn’t going to object. They didn’t disturb him. And they were those nice brown ones, he rather liked looking over his fence and seeing Mrs Harris’s fat brown hens pecking and clucking of a morning. Or pecking and fighting horribly over the silverbeet, as it were. And Mrs Harris was a widow, and by the looks of it they weren’t too well off: the house hadn’t been repainted for years, that was pretty evident, Georgy did the lawns herself, rather than getting someone in as most of up-market Ridge Road did, and Mrs Harris’s little car was very old and rather rusty.

    “Er—is there anything you can do about it?” he asked dubiously.

    “I don’t think so. You could ask at the Garden Centre.”

    Christopher agreed he could ask at the Garden Centre. He then asked with a lurking twinkle: “Do you know anything about nectarines?”

    “No,” replied Georgy simply.

    “When are they ready to eat?”

    Georgy did sort of know that, because they had a peach tree, and she supposed nectarines would be in the same category. “Like peaches, I suppose: when they come off in your hand when you twist them very gently. Like this.” She held out her hand, cupped it, and twisted very gently.

    Christopher looked at the hand with approval. It was a little, dainty hand and the nails were both short and unvarnished. It was also rather grubby, but Christopher didn’t particularly object to that.

    “Would this one be ripe?” he said with a sudden smile, producing one from behind his back. It was pale green with a deep red blush.

    Georgy looked at it both greedily and suspiciously. “Um, how hard did you pull?”

    “I didn’t, it just sort of came away in my hand,” said Christopher on a plaintive note.

    She looked up into his face and smiled suddenly. “Then it’s probably ripe, Professor Black!’”

    Chuckling, Christopher conceded it probably was, and added firmly: “Christopher.”

    “Um, yes,” said Georgy, reddening. “Christopher.”

    “I thought it was Christian names all round these days? The female in the doctor’s surgery called me Christopher just other day when it was my turn. I didn’t realize she meant me: I just sat there.”

    “I know!” choked Georgy, suddenly going into a fit of giggles. “Isn’t it awful?”

    “Exactly. I’m very glad to hear you think so, too.”

    She smiled, but gave him a sudden doubtful, nervous look.

    “Nothing drastic, just hay fever,” he said mildly. “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”

    “Um—well, would your wife mind, Pr— I mean Christopher?” said Georgy shyly.

    “No, she’s used to me bringing home strings of me fancy girls and feeding ’em on tea and bikkies.”

    “No! I mean, would it be a nuisance?” gasped Georgy, trying not to giggle.

    “Mm. A terrible nuisance, especially since by my calculations”—he glanced at his watch—“it must be just about brewed.”

    “Well, in that case— Um, thanks. –Mum’s gone out,” confided Georgy abruptly.

    “To the shops?” he asked, watching in some trepidation as she grasped the top of the fence with both small, dainty hands.

    “No—a ghastly—ladies’—morning—tea!” panted Georgy, hauling herself up. She got a leg over the top, smiled at him, got the other leg up, and dropped down neatly on his side.

    “Oh: a hen party,” acknowledged Christopher with a smile.

    “Yes. I was afraid she’d make me go, but she’s got over that stage.”

    “Ladyfying you?” he murmured, as they made their way slowly towards the house.

    “Yes!” acknowledged Georgy with a giggle.

    In the kitchen he said placidly: “I’ve brought Georgy in for elevenses.”

    “Hullo, Georgy,” said his wife with a smile.

    “Hullo, Mrs Black; I hope it isn’t inconvenient?” said Georgy in a squeak.

    “No, we always have morning tea around this time. –Mor-ning tea,” she said slowly and clearly to her husband.

    He winked at Georgy. “I’ve been indoctrinated by the Poms.”

    “Mm. I suppose you had to say ‘elevenses’, or all those Cambridge types would have looked down their noses at you as a provincial Antipodean, wouldn’t they?” she said with a grin.

    “Exactly!” he gasped.

    “Don’t be silly, dear. And wash your hands. –He always gets absolutely filthy when he’s been in the garden, I don’t know how he does it,” she said to Georgy.

    Christopher set his nectarine on the bench and began to wash his hands at the sink. Georgy waited for Mrs Black to scream at him not there, or he was making a mess or something, like Aunty Christine always did when her husband tried to wash his hands in the kitchen, but she didn’t.

    “Georgy tells me this nectarine is ripe,” he said informatively.

    “I never— I only said I thought it must be!” gasped Georgy.

    “It came away in me nerveless hand,” he said to his wife with a wink at Georgy.

    “Well, if it isn’t ripe, it’ll give you the gripes, and serve you right,” she said calmly. “He’s been dying to pick them,” she explained to Georgy.

    “It can’t possibly give me the gripes,” he said firmly.

    “It can if it’s green, Christopher, stop being sill—”

    “Because it’s for Georgy!” he said, picking it up and giving it to her.

    “I can’t take your nectarine!” gasped Georgy.

    “You just have,” he pointed out.

    “Make him take it back, Mrs Black,” said Georgy feebly.

    “Melinda,” corrected Melinda Black firmly. “No: if he’s given it to you it’s because he wants you to have it.”

    “Well—all right. –Thank you very much: I love them,” she said politely to Christopher.

    “Good,” he replied simply.

    Melinda then poured the tea and offered Digestives and Georgy discovered, beaming, that they were very nice biscuits! The Blacks were somewhat staggered that she’d never heard of them, New Zealand might be the Antipodes but it wasn’t that bad: in fact the lady at The Deli in Puriri had assured Christopher that they did get in Gentleman’s Relish quite regularly, that nice Dr Aitken from up the Varsity, he liked it.

    Then Georgy said shyly: “Melinda’s a very unusual name.”

    Christopher choked on his biscuit.

    “Stop it!” said his wife sharply. “Um—yes: well, it’s quite pretty, isn’t it?” she said to Georgy.

    Georgy nodded numbly, staring at the choking Christopher.

    “My mother was a bit mad: she was an artist, Rosie McIntyre, you’ve probably never heard of her,” said Melinda placidly. “She gave us all odd names.”

    “You can say that again!” choked Christopher.

    “You know Mac, of course: well, he’s really Dornford,” said Melinda.

    “D— Like Dornford Yates?” gasped Georgy.

    “Exactly: that’s where Mum got it from,” replied Melinda simply.

    Christopher swallowed loudly. “You’d better have the first ripe corncob, too,” he said to Georgy.

    “Um—no, thanks, ours is miles ahead of yours. Um—why?”

    “First person we’ve ever met that’s heard of Dornford Yates.”

    “Oh! I’ve got one of his books, it’s an old one of Dad’s.” She paused. “Well, actually I think it might have been Grandpa’s,” she said cautiously. “Mum tried to chuck it out but I rescued it.”

    “Which one?” asked Christopher with interest. –Melinda sighed.

    “Berry Came Too.”

    “Oh, yes! The Berry books are rather fun, aren’t they? But his others are foul.”

    “I know: I found one in a second-hand shop once, but it was awful: all sort of—um—jingoistic,” said Georgy sadly.

    “Yes!” agreed Christopher, beaming and passing her the Digestives.

    “If this literary digression is over—” said Melinda with a sigh.

    “I think so: go on,” he said, grinning.

    “He reads the most incredible junk,” Melinda explained. “Well, anything in print, really.”

    “So do I,” admitted Georgy. “Um, well, I try to be selective, but if anything’s put in front of me—”

    “Exactly,” said Melinda glumly. “Uh—where was I?”

    “Mac,” said Christopher through a mouthful of Digestive biscuit.

    “Oh! Yes: well, Dornford was pretty bad, but she went really potty with my next two brothers: the second one’s Braemar—we call him Brae—and the youngest one’s Cynewulf.”

    “No one could call their child Cynewulf!” gasped Georgy.

    “Mum could. He’s called himself Bob ever since he could talk, mind you.”

    “And who can blame him,” agreed Christopher.

    “Yeah,” agreed Georgy in awe. “Cynewulf: help.”

    “Mm. You might have thought old Rosie had done her dash with the boys—and I must admit ‘Melinda’ isn’t too bad,” said Christopher, pouring himself a fresh cup, “but the other sister—!” He shuddered.

    Georgy looked at him expectantly.

    “Guess,” he said.

    “Um—Clytemnestra.”

    “Good, very good—five points?” he said to his wife.

    “Our neighbour back in Cambridge guessed that, too: she was very good at word games, wasn’t she, dear? –No,” said Melinda, “it isn’t that, but that was a very good try, keep going.” She took the last Digestive biscuit, as Georgy was only part-way through hers.

    “Evadne?” suggested Georgy weakly.

    “Only two points,” said Christopher sadly.

    “Two and a half,” contradicted Melinda through a mouthful of biscuit. She swallowed. “Try again: third time lucky.”

    “Berenice.”

    “That’s very good! No-one else has ever suggested that, have they, Christopher? Five points,” decided Melinda.

    “No, it isn’t, Berenice is a lovely name,” objected Christopher.

    “So’s Melinda,” said Georgy, going rather pink.

    “Odd, though,” said its possessor glumly. “Go on: game for a fourth round?”

    Suddenly Georgy smiled and said: “I might be, if I could have another cuppa.”

    Hurriedly Christopher refilled her cup.

    “Theodosia!” said Georgy brilliantly.

    He choked. “My God, she reads Masefield!” he gasped.

    “Have you—?”

    “Certainly!” he assured her.

    Melinda groaned.

    “Um, sorry, Melinda. Um… I think I’ve done my dash,” Georgy admitted.

    “Think end of the alphabet,” Melinda suggested.

    Georgy goggled at her. “Not Zuleika?”

    Christopher sniggered. “Four points, given the possibilities. –The answer isn’t possible: go on, dear, tell her.”

    “Zoroastra,” said Melinda flatly.

    “That’s not a name!” gasped Georgy.

    “So some of us have always maintained,” agreed Christopher.

    “She calls herself Astra these days,” added Melinda detachedly.

    “That’s quite pretty, I suppose,” said Georgy dubiously.

    “Better than Zorro!” choked Christopher.

    Georgy slapped her hand over her mouth. A squeak escaped from behind the hand.

    “Go on: laugh. It’s what our brothers always called her, of course. She used to lay into them like anything,” said Melinda.

    “It’s too awful, I can’t laugh,” decided Georgy, taking her hand away.

    “No. Well, now you know all about our family skeletons, have another cuppa?” said Melinda, twinkling at her.

    “No, thanks, I’ve had enough.”

    “Explains why she chose a nice plain name like Adam for her own, doesn’t it?” said Christopher, taking her cup and putting it on the bench.

    “Um—yes,” said Georgy uncertainly.

    “Not that any other brats called Adam appeared to be getting born around that time in this neck of the Antipodes,” added Christopher detachedly.

    “Um—no! Well, I don’t know anybody called Adam!” gasped Georgy

    “No. It was a bit of a mistake, I suppose,” admitted Melinda dispassionately.

    “It’s quite a nice name,” said Georgy shyly.

    “Yes. And he’s sort of grown into it,” said his mother with a sigh.

    “Mm,” she agreed shyly. “Um—when did you go to England?”

    “When Adam was ten,” said Melinda, smiling at her.

    “I see,” she said, going very pink.

    “Poor Adam had an awful time of it at school at first, because of his accent—do you remember, dear?”—Christopher grunted.—“Mm. And of course he was so timid: he wouldn’t stand up for himself.” She sighed. “He’s always been like that. Withdraws into himself instead of getting out and fighting for his rights.”

    “Not like his Aunt Zorro,” said Christopher drily.

    “No!” gasped Georgy.

    Melinda smiled, but sighed a bit, too. “I honestly think he’d still be in rep in that awful place—was it Manchester, Christopher?”—He shrugged—“I think it was. If it wasn’t for that wonderful Clem man.”

    “Yes, and Adam only found him by accident,” said Christopher on an acid note. He got up and took his and Melinda’s cups to the bench.

    “Who’s Clem?” asked Georgy.

    “Adam’s agent,” explained Melinda, smiling at her. “Or more like his mother-hen cum guardian angel, I suppose I should say!” she added with a laugh.

    Christopher sniffed.

    “I see. ...I thought they just found them parts?” ventured Georgy.

    “And flats, and doctors, and dentists—remember that time when his wisdom teeth were giving him all that trouble, dear? And everything else necessary to sustain life on some sort of decent human level,” said Melinda heavily.

    “Oh,” said Georgy blankly.

    “He’s been wonderful: we can never repay him,” she added. “When Adam’s wife left him he got very down and— Well, it was depression, I suppose.” She smiled at Georgy, who was now looking rather white and scared. “It’s over now. Adam’s never had much self-confidence.”

    “He’s very talented, though,” said Georgy on a dubious note.

    “That doesn’t seem to be much help when it comes to performing ordinary acts of daily life, such as putting the milk bottle out or getting on a bus!” said Christopher bitterly.

    Georgy looked at him in a scared way; he shrugged, and said heavily: “No drive.”

    “That was only when he was very bad, dear,” murmured Melinda.

    He sighed. “Yes. Well, he undoubtedly wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t been for Clem, Melinda’s quite right. We did our best, but…” He grimaced.

    “Clem simply moved in and looked after him,” explained Melinda. “I’d have given it a go myself, only Christopher had pleurisy that winter.”

    “I see,” said Georgy uncertainly.

    “No, you don’t. And we can only guess, ourselves,” Melinda admitted. “I think only those who’ve been clinically depressed themselves, or who’ve lived through it with someone, can know what it’s really like.”

    “Mm. How could he act, though?” she asked with a frown.

    “Well, he only did some TV work that year," admitted Melinda. “But we don’t know. I mean, Clem got him dressed and shaved and got him to the studio, but goodness knows how he… Well, it’s the only thing he’s ever enjoyed, so I suppose when it came to the point—” She broke off. “I don’t know, Georgy,” she said simply.

    “I think I see,” said Georgy slowly.

    “Brae’s theory is he used up all his—well, what Christopher calls drive, if you like, in taking the original decision to chuck in his degree and go on the stage, and it sort of knocked the stuffing out of him,” said Melinda. She gave a rather sad little shrug.

    “It's as good a theory as any,” said Christopher on a sour note.

    Georgy looked at them dubiously.

    “That marriage—” began Adam's mother.

    “Don't start that,” said Christopher heavily.

    “Darling, you must admit she was all wrong for him!”

    “I do admit it; in fact I have never denied it. But it was just another case of Adam letting himself be swept along by a stronger personality, wasn’t it?” replied Adam's father bitterly.

    “Stop blaming him,” murmured Melinda.

    Christopher flushed a little. “He is a grown man,” he said shortly, going over to the bench again and starting to rinse crockery.

    “That's a meaningless cliché!” said Melinda sharply.

    “Yes," Georgy agreed hoarsely. “People are just people, aren’t they?”

    “Yes. Adam can’t help his nature, poor boy,” said Melinda.

    “I kind of know what it's like... Well, I mean,” said Georgy, flushing, “I let people, um, boss me round and that, too.”

    “Mac, for example,” said Mac's sister in a hard voice.

    “Yes!" gasped Georgy, turning scarlet. “How did you—”

    “Aside from its being self-evident—having met you, and having known the delightful Dornford for years,” said Christopher, mitigating the severity of this speech somewhat by smiling at her, “your mother told Melinda all about it just the other day.”

    “Oh,” she said feebly.

    “I can’t imagine having to work for him!” said Melinda with a shudder which indicated that she probably could.

    “That side of it's not too bad,” said Georgy awkwardly. “I mean, we all teach our own subjects... You know.”

    “Your mother said you teach Anglo-Saxon,” murmured Melinda.

    “Yes. The old lecturer died. Well, he was retired, really, but he was still teaching, sort of part-time, but they couldn’t get anybody else. And then I finished my degree and—” Georgy faltered, and stopped.

    “And Mac pushed you into it,” concluded Mac’s sister.

    “Um—not exactly!” she gasped. “I mean, he offered me the job and—and it was a full lectureship and—well, it meant I could stay here with Mum, and—You know."

    “What did you really want to do?” asked Christopher, leaning on the bench and watching her with a little smile. –His wife glared at him, but he ignored her.

    “It was silly, really,” said Georgy, flushing again and staring fixedly at the floor. “Um—well, I wanted to take a year off: some friends of mine were going round the canals of Europe on a barge... Oh, well. Anyway, I didn’t have any money.”

    “It sounds blissful,” said Melinda simply.

    “Ye-es... I suppose it would have been a disaster, really. Knowing me. Anyway, now I’m earning lots of money and—and we’re having the house painted this year—you know. We can afford things, now.”

    Melinda was now burning to ask her which side her mother had been on over the canal thing, but with a huge effort, didn’t. Christopher, glancing at her sardonically, saw this effort but made no attempt to assist her.

    Shortly after this, Georgy, looking awkward, and obviously feeling she’d been there too long, thanked them for the morning tea, thanked Christopher for the nectarine, and departed, clutching it. Melinda accompanied her to the front door.

    “What a dear little girl she is,” she said, coming back into the kitchen where Christopher was now sitting at the table, slowly filling his pipe.

    “I saw her first,” he retorted immediately. “Hands off: she’s not a candidate for your lame-duckery.”

    “Pooh!” retorted Melinda, glaring.

    He filled his pipe slowly. “Intelligent... Entirely unsophisticated, of course... Do you think she’s a virgin?”

    “Oh, I’ve been sitting here for the last half-hour trying to decide that!” retorted his wife with spirit. “I’ll write you a dissertation on it, shall I?”

    “A short essay will do,” he murmured. “Well?”

    Melinda opened her mouth. Then she shut it again. Finally she admitted: “Well, I’d say she either is, or has had so little experience that it doesn’t count.”

    “Mm.” Christopher sucked scientifically on his pipe.

    “She—is—not a—laboratory—specimen,” said his wife loudly and clearly.

    He tapped his head briefly with his forefinger. “Not labs: up here, dear.”

    “What: the bats, you mean?” said Melinda with a gurgle.

    “Hah, hah. –I wasn’t proposing to treat her as a specimen. She reads—”

    “Dornford Yates,” agreed Melinda heavily.

    “I was going to say eclectically, but Dornford Yates would do.”

     Melinda sighed. She went and opened the porch door. Then she came back and sat down.

    “Does the mother hen-peck her?” he murmured.

    “I don’t know, dear: I’ve hardly met her. She seems a nice enough woman.”

    “Widow,” he said thoughtfully.

    “Spare me the amateur psychology, Christopher, at this hour of the morning. Or any other time, come to think of it.”

    Christopher ignored this. “I like her,” he said definitely.

    “I think we’ve all got that,” said his wife with a sigh.

    “Don’t you?”

    “Yes. Very much.”

    He puffed on his pipe. “Pity she’s got as little decision about her as Adam has.”

    Melinda went very red. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said dangerously.

    “Uh— Well, I was only—”

    “Don’t do it, Christopher!” said Melinda loudly. “Remember that Matthews girl? You encouraged the poor creature to think Adam—”

    “I did not!”

    “Yes, you did, Christopher, always having her over when he was staying, and—”

    “It wasn’t my fault if the stupid hen got it into her head he’d fallen for her with mad pash!” yelled Christopher angrily.

    “All right, then: who was it that kept making him take her out for stupid Sunday drives and—and artfully leaving the two of them alone together while you dragged me off on putrid walks, and so on?”

    “Well, she was better than that bloody lame duck Helen creature of yours!” he yelled.

    “Helen was quite a nice girl,” said Melinda weakly.

    “Helen was a moron!” he yelled.

    “How could she be a moron, Christopher, she had a degree in musicology!”

    “Easily,” he replied nastily.

    Silence fell. Melinda pouted. Christopher smoked crossly.

    Finally Melinda said: “Well, just don’t try and—and throw poor little Georgy at him. She’s the sort that would take it really badly.”

    “I’ve no intention of doing any such thing. I intend to keep Georgy to meself.” He looked smug, and blew out a stream of smoke.

    “What?” said Melinda faintly.

    “As a solace in me old age. –Very handy, having a solace right next-door, when you’re getting on a bit.”

    “You’re talking rubbish again,” said Melinda, getting up with dignity.

     Christopher removed his pipe. “No, I’m not. While you were blah-ing on about your dratted ewe-lamb—and incidentally boring the poor girl solid, I suppose that never crossed your mind?”—Melinda glared—“I was coming to the considered conclusion that Georgy is much too nice to waste on Adam.” He looked thoughtfully at his pipe. “Much too nice.” He put the pipe back.

    “Total rubbish!” said Melinda crossly, going out.

    Christopher looked after her thoughtfully. Damn. All the signs indicated that Melinda was about to adopt Georgy as one of her lame ducks—well, they’d been here nearly two years and she hadn’t had one, except that cretin that she’d been giving piano lessons for a bit, but fortunately he’d failed all his university subjects and gone home to Eketahuna or some such dump—and not only that, but that she thought poor little Georgy might do very nicely for Adam. Because in spite of what her unfortunate audience might have been led to suppose, Melinda in fact didn’t pour out her ewe-lamb’s life-history to all and sundry. Far from it.

    Blast. And damn.

    “If I see one more downy-cheeked fledgling cheeping that it wants a copy of A Flaming Midsummer Night’s Dream, I swear I’ll wring its neck!” said the Puriri County Librarian, with considerable feeling.

    Her Deputy only replied mildly: “Do fledglings have cheeks, Dorothy?”

    “Yes!” said Dorothy crossly.

    Her Deputy merely giggled.

    “Why didn’t the moronic University warn us?” said Dorothy crossly.

    “Um, well, you know them. Well, I mean Prof McIntyre, really. When I did English, he—”

    “YES!” bellowed Dorothy.

    One or two borrowers jumped, and looked over their shoulders, but the noise over by the Picture Books was pretty loud, they were having Story Telling, so most of the borrowers didn’t react.

    “Ssh!” hissed the Deputy, giggling madly.

    Dorothy sighed, and leaned heavily on the Inquiries Desk. It wasn’t her job, of course, to be at the Inquiries Desk, but they were short-handed over the holiday period, and anyway Dorothy was the sort of boss who liked to keep a friendly eye on what her staff were up to. Not to say lend them a hand if they looked a bit pushed.

    The Deputy—who was in charge of the staff at the Inquiries Desk and always took a turn on it, she liked it, so Dorothy didn’t object, and in any case it helped her keep her finger on the pulse of what their borrowers were asking for (mostly the toilet, large-print Barbara Cartlands and the nice magazines, if they were female, and mostly the toilet, large-print Jack Higginses and the National Geographic, if they were male) then asked kindly: “Are there any left?”

    “No!” said Dorothy, rather loudly.

    She giggled again.

    Gayle, who was new—first year out of Library School—and keen but had no idea about anything, much, said hopefully: “Could we photocopy it? Shakespeare’s out of copyright, isn’t he?”

    Dorothy groaned. The Deputy swallowed loudly.

    “He must be!” said Gayle confusedly.

    “Just drive your bookmobile, hon’,” said Dorothy in a horrible fake American accent.

    “Eh?” replied Gayle simply.

    “Go and drive your mobile library, she means,” said the Deputy kindly in the local vernacular. –Not taking the Mick in the least, but Dorothy was used to her, and didn’t sigh.

    “Oh. –Do they call them bookmobiles in America?”

    “Yes,” said Dorothy heavily.

    “Oh. Blow,” she said thoughtfully: “I probably did all those searches at Library School under the wrong term.”

    “That’ll be why you couldn’t find anything!” gasped the Deputy, breaking down and giggling madly.

    “Yes. Oh, well.”

    “Go—on,” said Dorothy.

    “What? Oh! Sorry, Dorothy; I am just going, only I have to collect that book for old Mrs Bailey at Kowhai Bay.”

    The Deputy produced a book with a huge fluorescent orange hunk of cardboard sticking out of it from under the Inquiries Desk. It was right next to the Reserves Desk, in fact they and the Issues and Returns Desks were all part of the same long counter: the Puriri County Library, though new, and very nice, wasn’t all that big.

    On the fluorescent orange cardboard was printed in large black lettering “RESERVED”; rather redundantly, some would have thought—Dorothy certainly did, but she believed in letting her staff do their own thing so long as it didn’t impede the Library’s efficiency.

    Gayle took the book gratefully and gave the cardboard back.

    “This Mrs Bailey must be almost literate,” noted Dorothy, glancing idly at the title.

    “Yes. There’s hardly any of them in Kowhai Bay,” replied Gayle glumly. “Um—well, there’s that lovely Russian man that lives down the end of View Road, and—um—that Mr Black, he sometimes uses the Van, he’s in Ridge Road, and—um—Mrs Prior, of course, but she doesn’t use the Van much, and um... I can’t think of any more.”

    “No, most of them that are marginally literate are also marginally mobile,” agreed Dorothy.

    “They’d have to be marginally mobile, to get out to the mobile!” the Deputy pointed out brilliantly with a giggle.

    “Shut up, Janet,” returned Dorothy genially. “I’m the only one allowed to make horrible puns around here.”

    Gayle just giggled. She’d pretty soon got the measure of her new boss, and she loved working for the Puriri County Library and driving its Van, mobile library, bookmobile or merely mobile.

    “Well, toddle off,” added Dorothy.

    “Um, well, couldn’t you photocopy it?” asked Gayle. She was persistent, you could give her that.

    “The edition is copyright,” said Dorothy heavily.

    “Oh. Is it? Oh, well. –See ya!” Gayle toddled off happily, clutching the copy of Madame Bovary (in translation) that they’d had to get on Interloan from the big library in town for Mrs Bailey.

    “Does she even know what an edition is?” groaned Dorothy, leaning heavily on the Inquiries Desk.

    “Probably not, she is just out of Library School!” said Janet with a giggle.

    “Yeah. –I tell you what, find the tattiest Complete Works we’ve got, and photocopy the blasted thing out of that. And don’t do it yourself, get one of the juniors to. And if the print’s minute get her to blow the page up. Are any of them capable of that?”

    “Um... That student might be.”

    “Eh?” gasped Dorothy. “That clown that doesn’t know that point nought-nought-five precedes point nought-one?”

    “No!” said the Deputy crossly. “Not him! The new student!”—Dorothy just goggled at her.—“You know: the little red-head!”

    “Oh—did you take her on?”

    “Yes!”

    “Oh, well, good show,” said Dorothy, grinning.

    “She’s in it, mind you, she’ll be waltzing off to rehearsals,” Janet admitted glumly.

    “Then why take her on?” replied Dorothy mildly.

    “Well, she’ll be doing nights mostly, once Term starts.”

    “Once Term starts—correct me if I have this wrong—your old professor’ll be starting the bloody production. At—night,” said Dorothy, very clearly.

    The unfortunate Janet went rather red and said defensively: “Well, you’re the one that said it was about time we started taking on part-time staff for the public area that were marginally literate and wouldn’t just say ‘Wot?’ if a borrower asked them if we had the latest Booker Prize!”

    “‘Wot?’ or ‘Eh?’,” corrected Dorothy firmly. “So I did. Is she?”

    “Yes, she’s doing Classics.”

    “Crikey,” said Dorothy simply.

    “And she does understand,” added Janet seriously, “that point nought-nought—”

    “All right;” said Dorothy hurriedly. “Uh—has she got a big part in the ruddy thing?”

    “No. One line.”

     Dorothy swallowed.

    “She’s a speaking fairy,” said Janet, beginning to smile.

    “Got it, got it,” sighed Dorothy.

    Janet nodded, giggling.

    “I suppose we ought to go to it,” said Dorothy without much enthusiasm.

    Janet swallowed. She wasn’t averse to seeing Adam McIntyre in person. Especially if all the rumours about what he was going to wear were true. Though she’d seen the university production of Twelfth Night, and it had been dreadful.

    “Well, Adam McIntyre’s going to be in it,” Dorothy added without much enthusiasm.

    Janet went rather pink. “Mm.”

    “I’m reliably informed he’s got good legs. As in well-muscled thighs and sufficient calf,” said Dorothy with a grin.

    Janet turned puce and gasped: “Who told you that?’

    “Polly Carrano. She’s seen him on stage in London. Henry V.”

    “Ooh!” gasped Janet.

    Dorothy’s shrewd brown eyes twinkled. “Well, you game? If the wife of Puriri’s local millionaire recommended his legs? –Fifteen dollars,” she added.

    “What? It was twelve last time!”

    “Bring your own cushion,” she added.

    “I know that! Heck, fifteen dollars… There’ll be petrol on top of that.”

    “No, there won’t, you can come in my heap.”

    Janet beamed at her. “Really? Thanks, Dorothy!”

    “Any time. –Hang on, isn’t that her?”

    The Deputy looked round quickly, but it wasn’t the wife of Puriri’s local millionaire. “What, Ginny? Yes, it is.”

    “OY!” bellowed the Puriri County Librarian, waving.

    The red-haired student looked round with a start. She came over to the desk hurriedly, very pink. And evidently, or certainly to the experienced eye of Dorothy Perkins, who’d been managing timid junior staff for the last twenty years, labouring under the misapprehension that she’d Done Something Wrong.

    “It ‘s Ginny, isn’t it?” ascertained Dorothy mildly. The child gulped, and agreed she was. “You’re in the university’s Midsummer Night’s Rave-Up, eh?” pursued Dorothy.

    “Um—yes!” she acknowledged, with an abrupt giggle, and a look on her face as if it had suddenly dawned that maybe her Top Boss was human and approachable after all.

    “Well, tell us,” said Dorothy, leaning right over the Inquiries Desk and speaking in a frightfully confidential voice: “is it true that Adam McIntyre is going to wear tights?”

    “Um—yes!” gulped Ginny, going very pink. “Pale green spangled ones!”

    “We’ll definitely have to go!” gasped Dorothy. –Janet just went very pink.

    “Um—I can get you concession rates, if you like,” Ginny offered.

    “Hooray,” said Dorothy simply. “How much?”

    “Um—twelve dollars,” admitted Ginny. ‘But it’s better than fifteen!” she added bracingly.

    “Righto, then: two at twelve,” she agreed. ‘Want the cash now?”

    “Um—yes, if that’s all right,” said Ginny,

    “Right; hang on.” Dorothy scrabbled in the cash drawer. “I Owe You twenty-four dollars,” she said to it.

    “I’ll remind you,” warned Janet.

    “All right! I’m not out to rook the flaming Council of its flaming fines money!” Fines were a bone of contention in Puriri. Dorothy and Janet reckoned they ought to abolish them: they gave the place a bad atmosphere and achieved the return of approximately three point seven tattered items of fiction a year. The Council reckoned they ought to be far more draconian. In fact the more right-wing members of the Council—Puriri being Puriri, they were all pretty right-wing—reckoned that defaulters ought to be taken to Court, but Dorothy had done a breakdown of the costs (not excluding time) that taking people to court entailed, and settled that one. This time round.

    “What’s this one line of yours?” she pursued happily, handing Ginny the money.

    “Um—‘Hence away; now all is well, One aloof stand sentinel.’”

    “I make that two lines,” spotted Dorothy keenly.

    “Yes!” agreed Ginny with a giggle.

    “I never knew the fairies spoke at all,” said Janet thoughtfully.

    “One’s got quite a lot to say. The one that talks to Puck, near the beginning. And one sings a song. He was supposed to say my lines, too, only he can’t act. Well, move, or something,” said Ginny uncertainly. “Not that I can act, either.”

    If the way she’d just spoken her two lines was any indication of how she intended to speak ’em on stage, this was certainly true. Dorothy nodded feebly.

    “And there’s Mustardseed and Cobweb and them. They only say stuff like ‘Ready, aye ready,’ and that, though,” finished Ginny without any evidence of enthusiasm.

    “Yeah. How come you got these two lines, if you can’t act?”

    “Because of my hair,” she said glumly, pulling at it.

    Since it was a flood of red-gold curls all down her back to her waist, the librarians could only nod feebly.

    “Vicki’s in it, too—my twin. She hasn’t got any lines, though.”

    “Because she can act even less than you, or because she hasn’t got the hair?” ventured Dorothy.

    “No—well, hers isn’t as long as mine, but it’s curlier!” said Ginny, face all smiles. “Mac tried her out, only she kept giggling every time she had to say the lines, so he said she’d better be in the front row of the chorus, she’s got the legs for it!”

    “They don’t dance, do they?” asked Dorothy in horror.

    “No,” admitted the red-headed twin. “Um—well, not really dance.” She eyed them cautiously. “They trip lightly.”

    Dorothy and Janet both went into paroxysms, though it was true Janet at first clapped her hand over her mouth and tried to stop herself. Ginny, very pleased with the success of her effort, giggled happily.

    “It sounds a right shemozzle,” decided Dorothy happily, blowing her nose.

    “It is,” said Ginny on a glum note.

    “Has Adam McIntyre arrived yet?” asked Janet.

    “No. None of them have.”

    “Hope they’re quick studies,” said Dorothy.

    “Um—well, there’s more than a month to go, yet,” said Ginny uncertainly.

    “Yeah. During which,” said Dorothy drily, putting her hanky away, “you lot—correct me if I’m wrong—have to buy—or, as it were, beg, borrow or steal—your textbooks, work out your courses, get enrolled, and—correct me if I’m wrong—start reading some of your textbooks before Term actually starts. –Though I could well be wrong, there,” she added thoughtfully. “Not to mention earn enough dough to keep yourselves for at least three months of the academic year! Am I right or am I right?”

    “You’re right. Well, Vicki reckons four,” said Ginny glumly.

    “Yeah. Well, I’d say it’ll be a miracle if this Mac bloke ever manages to get fifty percent of you on stage at the one time.”

    “Mm.”

    “Well, better toddle off and get started, then, eh?” said Dorothy kindly.

    “Oh—yes! Um—the literature section’s in an awful mess, shall I reshelve it, Janet?” asked Ginny timidly.

    “Yes, might as well. Ta, Ginny.”

    “Only don’t read anything, you’ll be there all day,” murmured Dorothy.

    Ginny gave her a dry look. “Don’t worry, there isn’t anything there worth reading!” She toddled off towards the 800s.

    “This is true,” sighed Dorothy, drooping on the Inquiries Desk.

    “All right, stop buying multiple large-print Barbara Cartlands,” said Janet.

    “Can’t: the demand still exceeds the supply,” she sighed.

    “There you are, then,” said Janet with her customary mildness.

    Dorothy grinned. She was about to go off to the back regions and find her purse in order to reimburse the cash drawer, when a large, cheerful-looking, untidy man with a mop of greying fawn curls came up to her and said: “Oy, Big Banana. You got any good junk in, today?”

    Dorothy was evidently familiar with this mode of address for she merely returned: “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?”

    “Nope, Term doesn’t start till February. I mean the Semester,” he corrected himself glumly.

    “Well?” returned Dorothy.

    “Well, headmasters don’t have to slave over lesson plans in their hols, ya know!” he replied with a wink. “’S what they pay us for!”

    “In that case, come on out the back, we’ve got some lovely new junk that’s just come in.”

    “Ooh!” he squeaked. “Yer actual Wilbur Smiths?”

    “No-o... Not your actual Wilbur Smiths,” said Dorothy regretfully. “But there’s a new Sydney Sheldon!”

    His eyes lit up. He rolled them frantically, just in case no-one had noticed they’d lit up. “Blue?” he squeaked hopefully.

    “Not actually blue: mauveish, I’d say,” replied Dorothy judiciously, pronouncing it “morvish.” “—Wouldn’t you, Janet?”

    “No! I mean, yes, I’m afraid it is!” squeaked Janet, giggling helplessly.

    “Ooh! Morvish, eh? Lead me to it!”

    “You can’t!” gasped Janet. “Not seriously!”

    He winked at her. “Not seriously, no,” he agreed, coming round the end of the counter. “Lead on, Big Banana,” he ordered, giving Dorothy a friendly shove.

    Grinning, Dorothy led on.

    Janet sighed slightly. Oh, dear. That was their careful chronological Reserve List for the new Sydney Sheldon down the drain! That was the trouble with Dorothy, she had pets...

    Then her eye brightened. Well, one good thing, she’d got down on the new Dick Francis the minute it had come in, it hadn’t even got to Cataloguing yet, and Gayle was after her with it! Beaming, she turned to an elderly lady who was approaching the Inquiries Desk with a timid, shuffling, crabwise motion and said, very clearly but not too loudly, they got insulted if you assumed they were deaf, even if they were—well, especially if they were: “Can I help you?”

   The old lady came up crabwise to the counter and said in a quavering undertone: “Well, yee-uss, dear: can you tell me”—she lowered her voice to a whisper: “where are the toilets?”

    Janet explained clearly and composedly where they were. She was quite prepared to pop out from behind the counter and guide her, but this particular old lady seemed to be fairly compos mentis, because she thanked her and tottered off in the right direction.

    Janet resumed her task of putting Overdues in envelopes.

    Soon Dorothy came back, and, after issuing the genial headmaster with his junk, resumed leaning on the Inquiries Desk. “It does sound a right shemozzle,” she said.

    “You said that,” noted Janet.

    “Yeah, and I’m saying it again.”

    “Well, don’t go, you can always sell the ticket.”

    “Not go?” gasped Dorothy. “Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away from it! I mean—Adam McIntyre in pale green spangled tights?”

    Janet bit her lip. She tried awfully hard not to, but couldn’t help herself. She burst out in a mad giggling fit.

    Grinning, Dorothy ambled off on a little tour of her domain.

    In the garden of the restored old wooden villa at the very end of Ridge Road, Kowhai Bay, overlooking the sea, a confab was in session. At least it had been, they were all drinking gin and lime now, and Catherine Whitmore had introduced the topic of The Big Stars. Catherine was there because she was Bruce Smith’s life partner (de facto to the locals), and Bruce was there because it was his house. Ariadne Nicholls was there ostensibly because she was Bruce’s partner in the general practice based in Puriri Medical Centre in Seddon Street, Puriri. Keith Nicholls, who was an ENT man, was there because Ariadne had dragged him, Evan Black was there because he’d been up the Coast seeing Keith about a tricky case he was due to operate on for him in a couple of days’ time—and because the minute Ariadne had set eyes on him she’d pounced on him and dragged him—and Maurice Black was there partly because Ariadne had pounced on him and dragged him, and partly because he’d tagged along with his brother for the ride up to the Coast. Well, it was a lovely day, if you didn’t mind a humidity reading of eighty-two percent. None of them noticed it, much, they’d all grown up with it. Though Evan Black had removed his grey silk consultant’s suit-jacket and loosened his tie.

    “When are they coming out?” asked Catherine.

    “Don’t ask me,” Evan replied, since the question seemed to be directed at him. “Ask Maurie, he’s apparently captivated this Livia Whatsername.”

    “I can tell you when Livia’s coming out—if you’ll tell me why you want to know!” replied Maurice with a rumble of bass laughter.

    “I asked first,” said Catherine firmly.

    Maurice sedately produced a small pocket diary from the back pocket of his pale blue cotton slacks. Very trendy cotton slacks, the sort that were rather pleated at the waist and rather crumpled all over. His wife had asked him more than once why in God’s name he didn’t throw those things away—and also tried to iron the crumples out after every washing—but Maurice ignored her. After forty years of marriage he was good at that.

    “Here we are... The fifteenth of February,” he announced.

    “Help!” gasped Catherine. “Isn’t that rather late?”

    “What for?” asked Maurice blandly.

    She gulped and said weakly: “Um—you know. For learning her lines and—um—moves, don’t they call it?”

    “I’d say she learnt her moves years ago,” murmured Keith Nicholls.

    “Shut up, Keith,” said Ariadne crossly as the other males grinned. “Well, what about Whatsisname?” she asked keenly, leaning forward in her battered basket chair. –Kowhai Bay was pretty up-market, but Bruce and Catherine’s garden wasn’t. Neither of them was much interested in gardening and both of them were very interested in comfort.

    “Which Whatsisname?” returned Maurice with a twinkle.

    “Maurice! Your nephew, of course!”

    “I’ve got lots of—”

    “Drop it, Maurie,” said his brother. “We don’t know,” he explained kindly. “Adam rang Christopher and Melinda the other day to say that some big Hollywood type’s invited him to spend a few days in Hawaii on his way out.”

    “On a private island?” asked Keith Nicholls, raising his eyebrows.

    “Shut up, Keith,” said Ariadne automatically.

    “No, I think it was a ranch or something. –Do they have ranches in Hawaii?”

    “Be a pineapple ranch,” decided Bruce Smith, winking at Keith.

    Keith obligingly snickered. Ariadne threw the pair of them an impatient look.

    “Why aren’t they coming together?” added Catherine in some confusion.

    “She’s been watching the News again,” sighed Bruce.

    “Yeah, or reading those mags in your waiting-room!” choked Keith. They snickered.

    “Look, just drop it!” said Catherine crossly.

    Maurice took pity on her. “They’re not coming together because rumour hath a lying tongue.” He paused for consideration. “Well, partly. But I can tell you definitely that Livia’s thing with Adam is definitely over.”

    There was a short pause.

    “Whereas her thing with Maurie is now definitely on, I suppose,” said his brother sourly.

    Maurice winked one azure eye at him. “Why not?”

    Evan sighed.

    That eminent specialist, Evan Black, was a most respectable person. Always had been. Well, there was nothing remarkable in that, so was ninety-nine point-nine-nine-nine repeating percent of New Zealand. The even more eminent historian Sir Maurice Black, however, belonged to the minute minority that wasn’t. He didn’t point out now that Suzanne, his wife, didn’t want it after forty years of marriage and hadn’t wanted it all that much forty years back, he just looked bland.

    “How old is she?” asked Keith Nicholls thoughtfully.

    Maurice rubbed his lean chin. “Difficult to say, with that complete dye job.”—Keith choked.—“And it’s not my subject, of course,”—he eyed the medical persons present sardonically—“but I’d say she’s had a few little nips and tucks here and there.”

    Over Keith’s and Bruce’s choking fits Ariadne said impatiently: “Never mind all that! Is Adam coming out earlier than her, Maurice?”

    Maurice ran a hand through his crisp silver curls. “Look, why in God’s name do you want to know?”

    “Because they’re up to something,” said Keith with a hollow groan.

    “Yeah,” agreed Bruce heavily.

    “Shut up, Bruce,” ordered Catherine, two seconds before Ariadne could order hers to. “We thought… Um, well,” she said to the Black brothers, “we just wondered if Adam could be persuaded to do, um, a reading, for the opening of the new old folks’ home.”

    “I thought it was open,” said Evan blankly.

    “It is,” agreed Keith.

    “NO! The Official Opening!” cried Catherine and Ariadne in chorus.

    Evan looked dubiously at his brother. “Would he?”

    Maurice shrugged. “Dunno. He hates that sort of thing—fête opening and so on. Might, I suppose. Depends what sort of a mood he’s in, really.”

    “He did—” Ariadne broke off.

    “Go on!” urged Catherine.

    Avoiding everybody’s eye, Ariadne said in an airy voice: “Well, he did open a fête last summer somewhere in England, I know that, because I read an article about it. There was a picture of him: he was wearing a white suit and a pink shirt, with one of those wide-brimmed panama hats. With a pink ribbon round it.”

    Adam’s uncles both winced.

    “Look, you wanna stay out of that waiting-room of yours!” said Keith in a shaken voice.

    “Shut up. It was when I had the flu, and that stupid nurse of Bruce’s brought me all those magazines. Anyway, if he did it in England, won’t he—” She broke off: Maurice was shaking his head. “Why NOT?” she demanded indignantly.

    “Well, it probably escaped your eagle eye, what with the flu and the pink shirt,” said Maurice with a grin, “but that fête was on the estate of a very trendy, yuppie duke.”

    “Blow,” said Ariadne, scowling.

    “Yeah,” agreed Maurice drily.

    “But couldn’t you ask him, Maurice?” asked Catherine.

    “I could certainly ask him; yeah.”

    “Get Melinda on the job,” advised Evan.

    “His mother? But we don’t know her,” said Catherine sadly.

    “Yes, we do. Well, Ariadne does: didn’t you have a look at her leg?” said Bruce.

    “Hip. Yes, but that was ages ago. And it only took five minutes.”

    “Well, want me to ask Melinda for ya?” Maurice said nicely to Ariadne.

    She went very red. “Would you?” she croaked.

    “Yeah. Well, I was gonna drop in on ’em, anyway.”

    “What? Look, I can’t hang around up here gossiping all day, you know!” objected Evan in some alarm.

    “Drop me off. I’ll make me own way back.”

    Reflecting that Maurie lived on the North Shore anyway, and presumably there were buses, Evan agreed.

    For his part, Maurice was reflecting that sweet little Marianne, before her recent marriage his last heart-throb but two, and the last one he’d been really keen on, also lived at Kowhai Bay, and he might as well pop in on her and see how she was getting on.

    Briskly he got the date of the old folks’ home’s Official Opening from Ariadne, noted it down carefully, and in the bass that assorted somewhat oddly with his spare, still vigorous little figure, boomed: “Well , come on, Evan, if you’re coming!”

    There was silence in Bruce and Catherine’s big, untidy garden in their wake. That was, the myriad of cicadas roared, the bees buzzed in the colourful flowers that were actually mostly weeds, and at the foot of the cliff the waves of Kowhai Bay proper lapped softly on the tiny crescent of silver sand, but they were all so used to these noises that to them it was silence.

    “He’s a very attractive man, really,” mused Catherine finally,

    “Who?” gasped Bruce.

    “Maurice Black, of course,” she returned in mild surprize.

    “Gawd! I thought ya meant the type with the pink ribbon in ’is hat!” he gasped, sagging in his basket chair.

    “Drop that, Bruce,” she recommended.

    “Is he gay?” asked Ariadne abruptly.

    “No!” cried Catherine, astounded. “Are you BLIND?”

    “What? Oh—not old Maurice!” she said, going rather red. “Um—no: this Adam.”

    “Can’t be, if he’s been having a thing with this Livia bird. –Oh, I dunno, though,” said Bruce.

    “Shut up, Bruce, that isn’t funny,” sighed Catherine.

    “I hope he isn’t, the old folks won’t like it,” said Ariadne, frowning. “Has anybody seen any of his dratted films?” she demanded.

    Nobody had.

    Grimly the indefatigable Ariadne pursued: “Well, who could we ask?”

    “Nobody,” replied Keith definitely. “Not without letting ourselves in for a huge lawsuit, anyway.”

    “Tactfully, I mean,” said Ariadne, glaring.

    “Tactfully,” he said faintly. “This is the woman,” he said to the garden at. large: “that walked smack, bang up to Polly Carrano in the middle of the Puriri & District Lawn Tennis Club social—when she’d never even met her—”

    “We know that, Keith, we were there,” groaned Bruce.

    Ignoring him, Keith continued relentlessly: “And asked her to get her husband to lay out immense amounts of his hard-earned millions on her flaming old folks’ home!”

    “So?” said Ariadne. “It worked, didn’t it?”

    Keith moaned faintly.

    “Well, there must be somebody who’d know!” she said loudly.

    No-one bothered to reply.

    “Drat,” she muttered.

   After quite some time Bruce Smith said thoughtfully: “What’s needed here is some basic research.”

    Everyone had been thinking that. They glanced at him warily.

    “Is that thing still on?” he said to his de facto.

    “Um—not at the Bughouse. Um—well, it is on in town, they’ve brought it back because he’s coming out here,” Catherine admitted weakly.

    “Better go, then, eh?” he said breezily.

    Everyone was dying to go. No-one was about to admit it, though.

    Finally Ariadne said in a very weak voice: “It might be as well to check, yes.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Keith feebly.

    Bruce got up. “Right! Better book, eh? Sure to be popular, what with all the publicity—” He hurried inside.

    Silence fell. Catherine, Ariadne and Keith sat on in the warm garden amidst the zinging of the cicadas, the buzzing of the bees, and the plashing of the waves. Avoiding one another’s eyes.

    At the top of Christopher’s and Melinda’s steep drive Evan bade his brother farewell and drove off glumly, reflecting it was always a bad sign when (a) Maurie started getting extra-breezy, and (b) Maurie started wearing those damned blue tee-shirts that picked up the blue of his eyes. This bloody Livia woman, he supposed dully. Oh, well, at least she was a Pom and was only going to be out here for a few weeks. While it lasted, however, the publicity was undoubtedly going to be ghastly. Ghastly.

    Maurice proceeded to half-bully, half-charm his sister-in-law into agreeing to persuade Adam to give a reading at Ariadne Nicholls’s old folks home’s opening. Or at least to try, Melinda wasn’t at all sure that he’d want to.

    “Rats!” said Maurice breezily, ignoring his own doubts on the subject. “Why the Hell shouldn’t ’e want to?”

    Melinda sighed.

    “All right, isn’t he?” he asked with a sudden sharp look.

    “Um—yes. Well, in himself, yes,” she said mournfully.

    “What, then?”

    —At this point Christopher snorted, and went out.

    “Um, well, we think he might be—um—going a bit silly again. You know: accepting invitations to stay in Hawaii with those Hollywood people,” said Melinda weakly.

    “Oh! Too big for ’is boots, eh?”

    “Mm,” she admitted unhappily.

    Maurice got up, chuckling. “Don’t worry, Mac’ll knock it out of him!”

    Melinda didn’t know that that was exactly what she wanted, but she said glumly: “Yes, I suppose he will.”

    Christopher came back cautiously five minutes later. “Has he pushed off?”

    “Yes,” said Melinda dully.

    “Good riddance,” he said simply, sitting down in his big chair and putting his feet on its footstool. He picked up a book and began to read.

    “I saw dear little Georgy earlier today,” she offered.

    Christopher didn’t look up, but his lips tightened. After a moment he said: “She’s not that little.”

    “No, but she’s a dear li— She’s a sweet girl.”

    “She’s twenty-seven. And she’s not the sort of sweet girl that appreciates plucked and scented and Ambre-Solaired things off Waikiki!” he said angrily.

    “Christopher!” she screamed.

    Scowling ferociously, Christopher returned to his book,

    “Adam couldn’t help it if that silly television reporter—”

    “Huh!”

    “Well, he couldn’t. –And since we haven’t got Smell-o-rama, I don’t know how on earth you could tell if he was scented or not!” she added vigorously.

    He returned drily: “I was extrapolating from that time he came straight on to us after the bloody Bahamas.”

    “It was only aftershave, dear.” Christopher remained buried in his book. Melinda went over to the door. She swallowed. “And what on earth did you mean by plucked?” she said in a very airy voice.

    “The eyebrows, are you blind?” he replied from inside his book.

    “Oh!” she said, failing to hide the relief in her voice. “Well, I suppose it was that last part.” She went out quickly.

    Christopher looked up. “But I wouldn’t take any bets about the flaming bikini line!” he said aloud to the empty sitting-room.