Up The Bach

13

Up The Bach

    “Neh!” said Jake in astonishment, face one big grin. “Not ‘up at the bach’: ‘up the bach’. ‘Weer goan up the bach fer a few days,’” he added carefully, just in case they hadn’t got it.

    Adam chuckled delightedly.

    Jake was on a big brown horse. Georgy didn’t laugh, she hadn’t really heard the exchange, she was terrified that the big brown horse was going to bite Adam’s bare arm, which lay casually on the car’s window frame on the driver’s side, very handy for the horse’s huge teeth. The horse hadn’t shown his teeth but this made no difference to her feelings on the matter.

    “There ya go,” Jake added, fishing a bunch of keys out of the hip pocket of his jeans and handing them to Adam.

    “Thanks very much,” he said, grinning.

    Jake winked. “Any time.” Adam concluded that the millionaire was on his side. In which he wasn’t far wrong: in spite of Jake’s earlier chameleon insight the Carranos had recently had a disagreement on the subject, Polly pointing out that it could only turn out a disaster in the long run and Jake pointing out that it was Adam’s and Georgy’s business and she, Polly, should KEEP OUT OF IT. And if Jill tried to bend her ear again on the subject, she, Polly, should tell Jill to push her flaming barrow.

    “Aw, hang on, forgot,” he added, fishing a bit of paper out of another pocket. “Pol said to give you this, it’s—uh—instructions or something.”

    “I need these, do I?” said Adam with a twinkle.

    Jake gave a snort of laughter.

    Georgy came to with a jump, dragged her eyes away from the horse, went very pink, and smiled nervously.

    Adam glanced at the slip of paper, saw it contained a long list of things like “Eggs—Swadlings’ shop, Main Rd, Carter’s Bay (free range)”; and “Bank: watch out, there isn’t one”, and handed it to Georgy.

    “Thanks again, Jake.”

    “Any time!” he repeated with a grin, backing his horse away.

    A fair number of cars were going about their business in Pohutukawa Bay and Puriri even though it was barely nine o’clock of a fine Saturday morning, so Adam didn’t say anything much until he’d negotiated them up to the highway, down through Puriri and out the other side of it to the rise just before the Kowhai Bay turnoff. Then he said: “It’ll take about an hour. A little more, I suppose, at the speed I drive.”

    “Yes,” said Georgy in a small voice.

    “Quite comfortable, darling? Don’t need to dash home for a pee or anything before we get going?”

    “No, thank you,” said Georgy in a stifled voice.

    “Polly tells me there are no comfort stops on the way,” he warned kindly.

    Georgy didn’t say anything.’

    Adam perceived quite clearly that she was both nervous and embarrassed—the latter not only because of the immediate topic, but because of the entire situation. He smiled a little, and didn’t insist.

    “What a dump!” he said cheerfully, about an hour later, drawing into the side of the steeply cambered main road of Carter’s Bay.

    “Um—well, it’s just a small country town, I suppose. This part of Puriri County’s very undeveloped.”

    “Mm.” He took Polly’s note off Georgy and looked through it carefully.

    “That’s funny,’’ he said, staring across the road at a large dark pink building. “She says here there isn’t a bank, but isn’t that a Bank of New Zealand?”

    Georgy peered. “Um—no, it’s been turned into a video shop.”

    Adam looked again. “I wish I’d brought a camera: Joel would love it!”

    “It’s not that funny,” she said faintly.

    “Well, should we look for this—er—‘Swadlings’ shop’, buy some food?” he suggested.

    “Yes, we’d better: we don’t want to use up the stuff in their freezer.”

    Adam smiled a little: Polly had urged them to do so. He didn’t point this out, nor the fact that the Carranos’ purse would never notice it if the stuff in their freezer did get used up. “No. Well, Ma’s forced a quiche and a fruit-cake on me—oh, and a bunch of grapes. What about your mother?”

    Georgy’s mother had been extremely annoyed when Georgy had informed her in an offhand voice that she was going away next week—at least, not just then, but when she’d asked who with and been told. She had warned Georgy that she was making a fool of herself over “that man” and Georgy had replied with some bitterness that at twenty-seven it was about time she started making a fool of herself over some man or other. This contretemps had not prevented Mrs Harris from going into her force-feeding act, naturally. So Georgy now said glumly: “Um, a bacon and egg pie, and a bag of tomatoes, and a bag of peaches. And a peach pie. You probably wouldn’t call it a pie.”

    “Eh?” said Adam, startled. “What would I call it?”

    “I don’t know. It hasn’t got a lid and Jill once said that English pies have to have lids.”

    “I have a suspicion that she may have been pulling your leg, darling!” he gurgled. “Er… would it be a flan?”

    “Don’t ask me, I’m a rotten cook.” She peeped at him and added naughtily: “I don’t even know what to call it in New Zealand English!”

    “Come here!” he gasped delightedly. “Give us a kiss!” He slid an arm round her shoulders but she shrank and gasped: “No! There’s people!”

    There was one grimy little Maori boy eating potato crisps, certainly, in shorts and bare feet, staring at them solemnly over the crisps. And one elderly gent passing by in baggy grey flannel trousers, a tired once-blue checked cotton shirt and the most battered grey fedora that Adam, who had never penetrated to the real New Zealand countryside, had ever been privileged to see. And outside the video shop on the other side of the road there were three shiny vehicles and some suburban-looking couples in bright summer clothes, but as the main street was very wide they would have needed binoculars to be sure of what was going on in the front seat of Christopher’s car.

    “These same ‘people’ would pay handsomely to see me do this in glorious Technicolor on the Big Screen: don’t you think they’re a bit lucky?”

    Very pink, Georgy gasped: “Vain pig! –No, don’t!” So he didn’t.

    Over the road a small truck pulled up and a man and a boy began unloading crates of fish and taking them into another shop, but they didn’t open it up.

    “That’ll be a good place to get fish and chips from,” he said.

    “Um—yes. Well, Polly says here it’s the only place you can get hot food except the big hotel in Kingfisher Bay,” said Georgy dubiously.

    “I mean, the fish’ll be fresh, darling,” he murmured.

    “Will it?” she said blankly.

    “Mm. See?”

    Georgy looked blankly at the shallow crates of fish.

    Even without her frowning over Polly’s note and deciding that Swadlings’ shop must be the dairy—what Adam had unerringly identified as a corner shop—he would probably have spotted it, just along from where he’d parked.

    “Come along, let’s walk down to it, shall we?” he said cheerfully.

    There was nothing parked outside it. “Um—we could take the car along there,” she said in a puzzled voice.

    “I thought that if we walked, I could take your hand,” he pointed out, lips twitching.

    Georgy went very pink but to his amazement said: “All right.”

    They got out. He locked the car carefully, and took her little hand. It was hot and sweaty. Adam didn’t think this was revolting, in fact he thought it was delightful, and held it very tightly.

    Carter’s Bay’s main street, in addition to the unopened fish and chips shop and the open video shop, featured a Post Office some way in the distance on the far side of the street: an elaborate cream-painted brick and concrete building with a clock tower. The clock had stopped. The Post Office was permanently closed, according to Polly’s list. You could buy stamps at Swadlings’ shop, her list said. It didn’t say where you could post a letter, though. The street also had on their side a closed and empty hardware store, a deserted butchery, and a closed but possibly operational something that called itself “Wrightson’s” and which at first glance Adam thought was another hardware store and then decided wasn’t. On the other side, further up, there was an open Garden Centre and Adam deduced that the long arm of suburban sprawl was tickling the outskirts of Carter’s Bay. On the other hand, the shop next to the Swadlings’ dairy was a saddlery—but it wasn’t open.

    Apart from the solid Edwardian architecture of the BNZ-video shop and the closed Post Office the style was mainly the single-storeyed, false-fronted sort of thing that Adam before visiting the Antipodes had associated vaguely with the Wild West, but that he had since discovered was also endemic to New Zealand—the pioneer influence? God knew. None of the buildings of Carter’s Bay, however, dated from the pioneer period, or anything like it, in fact the false front of the Wrightson’s building had “1929” proudly emblazoned on its grimy cream-painted concrete pediment, and Adam could see that the other commercial structures were mostly even newer. The Wrightson’s place also featured a modern shop-front that looked as if it had been tarted up very recently. –What the Hell could you have called it? It seemed to sell a mixture of... white ware and farm machinery? No, white ware, motor-mowers and farm machinery! Apart from this strange shop, the tarty pink video place and the Garden Centre, everything was very dusty and discouraged-looking. And closed, of course.

    The main street itself was, as well as very wide, not particularly well sealed, and also very dusty, with an observable camber. No doubt to deal with the non-stop rains of winter, thought Adam on a sour note. There were two dispirited-looking plane trees outside the closed Post Office but apart from that— Well, it would not be true to say there was not a blade of grass, there were many tufts of weeds, mostly of the grassy variety, sprouting from odd points in the cracked pavement and here and there at intervals from the very feet of the shop-fronts themselves, but no effort had been made to provide shade trees, or plant a median strip of garden down the centre of the road—or anything, really. Adam looked round at the grubby, down-at-heel scruffiness of ugly Main Road, Carter’s Bay, and felt utterly and completely happy.

    In Swadlings’ shop the thin, dark-haired man serving in a black singlet and blue shorts gave Adam an odd look but didn’t pass any remark, just totted up the prices of their bread, butter, milk and eggs. And marmalade, decided Adam as an afterthought. Did Georgy like marmalade? Georgy, going very red, said she did.

    “Would you have any dairy cream?” Adam then said.

    “We-ell...” said the man. He was actually Jack Swadling, the proprietor, but since he wasn’t wearing a label on his chest this was not immediately obvious to Adam;  though it was to Georgy: why else would .a man be working in a dairy? He scratched his unshaven chin. “How’dja mean, exactly, ‘dairy’ cream?”

    “Er—well—fresh cream, I suppose,” said Adam limply. “Do you call it double cream, here, darling?” he said to Georgy.

    “I don’t know! I don’t think so!” she gasped.

    “Oy, MAY!” shouted the thin, dark man over his shoulder suddenly. Adam and Georgy jumped.

    A slim, blonde, quite pretty woman in perhaps her mid-thirties, clad in a floral cotton sundress, appeared from the back regions. She looked at Adam, gasped, and went very red.

    “This gent wants dairy cream,” said her husband in a neutral voice.

    “Oh,” she said faintly, still very red, staring disbelievingly at him.

    Suddenly Georgy said: “He’s English, he doesn’t understand that we don’t call things by the same names out here. I think he just means ordinary cream.” She smiled at the woman.

    “He won’t want that carton stuff,” said the man in a very neutral voice.

    “No, it tastes of cardboard,” the woman agreed, very faint and faraway. She then visibly pulled herself together, smiled shakily at Georgy and said: “They reckon it doesn’t, but of course it does. The cream’s over here, in the fridge, with the milk.” She came out from behind the counter and accompanied Georgy to the fridge, where she found a half-pint bottle of cream. “They’re phasing the bottles out, but the Waikaukau Dairy Company still uses them,” she said, accompanying Georgy back to the counter.

    “I know where that is!” said Georgy, startled.

    “Yeah, just south of Puriri,” agreed the man, adding the price of the cream to his total. “Need tea or coffee, anything like that?” he asked kindly.

    “Ooh!” gasped Georgy. “Yes, we do, Adam!” At this confirmation of Who It Was, Mrs Swadling went very red again.

    “Polly said we could use theirs,” he murmured.

   Georgy turned pink and looked at him reproachfully so he smiled and said: “Well, I have brought some coffee, darling, but we could buy some tea.”

    “Yes, we mustn’t drink up theirs, what if they came up thinking there’d be some and then they got to the bach and there wasn’t?” said Georgy in a rush.

    “Staying at a friend’s bach, are you?” asked Mr Swadling with mild interest.

    “Yes, it’s up Carter’s Inlet, past Kingfisher Marina,” said Georgy.

    “That right? Far up?” he said in a casual voice.

    “Um...” Georgy looked at Adam helplessly.

    “Next to the Reserve, I’m informed,” he murmured.

    “That right? Would that be Jake Carrano’s place?” he said with every evidence of a merely neighbourly interest.

    “That’s right,” agreed Adam.

    “That is a fair way up,” he allowed. “Ya won’t want to be shooting back here every five minutes for the odd spoonful of sugar or that—sure you’ve got everything ya need?”

    Georgy gulped. “We haven’t got any sugar, Adam,” she pointed out.

    “I’m sure Polly and Jake could spare us a few spoonfuls, Georgy,” he murmured.

    “Yes, but what if they’ve run out?” worried Georgy.

    “You’ve got a point,” said Adam, lips twitching. Actually, in that delicious pale apricot tee-shirt of hers she observedly had two. “Would you have lump sugar?” he asked the shop man.

    “Nah, never seen that, here,” he drawled.

    “Jack! They’ve got it in the supermarkets down in Puriri!” his wife reproached him.

    “That right? Never been asked for it, before,” he said to Adam.

    “Do they really have it at the supermarkets in Puriri?’ I’ve never seen it,” said Georgy with interest.

    “Yes: it’s awfully expensive, though: goodness knows who buys it!” replied May Swadling, beaming at her.

    “People from The Hill, I suppose. I was in the Puriri greengrocer’s once and there was a lady there, she bought a huge bunch of those Californian grapes, they came to over eleven dollars, and the lady in the shop said she lived on The Hill!” confided Georgy.

    “Eleven dollars for grapes?” gasped Mrs Swadling.

    “Yes, imagine,” agreed Georgy.

    They looked at each other in a kind of shocked awe.

    “How much would that be in sterling?” asked Adam, with malice aforethought.

    Consternation—at least from Georgy and May Swadling. Finally Jack Swadling said on a dry note: “Four quid, give or take.”

    “I’ve seen peaches o sale for that in London in midwinter,” offered Adam.

    The ladies looked blank. Mr Swadling merely looked dry.

    “Each,” clarified Adam, poker-face.

    “EACH?” the ladies screamed.

    Mr Swadling still looked dry but conceded: “Bit on the nose, eh?”

    “I’ll say,” said in his wife in shaken tones. “Who buys them?” she said to Adam. “Millionaires?”

    He shrugged. “I imagine so. Not me, certainly.”

    “I should think not!” she agreed fervently.

    “I’ve got a whole bag of peaches in the car,” said Georgy limply. “Mum’s got a tree.”

    “So have we,” agreed Mrs Swadling. “It’s been a good year for peaches, this year.”

    “And nectarines,” added Adam, swallowing a smile.

    Mrs Swadling gaped at him.

    “My parents live at Kowhai Bay,” he explained, smiling nicely.

    “I see!” she gasped.

    “Well, ya need some tea, then?” said her husband stolidly.

    “Oh! Yes!” gasped Georgy, jumping. “And sugar, please.

    Mr Swadling put an enormous bag of sugar on the counter. Three or four pounds, at least, by Adam’s estimation.

    “Haven’t you anything smaller?” he said faintly.

    “Eh?” replied Mr Swadling.

    “It comes like that,” said Georgy earnestly.

    “Oh. Well, I suppose we can leave it for Polly and Jake,” said Adam limply.

    “Yes,” agreed Georgy pleasedly.

    “Um—tea!” remembered Mrs Swadling with a gasp, diving at the shelves behind her. She retrieved a packet of very ordinary-looking teabags.

    “We’ve got some Earl Grey,” noted Mr Swadling, terrifically neutral.

    At this Adam broke down and laughed helplessly. “He’s got—me—sized up!” he gasped.

    “Yes,” Georgy agreed, grinning all over her face: “you’ll be asking for Digestive biscuits next. Or Gentleman’s Relish. It’s those awful blue sandals. Not to mention the insistence on dairy cream and—um—funny sugar,” she ended on a weak note.

    “You want this Earl Grey, or not?” said Mr Swadling, putting a packet on the counter and permitting his lips to twitch slightly.

    Mrs Swadling, crimson to the roots of the limply waved blonde hair, said faintly: “Don’t, Jack”; but Adam gave her his nicest smile, and said: “Do, Jack, it’s so refreshing not to be taken seriously. –Yes, we’ll take it, thanks.”

    “Don’t get many Poms up here,” he explained calmly. “Get a fair few Yanks and Japs, of course.”

    “Oh?” replied Adam with interest.

    “Yes, it’s that big new tourist hotel at Kingfisher Bay,” explained Mrs Swadling. “At the marina: it isn’t really a bay; at least…” She floundered.

    “Never used to be anything there but mangroves, until your mate Jake Carrano got going with his bulldozers, five or six years back,” explained Jack Swadling calmly. “Dug it out of the side of the Inlet.”

    “Yes. Some of the people from the university were upset, because he destroyed the ecology of the mangrove swamp,” murmured Georgy.

    “The whole Inlet’s mangroves!” protested Mrs Swadling in amazement. “Well, not so much this side—but most of the other side!”

    “Ye-es... Well, one of the people from the Biology Department was doing some research on it... Dickon Fothergill,” murmured Georgy.

    “Who?” said Adam on a sharp note.

    “He’s a marine biologist. I don’t know him, really,” said Georgy, pinkening a little. Young Dr Fothergill was one of the earnest males who came and pointed out interesting things in Nature to her in the S.C.R. Georgy didn’t dislike him, but she found him very boring.

    “Oh,” said Adam weakly.

    “Yeah, well, what’s a few mangroves, more or less?” said Jack Swadling unemotionally—so unemotionally, in fact, that it was impossible to tell what he really thought about the matter. He told Adam the amount his purchases came to, adding helpfully: “I could work out what that is in sterling, if ya like.”

    “It won’t make any difference to the total, though!” squeaked Georgy, giggling suddenly.

    “Nope,” he admitted, breaking down and grinning.

    Adam fished out some New Zealand dollars. “You must get a lot of enjoyment out of the Americans from the hotel,” he said neutrally.

    Jack Swadling scratched his chin. “Nah, not really. They never catch on, ya see.°

    “Jack!” gasped his wife; but Adam laughed and Georgy giggled delightedly.

    “He’s awful,” Mrs Swadling said limply to them.

    “He’s a breath of fresh air,” corrected Adam, smiling at her.

    Mr Swadling sorted unemotionally through Adam’s dollars. “This is far too much, you wanna watch it, handing over fistfuls of dollars.”

    “Foreign money’s very confusing,” Adam explained.

    “No, it isn’t, Adam, all the notes have got the, um, the numbers on them!” protested Georgy.

    “Sorry,” he said meekly. Georgy gave him a hard look. Adam smiled and she went very pink and looked away. He then asked if there was an actual pub as opposed to the new hotel and Mr Swadling conceded there was and warned him that he didn’t want to take Georgy to the public bar.

    “Yes. I mean, I’m all for Women’s Lib and that,” said Mrs Swadling earnestly to Georgy, going very pink and hurriedly giving a little girl who’d come in for a jelly-baby alligator her change, “only it is pretty bad. Not nasty, I don’t mean, only... Um, you know.”

    “Basic,” said Jack laconically, putting their purchases in a plastic carrier bag. “The lounge bar’s okay.”

    “Yes, we sometimes go there,” she agreed.

    “Good!” smiled Adam. “And is there anywhere to eat? Polly Carrano has mentioned the fish and chips shop,” he murmured.

    “Um, well, not in Carter’s Bay,” Mrs Swadling admitted uneasily.

    “’Course, ya could always come down to Kingfisher Bay and have pizzas at the Royal Kingfisher,” noted her husband unemotionally.

    “That awful Hongi Heke Room,” she agreed. “Their prices are shocking!” she explained. “We went there once, just to see what it was like—you know. But really— Well, even the American tourists say the prices are dreadful, don’t they, dear?”

    “Yeah. Mind you, the Japs cough up without a murmur. Be the rate of exchange, I suppose,” he replied.

    “Yes, I see,” said Adam, a trifle limply. “Er—that isn’t the main dining-room at this Royal Kingfisher, is it?”

    “Cripes, no,” said Jack Swadling simply. “That’s way out of our league. Strictly overseas tourist rates there.”

    “Yes. They say it’s incredibly expensive,” said his wife, now sounding rather apologetic.

    “Mind you, the Royal Kingfisher’s air-conditioned,” he noted neutrally.

    “Yes,” she agreed. “It was freezing, wasn’t it, Jack? Just as well I had my cardy. It was a nice mild night,” she explained to Georgy. “I don’t know why they needed to have it on at all.

    “For the Americans, I suppose.”

    Mrs Swadling sniffed slightly. “Yes.”

    “Well, that’s due warning,” decided Adam.

    Mr Swadling had been serving a woman with a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk during this exchange—the woman had stared at Adam with her mouth open unbelievingly during it—and now turned to them to say: “Well, you folks okay?”

   Adam hefted the shopping. “Yes, thanks very much. And thanks for the advice about the eating spots!”

    Mr Swadling grinned.

    “Oh, no, hang on,” said Adam: “Polly Carrano said it’s a bit tricky finding the road to the Inlet.”

    “Ah! Now!” he said with relish.

    “Just stop it, Jack,” said Mrs Swadling firmly.

    He winked at them, but said simply: “Turn hard left at the first intersection past the Post Office. The bloody signpost only says Opononi, but it is the road for the Inlet. You just drive straight on down it. The Carranos’ bach is the last place before the Reserve.”

    “It’s about five or six K,” added Mrs Swadling helpfully, looking up from serving an excited small boy with a Tip-Top Trumpet. “Ssh! Yes, I know, Damian,” she added, as he tried to tell her that was Adam McIntyre!

    “Watch ya speedo,” added Jack Swadling helpfully.

    “I shall. Thanks, Jack,” said Adam, grinning broadly.

    “Any time,” he replied unemotionally. “Eh?” he said as the small boy with the Tip-Top Trumpet tried to tell him that was Adam McIntyre! “Geddouda here! What’d Adam McIntyre be doing in Carter’s Bay?”

    “It is, Mr Swadling!” cried the child agonizedly.

    “Come on,” said Adam with a grin, seizing Georgy’s elbow. “Bye-bye,” he said to the Swadlings. “And thanks again.”

    May said faintly: “That’s okay. Enjoy your holiday,” but Jack merely said unemotionally: “See ya.”

    “What a character!” grinned Adam, on the pavement.

    “He was having you on,” said Georgy uneasily.

    “Of course he was! The Good Keen Bloke personified! But he only did it because, unlike the Americans, I’d caught on,” he explained.

    “Ye-es...”

    “I was flattered,” said Adam, twinkling at her.

    “Male peer groups,” said Georgy on a glum note.

    “Darling, it was fun!”

    “Maybe. Not when you’re relentlessly excluded from it because you’re a female,” said Georgy tightly, walking on rather fast.

    “Are you?” he said limply.

    “Most of the time, yes.”

    “I suppose you’ll be insisting on going to this public bar, then,” he noted gloomily.

    She stopped short and turned to face him. “No! You know very well I’d never have the courage!” she said angrily.

    Adam’s long mouth twitched. “I don’t think I would, either. Well, certainly not in these sandals.”

    Georgy swallowed loudly.

    “Of course I’d go in me black vest—ooh, sorry, singlet—in me black singlet and crumpled shorts, like a shot.”

    “With your unlaced workman’s boots without socks, mm,” she said in a strangled voice.

    “Or me blue rubber jandals showing me dirty toes, yeah, too right,” he agreed in the vernacular.

    Georgy choked, and went into a helpless paroxysm. “It’s—not—fair! You always—make me—laugh!” she gasped.

    “Good,” said Adam. He took her elbow with his free hand. “Come on, darling, it’ll be lunchtime before we get there.”

    She went very pink again and accompanied him meekly.

    Adam had taken the left turn at the intersection after the Post Office, as instructed, even though there had been no signpost. He had driven to the end of this street without finding a signpost and had started to get rather annoyed with Jack Swadling, but Georgy had said timidly that she thought she’d seen a signpost back halfway along that road. So he had driven slowly back, looking for it. Sure enough, there it was, pointing down a side road off their road. It said “Opononi By-Pass”.

    Georgy was silently glad that Adam wasn’t cross with her for not drawing his attention to it immediately instead of having let him drive past it, and Adam was silently glad that Georgy wasn’t saying “I told you so.” He turned into the side road. It came to an abrupt end at a cross-road but fortunately there was a sign there. It pointed to the left, and merely said “By-Pass”, but as Georgy agreed when he said that must be it, he took that direction.

    That road came to a dead end. Adam backed up a bit and took the only possible option, a road going off this one to the right—that was, if you’d approached it as they had originally done, it would have been right. This road took a couple of turns in a brief space of time amongst a mixture of small wooden bungalows and empty fields. Then it suddenly debouched onto an enormous and obviously very new roundabout.

    “Help!” gasped Georgy.

    Adam braked hurriedly. “Was this here when you came up here with your mother?”

    “No,’’ said Georgy weakly. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.” Mrs Harris had driven her up on an expedition to see the new marina at Kingfisher Bay. Most of the city and suburbs that were mobile had been on similar expeditions in the last five years, so Georgy hadn’t thought it odd. On the other hand, she hadn’t found it particularly interesting.

    Off to the left of the point at which their road debouched onto the roundabout was a very wide road under construction. Very much so, there was a crowd of huge bulldozers and similar giant ingins on it.

    After a moment Georgy recognized limply: “It must be the new motorway. Rod did say it was going through.”

    Adam’s mouth tightened and she realized she’d said the wrong thing. “He talks about that sort of thing,” she said limply.

    “So it would appear. Well, which way?”

    Apart from the one they’d come on and the new road, three roads led off the roundabout. One was hard on their right, one almost dead ahead, and the third further to the left, next to the new road.

    “Um—that one, I think,” said Georgy limply. “Um—well, I think there’s a sign, further along.”

    Adam edged the car forward cautiously. Fortunately, there was nothing else on the roundabout. The road next to the new one was the right one: once they were at the right angle to read it they could see that the big sign said in large white letters on a green background “Kingfisher Bay.”

    “Thank God,” he muttered. He drove on down it for a while, and then said crossly: “Why in God’s name didn’t that Jack fellow explain all this?”

    “Um, maybe he felt it was too complicated,” she murmured.

    “Maybe he thought he’d dump me in it,” corrected Adam acidly.

    “Ye-es... On the other hand, perhaps he felt it was all self-evident!” said Georgy with a nervous giggle.

    Adam scowled.

    “Sorry,” she said in a tiny voice. “But he is a local, it probably is self-evident to him.”

    “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Georgy, I didn’t mean to— I get so damned nervous, driving,” he ended abruptly.

    “I know,” she said in a tiny voice.

    Adam clenched his fists tightly on the wheel. “If I stop, will you let me kiss you?”

    “Yes,” she whispered. “Only is it safe, here?”

    Adam’s nostrils flared. Then he realized it wasn’t a criticism aimed at him, it was just Georgy being timid, and careful of their safety—no, to be .accurate, he told himself drily, careful of his safety, quite undoubtedly. He drove on while the road wound a bit, then pulled in as it straightened out and there was a clear view front and back. “This’ll be safe,” he said.

    “Yes,” agreed Georgy with a little sigh.

     Adam undid his seatbelt and turned towards her. He found his heart was beating wildly and he was suddenly as nervous as he had been on the first night of Henry V—a Hellish ordeal, his first London thing after the bloody film.

    Georgy looked up at him in a docile way.

    Adam swallowed hard. He undid his seatbelt and gently put an arm round her. Then he put his lips on hers very, very softly. He was aware of the big grey-green eyes looking up at him in wonder. “I love you, darling Georgy,” he breathed against her mouth.

    Georgy swallowed nervously.

    At this Adam felt much braver and, without really meaning to or thinking about it, pushed her hard back against her seat and kissed her thoroughly, and put his free hand on her breast and squeezed it.

    “Ow!” she gasped at last and Adam came to with a start.

    “Oh—darling, I’m sorry, I got carried away; did I hurt you? Hell, I’m sorry!”

    “No, you just—um—squashed me a bit!” gasped Georgy, going scarlet.

    Adam also went scarlet and hid his face in her slender shoulder. “I’m sorry, darling; I want you so much; I was trying to hang back and it—it didn’t— I suddenly couldn’t.”

    “No,” agreed Georgy uncertainly.

    “I keep forgetting you haven’t had much experience.”

    “Mm.”

    “Just hug me,” said Adam into her shoulder.

    She put her arms around him obediently.

    “That’s lovely,” he said. Georgy didn’t reply but she held him tighter. After a few moments he kissed her neck and said: “Could I put my hand inside this delightful tee-shirt, darling?”

    “All right,” croaked Georgy.

    Adam pulled the tee-shirt eagerly out of the jeans and slid his hand up and covered her softness very, very gently. He stayed like that for quite some time.

     And then Georgy said: “Oh, Adam!”

    “Isn’t it nice?” he murmured as his blood raced.

    “Yes, it’s lovely,” she whispered.

    Adam thought it’d be even lovelier if she’d put her hand in his trousers, but for one thing was sure it’d embarrass her to death if he suggested it, and for another wasn’t too damned sure that he wouldn’t go crazy if she touched him. So he didn’t suggest it, just kissed her gently. Soon Georgy responded in kind and Adam got so excited that eventually he gasped: “Hell!” and wrenched his zip down. He felt her shrink away from him and said into her neck with a hasty laugh: “It’s all right, sweetheart: I’m not going to rape you on the highway, the bloody pants were crippling me, that’s all!”

    “Oh,” said Georgy weakly.

    Adam smiled and kissed again. She must have been a little scared because this time she took longer to respond. But when she did his blood pounded again and after a while he had to stop kissing her; it was too good. So he nibbled her neck for a little instead.

    Georgy at first thought it was a funny thing to do and squinted down at his black head in some bewilderment. Then his hand that was still on her breast—which was very exciting but at the same time tremendously embarrassing—started to stroke her nipple. She thought he was doing it with his thumb, actually. That was an odd thing to do. Then she had a very odd feeling in her nipple and she felt it go all funny and stiff and she abruptly felt very hot all over and her ears glowed and she gasped: “Oh, Adam!” And Adam bit her neck, just a tiny piece of it but quite hard, and Georgy heard herself give a little squeal.

    And Adam gasped—not sounding at all like sophisticated, experienced Adam McIntyre, if Georgy hadn’t been past realising it: “Oh, Georgy! I want you so much!” And hauled her tee-shirt right down and kissed her breasts eagerly.

    His mouth was warm and wet, and it was a completely new sensation to Georgy, so for a while she just sat there faeling sort of stunned and bewildered. Then he  gave her nipple a tiny, tiny bite and Georgy’s tummy felt all funny, and she grabbed his back very tight and—not knowing she was doing it—arched her body towards him; and cried: “Oh, Adam! Oh, Adam!”

    “I love you,” said Adam against her breasts. He sucked the nipple again and forced one hand between Georgy’s thighs where the denim was all hot and—he didn’t think it was just his imagination—damp. Georgy’s whole body leapt and he gave a shaky laugh and covered her mouth with his.

    After which he just retained enough self-control to sit up and say shakily: “Let’s. get on to this bloody bach before I forget myself entirely!”‘

    “Yes,” she said, looking at him dazedly.

    Adam smiled a little. “Do your seatbelt up, sweetheart.”

    “What? Oh! Yes!” she said, all confused.

    He watched in some amusement as she fumbled for it and did it up blindly.

    “Do yours— she began, turning to him and looking down at where he might have worn the seatbelt. She stopped abruptly turning scarlet.

    Adam smiled. “He’s come out, hasn’t he?”

    “Yes! I mean—” She gulped and looked away.

    “He does that, when he’s very, very excited,” he said slyly. “Hold him?” he suggested.

    “No! I mean— We’ve got to go!” she gasped.

    At that moment a huge tourist bus hove in sight lumbering towards them on the other side of the road.

    “Possibly you’re right!” Adam conceded, grinning.

    Georgy stared determinedly out of her window as be did his pants up.

    “You can look, I don’t mind,” he said mildly.

    She went on staring out of her window.

    “You may not believe me,” he said, starting the car, “but you’re going to :get over this shyness. Quite possibly by the end of the week you’ll be totally indifferent to my body.”

    “What? No! I mean I—” gasped Georgy in delicious confusion. “People don’t,  do they?” she added eventually.

    “Not people who are mad about each other, no. Well, not in my experience. Very old married couples might.”

    “Ye-es... How could a person— Never mind.”

    Adam smiled, and refrained from asking for clarification. As a matter of fact he didn’t know how you could get to that pitch of indifference, either, unless you actually loathed the other person, of course. And even then bloody Claudia had turned him on no matter how much he’d told himself he loathed her.

    He drove on happily. They’d got to the turnoff to Kingfisher Bay before it dawned on him with a little shock that he’d thought of bloody Claudia without any of his usual bitter resentment or self-loathing, or—

     “What?” he said, jumping.

    “Down there,” repeated Georgy uncertainly.

    “Uh—yes. Kingfisher Bay—mm.”

    “Jemima and Tom know a nice man who runs a boating-supplies store down there. He’s an American, I think she said.”

    “Oh,” he said, rather blankly.

    “Can you sail a boat?” asked Georgy in a small voice.

    “No. Neither sail nor, er, whatever you do to the motorized ones. Steer? Or drive? Anyway, I can’t do it. Before you ask, I can’t paddle a canoe, either. I can manage a punt, however, but not spectacularly well.”

    “Oh.”

    “I’m sorry if you were hoping to be able to use the Carranos’ runabout, Georgy,” he said politely.

    “No!” she gasped.

    There was a short silence.

    “I’m not even sure what a runabout is,” she confessed.

    “Nor am I!” choked Adam.

    Georgy went into a terrific giggling fit. “What a pair of no-hopers!” she gasped finally.

    “Aren’t we?” he agreed cordially. “Funnily enough, I have no actual ambition to be able to drive a boat, either.”

    “Me neither. People like Rod always think you ought to.’“

    “Do they?” he said grimly.

    “Yes. Well, he’s a bit better since he married his lovely wife. Only Jemima was going out with him at one stage and she said it was awful, he was always expecting her to be able to, um, sail boats and play tennis and, um, understand vacuum-cleaners and, um, drive cars and things,” ended Georgy in a small voice.

    “How frightfully boring,” drawled Adam.

    “Yes! Jemima said it was!” gasped Georgy, giggling ecstatically.

    Adam smiled, very pleased indeed.

    They drove on up Carter’s Inlet. To their right you could actually see the Inlet from time to time. The water was a greenish colour, shading to blueish further out. After a while it dawned on Adam that—since it was a sparkling blue day—the Inlet must be very shallow. The further banks were… The growth must be mangroves. An unexciting shade of dull green, in fact “dull” was the word, it was about the most boring shade of green you could possibly imagine. There was some excuse for the Swadlings’ attitude to the loss of some of that, decided Adam, unaware that this attitude was shared by at least ninety percent of New Zealand. The growth on their side could have been defined as scrub. On the left, the side further from the water, it was dotted here and there with scraggy flags of pampas grass.

    The road had noticeably deteriorated, in fact the macadam had entirely run out and the surface was only scattered coarse gravel on dirt.

    “Is this road-metal?” Adam asked cautiously, dredging up the phrase his father had purveyed to him with considerable relish on a drive through the rain the winter he’d been out here.

    “Yes,” said Georgy. “Rod says that on a road like this—” She broke off.

    “What?” said Adam, sighing.

    “Um—well, I was only going to say,” she said, very flushed, “that he says it’s dangerous to, um, go round corners very fast. He did it and they ended in a ditch.”

    “Like those,” said Adam, nodding at one.

    Georgy peered. “Yes.”

    “Fortunately there have so far been no corners,” he noted politely.

    “No,” said Georgy in a squashed voice. “I didn’t mean you were going too fast.”

    Suddenly Adam remembered— He went very red and said: “Are you feeling all right? You will say, if you feel a bit queasy, won’t you?”

    “I’m all right; I’m usually okay in the front, if you don’t go fast and if I can have the window open,” said Georgy, still sounding squashed.

    “And if there are no corners?” he murmured.

    “Yes.”

    Adam drove in silence for a little. Then he said: “This Rod—”

    “Last year he had a language lab at the same time as I had my First-Year lecture—all the First-Year English classes are at Puriri Campus, you see, and so are the language labs—and, um, we usually used to have a cup of coffee afterwards in the Hutch,” said Georgy quickly.

    “The Hutch?” echoed Adam weakly.

    “Um—that’s what they call it!” gasped Georgy. “It’s just a sort of staffroom, really, it’s for anyone, only mostly the Languages and Linguistics people use it.”

    “I see.”

    She added in a small voice: “We’ve got a tea-room—the English Department, I mean—only the secretary always locks it, she’s only part-time, you see, and she goes home early—I don’t know when, but before four o’clock.”

    “Oh, I see. So your class ended at four?”

    “Yes. On Wednesdays.”

    “So you went off to the Hutch instead?”

    “Not exactly… Well, Rod found out our tea-room was locked, you see, so he sort of, um—dragged me, I suppose.”

    “Dragged you into his hutch, mm.”

    “Um—yes. He’s a very straightforward sort of person,” explained Georgy with a little thoughtful frown. “It wouldn’t have occurred to him that I might not want to.”

    “What subject does this straightforward person teach, again?” asked Adam faintly.

    “French,” said Georgy in a small voice.

    “Oh, I see: he belongs to the other faculty, this languages faculty.”

    “Yes, I thought I said.”

    “Well you might have, I got rather muddled,” admitted Adam. “So he’d be in the same department as Jill?”

    “Yes. She said I was mad, the Hutch is for everybody, and Rod should have dragged me along long since,” said Georgy, going very pink.

    “This even although she is a far from straightforward person,” he noted, lips twitching.

    “Mm. Well, she’s got lots of common sense.”

    “Yes. So—er—Rod would drag you into the Hutch and bend your ear on intensely boring, straightforward topics such as vacuum-cleaners and road-metal?” said Adam, lips twitching.

    “Ooh, very good, Adam, you’ve got it at last!” gurgled Georgy.

    “Every Wednesday afternoon?” he murmured-

    “Um—yes. Well, almost.”

    “You—poor—darling!” he choked.

    Georgy returned composedly: “It wasn’t that bad, he’s very beautiful.”

    After a moment during which his ears hummed Adam managed to say: “You used to just switch off and sit there looking at him.”

    “Yes. He’s the sort of person that can talk quite happily for ages without ever realising, um—”

    “That you’re not listening to him—quite.”

    “Mm,” said Georgy, swallowing.

    Adam drove on without speaking for a little. “How old is he?” he said abruptly.

    “Rod? Um—I don’t know. A bit older than me, I suppose.”

    “What does that mean?” he said crossly. “Twenty-eight? Thirty? As old as thirty-two?”

    Georgy replied uncomfortably: “I don’t know, Adam. Not thirty yet, I wouldn’t think. Um—well, he might be. Just.”

    “Let me get this straight. This thirty-ish, straightforward Rod person, who just happens to be very beautiful—boring though he is—has developed the habit of dragging you into his hutch on Wednesday afternoons. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression that Jill wasn’t actually present in the hutch on these occasions?”

    “Look, just let me out now, and I’ll go home!” shouted Georgy, suddenly bright red and furious. “If anybody’s got the right to be jealous, it’s me! You’ve had millions and millions of girlfriends, and I’ve never even kissed Rod!”

    “Millions and millions,” said Adam in a shaken voice.

    “You’re not FUNNY! Let me OUT!” screamed Georgy.

    Adam drew into the side of the road. “I’m sorry,” he said, not looking at her. “I— You’re perfectly correct, I’ve got no right to be jealous of this Rod, and I’m quite sure there—there was never anything between you. I’m sorry, Georgy.”

    Georgy looked dully at the dusty road, from which the last vestiges of the road-metal had now disappeared. “Why are you doing it?” she said in a small voice.

    Adam took off his sunglasses and passed his hand over his face. “I don’t know. Sexual tension? Plus a dose of good old-fashioned sexual jealousy. Plus a dose of sheer nerves.” He swallowed. “Worse than a first night.”

    “You?” cried Georgy in angry amazement. “What have you got to be nervous about? You’ve done it mill—” She broke off abruptly.

    Adam swallowed. “Not with you, though.”

    “Stop LAUGHING!” shouted Georgy.

    He smiled shakily. “I’m only laughing a very little bit. Just because—well, the way you stopped yourself saying—”

    “If you think I’m that funny,” shouted Georgy, “why don’t you go to this rotten bach by yourself?”

    Adam raised his eyebrows. “Rotten? I’m quite sure no bach of the Carranos’ could possibly be—”

    “Stop being so SUPERIOR!” shouted Georgy.

    Adam bit his lip. He fiddled with the steering wheel. Georgy looked at his bent black head uncertainly.

    Finally he said: “I’m terribly sorry, Georgy. I do that when I’m nervous—I did tell you.”

    After a moment Georgy said: “Yes.”

    “Shall we just drive on without speaking at all?” said Adam limply.

    “That might be a good idea,” she agreed faintly. “I won’t— I mean, I’m sorry I mentioned— Well, I didn’t mean to, I don’t know why I…” She gulped. “Yes. Go on,” she said.

    Adam replaced his sunglasses and started the car. He could feel Georgy was glancing at him uncertainly. Suddenly he gripped her denim knee hard and said: “It’ll be all right on the night.”

    “Mm.”

    Smiling just a little, he put his hand back on the wheel and drew carefully out into the rutted, dusty road. He drove on silently.

    After quite some time Georgy said faintly: “You don’t think we’ve come too far, do you, Adam?”

    Adam bit back the obvious reply. Whatever he said seemed to be the wrong thing, and the facetious note was definitely out.

    “I’ve been wondering that,” he admitted weakly.

    “The man in the dairy did say it was quite a long way up the road, didn’t he?”

    His wife had said it was about five kilometres, if Adam remembered rightly, but according the speedometer, she’d been wrong. “Mm.

    “What did Jake say?”

    “He said it was the last house on the right, overlooking the water, before you get to the Reserve.”

    “Oh,” said Georgy blankly. There hadn’t been any other houses at all since the Kingfisher Bay turnoff.

    “I suppose we can only go on. And if we come to this putative Reserve, we’ll know we’ve come too far.”

    “Yes,” said Georgy uncertainly.

    “What in God’s name does a New Zealand reserve look like, anyway?” said Adam, with only a very faint laugh in his voice.

    She swallowed. “Trees, I suppose.”

    “Well, there are some trees ahead,” he said, nodding at them.

    Georgy looked at the low belt of trees dubiously. “Ye-es...”

    “Can a New Zealand reserve possibly be that dull-looking?” said Adam with a definite laugh in his voice.

    “Um—yes. All that bush in Reserve Road in Pohutukawa Bay, that’s, um, a reserve.”

    “Reserve Road?”

    “Across the road from the Community Centre. Sort of, um, to the south. Kind of—um—behind Polly and Jake’s house, I suppose.”

    “The belt of shrubbery on that low hill that shelters the settlement?”

    “Mm.”

    “That’s boring, all right!” said Adam fervently.

    “Um—yes. Well, it’s quite nice when you’re in it. Well, it smells nice,” said Georgy faintly.

    “Mm. Well, based on that evidence, this clump of whatever-it-is in front of us is definitely a reserve.”

    “Ye-es... Well, the land’s so low-lying up here: sort of, um, undulating,” said Georgy dubiously. “Those trees are probably quite big, when you’re close to them.”

    “Yes. That reminds me, have you ever been to that primeval kauri forest with—er—a giant tree?”

    “Tane Mahuta,” said Georgy obscurely. “No. Well, Ngaio and Ross did take me on a trip to the Bay of Islands, and we were going to come home that way, only, um, I was car-sick the day before so, um, Ross thought it might be better to come straight home.”

    “Oh, Lor’,” said Adam simply.

    “Yes, it was awful. Well, Ross is very kind, and he stopped when I asked him to, of course, only—”

    “Only by that time it was far too late, as you’d been silently feeling sick for the past twenty miles,” agreed Adam cordially.

    “Yes. Ross said I was an idiot. And then Petey was sick, too, I think I set him off.”

    “God! Poor Ross and Ngaio.”

    “Yes. So next time they asked to go with them I didn’t.”

    Adam gave a tiny sigh. “No. How long is it since you had a holiday?”

    “Um… Well, I suppose that trip was the last. Why?” said Georgy suspiciously.

    “Just checking,” he murmured.

    Georgy eyed him dubiously but didn’t speak.

    They drove on. The belt of trees got nearer. Then a house appeared on their right.

    “There’s a house!” gasped Georgy as Adam drove straight past it.

   “ A shack. An unpainted shack,” he corrected firmly.

    “Mm. It hasn’t got a garden, either,” she admitted.

    The unpainted wooden bungalow was squatting in a field of coarse dry grass. Not only did it not have a garden, it had no front path—though it did have a short stretch of road-metal on which presumably a car might be parked. A greater contrast to the Carranos’ gracious cream stone mansion on the cliff top at Pohutukawa Bay could scarcely have been imagined. Adam sighed, and drove on.

    ... “Oh, Lor’!” he said, pulling up with a laugh.

    The road had come to an end at a large wooden gate. Next to the gate was one of those smart signs that had begun to sprout lately all over Puriri County. It had the County logo, a stylized silhouette of a puriri tree (which did not have a distinctive shape, it might equally well have been an oak for all the silhouette gave away), in dark green on a background of paler green at the bottom—undulating in the correct fashion—and pale blue above. Neatly lettered on the pale blue at the top of this notice was “Whangaparapara Regional Reserve”. In smaller letters across the pale green at the bottom of the notice was “PCC Parks & Recreation Dept.”

    “Whanga— Is this the right place?” said Adam weakly.

    “I don’t know, I’ve never heard it called that,” replied Georgy, also weakly. “I thought it was just Carter’s Inlet Reserve, or something.”

    Adam looked round for help—a lodge, a forest ranger’s station— There was nothing. Not even a sign pointing to toilets. Just the gate, on it a very small, battered sign which said “Shut the -ate”, further dusty ruts beyond it, and a wire fence on either side of it. With rusty strands of barbed wire amongst its more ordinary fencing wire.

    “Didn’t Jake say people camp here sometimes?” he said faintly.

    “Um—I don’t know.”

    “Could we possibly have taken the wrong road?”

    “I don’t think so. Well, didn’t Polly and Jake say that you had to pass the Kingfisher Bay turnoff?”—Adam nodded mutely.—“Well, we did that, and there wasn’t any other road... Maybe it was the wrong road altogether. Um—I mean, maybe more than one road goes to Kingfisher Bay,” she said in a small voice.

    “This would be quite possible,” he allowed, lips twitching.

    “Ye-es... Not very likely, though, up here,” she admitted.

    “Oh.” Adam got out Melinda’s map. It was quite a new map but that didn’t mean it had the brand-new roundabout on it. He took off his sunglasses and examined it narrowly. Finally he said uncertainly: “Well, according to this there’s only one road along the Inlet, and this is it. –We could try the wooden bungalow.”

    “Mm,” Georgy agreed uneasily.

    “Well, if anyone’s home they might know where we are!” admitted Adam cheerfully, turning the car.

    “I thought it hadn’t been painted at all, but I think it’s got creosote on it,” said Georgy dubiously as they got out of the car and approached the house cautiously. She stumbled on a clump of grass and Adam grabbed her arm. “Thanks!” she gasped.

    “Creosote?” Adam looked at the silvery wood.

    “Ye-es... Well, a while back. Some friends of Jemima and Tom’s, up their road, have got a creosoted house. They explained it. They’re, um, artists.”

    “Or crafts people,” murmured Adam.

    She eyed him uncertainly. “Yes. I mean, he teaches art at Puriri High School, but screen-printing is his actual—um…”

    “Life?”

    “Interest,” said Georgy firmly, frowning. “And she does clay models. And coffee mugs.”

     “Oh,” said Adam, a trifle limply.

    “They re-creosote their house quite often: it’s almost black. Only their garden furniture is very pale, like this.”

    “Oh! I see!”

    “It’s pretty,” said Georgy firmly.

    “Yes, it is, actually,” he agreed. “Almost a driftwood look.”

    “The windowsills have been painted,” she discovered as they reached the house.

    So they had. An unobtrusive dull fawn. So had— “Is this the back door?” he asked.

    “Um... Yes, I think so,” admitted Georgy. “It’s all a lean-to, isn’t it?” she added, looking up at what undoubtedly, architecturally speaking, was the back of the little house.

    “Absolutely!” choked Adam.

    “Come on,” said Georgy determinedly, stepping up to the door. It did have a new-looking concrete step outside it. Did that indicate—well, anything? Apart from the fact that the original step had been eaten by white ants, decided Adam, getting his Antipodean entomology confused.

    Georgy knocked firmly but there was no reply. “Come on,” she said, heading for the corner of the house.

    Adam followed her dubiously.

    “This is pretty!” she said pleasedly, having reached the far side of the house.

    He supposed it was, yes. The field sloped for about twenty yards to the water. There was a little patch of coarse-looking silver sand, then the shallows of the Inlet with a couple of low sandbanks showing and some birds pottering on them without much enthusiasm. Beyond that, more water and quite undoubtedly mangroves. Plus undulating countryside with low forest growth that was only a few shades darker than the mangroves.

    The front of the house—such it evidently was—sported a wide verandah with a flight of shallow wooden steps. There was no front door as such, but there was a set of French doors, flanked by windows, all featuring drawn fawn Holland blinds. The sills, door frames and window frames were again painted dull fawn and all the rest of the woodwork was the silvery shade of aged creosote. The bungalow was, Adam registered dubiously, really a very small house.

    The Carranos’ two-storeyed place in Pohutukawa Bay was huge for a modern house, featuring several wings containing God knew what in the way of suites and nurseries and— Well, you name it. Adam was more than ever convinced that whatever the normal New Zealand notion of a “bach” was—and Christopher had waxed unnecessarily eloquent on the subject—this place could not be the theirs.

    Georgy knocked firmly on the woodwork of the French doors but no-one came. She then tapped on the glass and called “Hullo?” but still no-one came.

    “Where are the keys Jake gave you?” she said.

    “Er—I really don’t think this could possibly be their place,” he said weakly.

    “It can’t hurt to try them,” said Georgy firmly.

    What if an enraged householder turned up just as they were attempting to burgle his house? Oh, dear. Limply Adam gave her the keys.

    Georgy inspected their neat labels. “I bet this is right! Look, this one says ‘French door’ and this one says ‘Back door’—see?”

    “Yes,” said Adam feebly.

    Georgy tried the key that was labelled “French door”. The French door opened immediately. “Ooh!” she gasped, staggering.

    Adam grabbed her elbow.

    “It must be right,” she said.

    “But darling, don’t you think this sort of door could have a key that—” His eyes had adjusted to the dimness in the house and Adam smiled. “Oh, this is it, all right,” he murmured.

    Georgy’s eyes had also adjusted and she said weakly: “It looks more like a house. I mean, not a bach.” She swallowed. “Do you really think...”

    Adam ignored her. He took his sunglasses off and stepped inside. Onto a large, dark crimson Persian rug, one of several, mainly in dark blues, black and crimson, that were scattered on a highly polished golden wood floor. Delicious. The walls of the big room were white-painted hessian and on them there were one or two— Mm, delicious.

    “Adam, it really does look more like a house!” hissed Georgy from the doorway.

    “Silly. It looks like Polly Carrano!” he corrected with a chuckle.

    Georgy took off her sunglasses and came in timidly. She looked round limply. Finally she said, looking at the painting Adam was admiring: “That’s a Don Binney.”

    “Is it? –Open the blinds, would you, darling?”

    Limply Georgy pulled up the blinds.

    “Um—lots of people have got that print,” she muttered. “It’s quite a well-known one.”

    “Come here,” said Adam with a laugh in his voice.

    Georgy came, looking uneasy.

    “It doesn’t look like a print to me,” murmured Adam slyly.

    Georgy peered. It wasn’t.

    “You’re right, this must be their place,” she said limply. She looked round the big room. Its main feature was a huge divan bed with a coverlet in navy blue and crimson with touches of fawn: a heavy Indian cotton print. On this bed were piled a variety of cushions, some in similar prints, some in navy velvet. Which, she saw, looking round the room slowly, matched the curtains at the windows and on either side of the French door. A couple of low single divans, with more cushions, but in a mixture of soft fawn velvet and a heavy fawn cotton that matched their neat tailored covers, were placed under the windows at either side of the French doors. The big bed faced the doors, so as in the morning— Georgy swallowed.

    “This is nice, is it a native hardwood?” asked Adam, examining a heavy carved sideboard against the left-hand wall.

    “Um...” Georgy came over to him shyly. She only knew kauri and rimu and if the rimu wasn’t pretty red she often didn’t spot it. She peered. “Ye-es... Yes, I think it’s kauri: see the faint deckle in the grain?”

    Adam ran his hand along the top of the piece. “Mm. Lovely.” He picked up a large glass bowl and held it up to the light admiringly. “Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

    Georgy looked at him in agony. In the first place she would never have dreamed of picking up an ornament in someone else’s house, and in the second place, what if he dropped it and it fell on the wooden floor and—

    “Mm,” she said, swallowing. “Polly knows a glass-blower who lives—um, well, it’s somewhere up this way. I think that might be one of his. He does a lot of recycled glass, too. Green, mostly.”

    “Mm, they’ve got a few green pieces in the family-room, haven’t they?” he recalled.

    On the evening she’d dined there the Carranos had used their small sitting-room and the small dining-room with the Rococo ceiling, though Jake had shown them the big drawing-room with its Chinoiseries and the main dining-room with its mahogany regimental dining table and full set of antique Spode. So Georgy replied confusedly: “Have they?”

    “Oh, you haven’t seen that room? It’s rather charming. Quite a modern room—not unlike this, it’s got white hessian walls, too. And a polished floor, though I think that might be teak. Is this more kauri?” he asked, squatting.

    “Um—yes, I think so.” Georgy looked round the room again and saw that all the interior woodwork had been stripped and varnished and was also undoubtedly kauri. The bungalow was very typical of its period—it was perhaps ninety years old—but Georgy admitted numbly to herself that although she had seen some nice old bungalows or villas of about the same age—the Michaelses’ sprawling one-storeyed house being a case in point—this was one of the nicest interiors that she’d ever seen.

    “Lovely Persian rugs,” said Adam, stroking one from his vantage point.

    “Yes.” Georgy looked uncertainly at the two varnished doors—one in the righthand wall, the other in the back wall, to the left of the bed as you faced it. “It seems funny to have a bed in the sitting-room,” she murmured eventually.

    Adam got up, smiling. “Not in that position, it doesn’t. They must be able to wake up and look straight over the Inlet—won’t that be nice?”

    “Yes.” Georgy avoided his eye. She approached the door in the right-hand wall and opened it gingerly.

    “The children’s room,” said Adam, looking over her shoulder with a smile.

    “Yes. Isn’t it nice?” said Georgy pleasedly.

    He put a hand gently on her shoulder. “Very nice.”

    It was only a little room, just wide enough for two narrow little beds with cheerful red tubular frames, and between them a small blue rug with a red engine on it. A small varnished pine chest of drawers stood against the white hessian wall and the little beds were covered with gay crochet afghans: one had a navy background and border, and the other dark green. On the wall facing the door the closed curtains were a plain bright yellow. From the ceiling hung a selection of model planes, a couple of small kites, and—

    “Japanese fish?” said Adam, smiling.

    “Yes. For Boys’ Day,” said Georgy, looking up at them in delight. “Aren’t they lovely?”

    One fish was printed in dark blue on white and the other in dark green on white. Adam agreed they were lovely.

    “It’s just right for two little boys,” said Georgy pleasedly.

    “Mm.”

     After a moment she said: “What about Katie Maureen, though?”

    Adam had been wondering that, too. “The other door?” He crossed the main room and opened it, but it led only to the lean-to part of the house: a long, narrow kitchen—very modern, lined in knotty pine, with a bright yellow vinyl floor—plus a minute porch and a narrow green-tiled bathroom which was little more than a shower box with a lavatory fitted into one corner.

    “She must sleep in the main room,” he decided with a little smile.

    “In the same room as her parents?” said Georgy faintly.

    “Why not?”

    Georgy swallowed.

    Adam laughed. “Give me the keys, darling, let’s try the back door.”

    Sure enough, the back door key fitted, so if any further confirmation had been needed that this was the right place, that was it.

    “I’ll bring the car up,” he decided, “and then we can get the bags in.”

    “Yes,” said Georgy in a small voice.

    “Will Dad’s springs take this bloody field, do you think?” he said with a twinkle.

    “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about cars and things,” admitted Georgy, avoiding his eye.

    Adam hadn’t thought for a moment that she did. He’d said it to see what she would say. Well, mostly. And partly because if he was going to ruin Christopher’s springs he felt he needed an accomplice. “Would it be wiser to leave the car on the—er—drive?”

    “Yes,” said Georgy faintly.

    “Why don’t you use the facilities, darling?” he murmured.

    “Um—yes,” croaked Georgy.

    Adam glanced at the blush with a little smile, and went out of the back door. He wasn’t in the least surprized to hear Georgy firmly close the bathroom door.

     Georgy went into the little tiled bathroom with her cheeks very red. Toilets again! It was awful, really awful. She sat limply on the pale green toilet that toned beautifully with the tiny pale green tiles that completely covered the walls, floor and ceiling of the little bathroom. What if one person needed to go while another person was having a shower? The shower had no curtains... Probably no-one worried, when the children were that small... There wasn’t a lock on the door, either. Even though only Georgy and her mother lived in their house there was a lock on both their toilet door and their bathroom door and they both always locked these doors. Georgy was so strung up, what with nerves and no lock on the door and no shower curtains that even though she needed to, it was an appreciable time before she could relax enough to pee.

    When she came back into the kitchen Adam had his head in the fridge.

    “It’s a very small basin,” she said.

    “Mm—I think if the Persian rugs and the other delightful furnishings hadn’t already convinced me it was the Carranos’ place, that green bathroom would have done it,” he murmured. He straightened, and turned to smile at her.

    “Why?” said Georgy numbly.

    “It’s got what Polly refers to as ‘one of Jake’s bright ideas’ written all over it. Is the back of the door actually tiled?”

    “Yes. The handle’s sort of—um—ceramic, too,” admitted Georgy.

    “Of course. Well, given that and the quite deliciously variegated tones of green of those tiny tiles!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yes. Is the fridge going?” she asked abruptly.

    “I’m not sure. Its light didn’t come on when I opened it.”

    Georgy investigated round the back of the fridge. She found a switch and a plug. “Um—I don’t think it’s plugged in. Shall I try it?”

    “Yes,” said Adam.

    She plugged the plug in gingerly and, wincing a bit, switched on. The fridge emitted a rumble and then settled down to a purr. Its inside light had come on, too.

    “It’s going,” said Adam in some relief.

    “Yes. The magic electricity has to come through the wires,” said Georgy, smiling shyly at him.

    “Ooh, is that how they work!” he discovered with a laugh. “Come here, what about some magic electricity for me?”

    “What?” said Georgy confusedly.

    Adam laughed. He drew her very gently against him. “Mmm... When Georgy’s front is against my front,” he said in her ear, pressing against her belly, “the magic electricity hums right through me, and this old fellow switches on.”

    “Oh,” said Georgy in a small voice into his shoulder.

    “Actually,” admitted Adam into her hair: “he switches on if you merely walk into a room.”

    “Oh!” said Georgy in confusion.

    “Do you get—er—excited in my presence?” he murmured.

    There was a short silence.

    “Yes,” said Georgy grumpily.

    “That’s a relief!” he said with a laugh, hugging her to him.

    “I bet—” Georgy broke off.

    “You bet millions of ladies do,” said Adam, grinning.

    “Yes,” she admitted sourly.

    “I don’t want millions of ladies—or even any ladies; in fact I don’t want a lady at all, I want Georgy,” he said into her hair.

    Georgy replied into his shirt: “That’s just as well, Mum’s given up on ever making a lady out of me.”

    “I think Dad might have mentioned that,” he admitted, smiling.

    “Help, does it show?” said Georgy with a sudden giggle.

    He put one hand gently under her chin and tilted her face up to his. “Yes, it does, actually—thank God. But I gather you mentioned it to him. Something to do with genteel morning teas?”

    “Oh! Yes! The day he gave me the nectarine,” remembered Georgy with a reminiscent smile.

    Adam looked at the tender smile and was swept by a consuming wave of jealousy. His whole body felt as if it had clenched and his ears were abruptly burning hot.

    “What’s the matter?” asked Georgy in amazement.

    He swallowed. “Nothing.”

    “You looked... awful,” she finished shakily.

    “I felt awful. Jealous of Aged P.,” he said with a grimace.

    Her jaw sagged. “Jealous—”

    “You’ve got a damn sight more in common with him, take him for all in all, the sarcastic old bugger, than you have with me,” he said sourly.

    “You’re mad!” said Georgy with conviction.

    He gave a shaken laugh. “I’m very glad you think so! Look, could this jealous madman kiss you?”

    “Yes,” said Georgy shyly, holding up her face.

    He kissed her gently. “I think we’d better go to bed and get it over with, don’t you?”

    Georgy gulped.

    “Polly assures me the place is very private, but I’ll lock the doors and close the blinds if you’d feel—” She was nodding, so he went off to do so.

     When he came back she was still just standing limply in the kitchen.

    “What about the things from the car?” she said faintly.

    “The bags are in the other room.”

    “No—um—the food,” said Georgy, looking round her in a bewildered way.

    “Damn that. Come here.” Adam pulled her against him. “Why don’t I take off all these horrid clothes?” he said into her hair. “Well, charming clothes, but Georgy without ’em ’ud be nicer.”

    “Mine?” said Georgy limply.

    “Mm. Come into the bedroom, darling.” He propelled her firmly into the main room with an arm round her shoulders. It would not have been true to say that she resisted him, but on the other hand she didn’t exactly help, either.

    Adam had already pulled the coverlet off the bed, which was made up. Undoubtedly in these hot summers it was quite safe to leave it so. The sheets were navy cotton: rather nice, that was going to be, with a pale Georgy against them. He kissed her gently. He didn’t flatter himself that she responded with any enthusiasm, though.

    “It’ll be all right,” he said into her ear.

    “Yes,” said Georgy in a wooden voice.

    Adam smiled to himself. He pulled her jeans zip down gently.

    “I can,” said Georgy in the thread of a voice.

    “Yes, but it gives me considerable pleasure to do it for you,” he said sedately.

    “Oh,” she said blankly.

    He began edging the jeans down. Georgy gritted her teeth.

    “Nice knickers,” he said conversationally.

    Georgy already felt bemused but now she felt even more so because “knickers” was a word she’d only read in books. “Only cotton,” she said.

    “Mm,” said Adam, kneeling with the jeans at her feet. “Does nylon give you the itchy horribles?”

    “Yes,” said Georgy in a stifled voice, going scarlet.

    “Me, too,” said Adam cheerfully. “Step out, darling.”

    Georgy stepped numbly out of her sandals and jeans. “How can men get—” She stopped.

    “Well, not up the orifice,” admitted Adam, kissing her left knee quickly, “but itchy horribles round the balls are not fun, I do assure you.”

    “No,” said Georgy faintly as her ears sang. She’d known before that some men were—well, coarse. But she’d thought that Adam— How could they talk about that sort of thing as if they liked it?

    Adam kissed her knee again. He was quite aware of the sort of thoughts she was thinking and in fact Bill Michaels’s words on a closely associated subject flitted through his mind. He smiled to himself. Then he knelt up and leaned his cheek against the darker patch on Georgy’s plain white knickers.

    After a few seconds she swallowed loudly.

    “Is this Hellishly embarrassing for you?” he murmured dreamily.

    “Yes!” said Georgy, rather more loudly than she’d meant to.

    “It’s wonderful for me,” he murmured dreamily.

   Georgy’s ears burned and she felt very cross. She might have said something rather loud and cross only then he turned his head so his face was right against her and sniffed!

    She gasped and jerked away from him in horror and Adam looked up at her with a little laugh and said with a pout: “I was enjoying that!”

    Georgy just goggled at him bemusedly.

    He stood up with a grin. “Aren’t men odd creatures?” he said conversationally, unbuckling the first of the trendy little straps at his waist.

    “Yes. –No!” she gasped, turning puce.

    “I’m not a particularly weird specimen, you know,” he murmured, unbuckling the second little strap and making a mental note that these pants were a damned nuisance.

    “I wasn’t thinking that!” she gasped.

    “Liar,” he said conversationally, sliding his zip down.

    Georgy just goggled at him like a transfixed rabbit.

    Adam didn’t remove the pants. He stepped up very close and hugged her. “Nice,” he said into the auburn curls. Georgy didn’t reply. He put his hands at her waist and began sliding the apricot tee-shirt up. “Arms up!” he said with a laugh in his voice. Georgy held her arms up obediently. She also closed her eyes.

    “You can open your eyes, now,” he said with a chuckle.

    “Yes,” she said faintly, opening them and determinedly not looking down at her own chest.

    “Lovely,” murmured Adam, getting a hand under each. He squeezed very gently. “Just the right size,” he murmured.

    “Are they?” she said faintly.

    “Mm. I like the shape, too: perky. Tell you what!” he said with a gurgle: “let’s call ’em Pinky and Perky!”

    “What? Oh, The Good Life!” said Georgy, very flustered.

    “Mm. Darling little Pinky,” said Adam, kissing one nipple gently. “And darling little Perky.” He kissed the other. Then he got just a trifle carried away and sucked it rather hard and endeavoured to get a hand between Georgy’s thighs, but Georgy locked her legs together.

    “It is normal, you know,” he said mildly.

    “Yes,” she said faintly, still locking her legs together.

    Adam didn’t insist. He just stroked her thighs gently and nuzzled Pinky and Perky. After a little while Georgy quivered against him.

    “Let me?” he whispered.

    Georgy gulped, croaked: “All right,” and parted her thighs just a little.

    Adam’s hand crept up over the inner silk. His knees shook slightly. The knickers were quite steamy and he admitted to himself that this was one Hell of a relief to him. He stroked the hot, damp patch gently. After a while she trembled again.

    “Darling,” he said, sucking Perky hard, and repressing the urge to get himself out and get her hand on him.

    Georgy swallowed.

    He eased a finger under the knicker elastic.

    “Don’t scratch me,” she said in a high, scared voice.

    “No,” he murmured against Perky. He stroked the hair very gently, not trying to penetrate her.

    After he’d done this for quite some time Georgy said in a very high voice: “It makes me feel all peculiar!”

    He kissed her lips softly. “Yes,” he said. “It’s supposed to. I think we might take these silly knickers off, and take all my clothes off, and get into this lovely big bed now, don’t you?”

    “All right,” said Georgy gruffly, avoiding his eye.

    He knelt and eased the knickers off her. The view was wonderful, she was dark auburn down there! It was all he could do not to shove his face in there immediately. He stood up, unaware that his lips were tightly compressed and his nostrils flared.

    “Are you cross?” she said in a timid little voice.

    “What? No! –Oh,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Did I look—?” She nodded dumbly. “Restraining meself,” he explained with a grimace.

    “Oh,” she said blankly.

    “Did the unlamented Mr Ramsay, amongst other horrible things, attempt to kiss you down there?” asked Adam, unbuttoning his shirt.

    “No,” she said in a puzzled voice.

    “Has anybody ever kissed you down there?”

    “No. Is this a joke?” said Georgy cautiously.

    He swallowed hard. “No. Um—hop on the bed, darling.”

    She sat on the edge of the bed.

    “Get into it,” he said, kicking off his sandals and stepping out of his trousers.

    Very flustered, she scrambled into the bed, somehow managing to afford Adam—and he was watching very carefully—not even the most fleeting glimpse of her cunt.

    Grinning to himself, he removed his underpants, not unaware that the lady of his choice was lying rigid on her back with the sheet pulled up to her chin and her eyes squeezed shut.

    He got into bed beside her and without any ado wrenched the sheet off her.

    Georgy’s eyed opened and she looked up at him dumbly.

    “Some gents would be a trifle off-put if the lady of their choice went as stiff as stone and covered her bod with the bedding at the first hint of S,E,X,” he noted cheerfully.

    “First hint!” she cried scornfully.

    “No, well, second or third, maybe,” he murmured, stroking Pinky and Perky gently. “I’m made of sterner stuff, though,” he assured her.

    “What?”

    “Well, look!” said Adam with a laugh.

    She stared into his eyes.

    “No—give me your hand.” He took her hand and placed it on his cock.

    “Christ!” he gasped, falling against her shoulder. “Hold me, Georgy!” he panted into the cloud of curls.

    Georgy held him obediently. Not to say politely. Was it that she didn’t know, or needed to be told or— Something like that, mm. “Rub it a bit, darling, it’s nicer when you—um—stimulate me,” he said.

    “Um—like this?” Georgy rubbed him awkwardly.

    It was Paradise, though, and Adam put his mouth on hers and gasped: “Yes! Oh, darling!” and kissed her energetically and squeezed one of them—he’d lost track of whether it was Pinky or Perky—rather hard.

    Georgy felt very bewildered and rather squashed. She rubbed him obediently, thinking it was very rubbery: an odd sensation. She kissed him back but didn’t feel aroused, only very, very nervous because soon he would undoubtedly do it, and everyone—well, certainly Jill and certainly Ngaio, and even Joel, over the back fence, which had been dreadfully embarrassing, though very nice of him—had said she must make sure he used a condom. And Georgy was sure the embarrassment of having to remind him was going to kill her. Well, nearly. And she hadn’t the faintest what she was supposed to do when he did it. Just—just—sort of... Lie there? And think of England! she thought madly, though with a suspicion that she might have to.

    Adam stopped kissing her at last and pulled her strongly against him and said in her ear: “Oh, Georgy! That was so nice!”

    “Yes,” said Georgy, ceasing to rub him and removing her hand politely.

    “No, keep doing that,” said Adam with a tiny groan, groping for her hand.

    When Mr Ramsay had demanded this service Georgy had thought he must be a bit sexually retarded or something. Now she was very confused indeed and wondered if Adam was, too. Or did they all...? She wished very much there was someone she could ask. Weren’t grown-up men only supposed to want—you know—to do it properly?

    “God, that’s nice!” gasped Adam, with his hand on top of hers as she rubbed him.

    “Is it?” said Georgy faintly.

    “Mmm... Ooh!” he gasped at last, hurriedly shoving her hand away. “Too good, darling!” he said with a shaky laugh, sitting up and smiling dazedly at her.

    “What?” said Georgy, looking up at him and thinking in a very muddled way that he was beautiful, really, anyway his shoulders were and his chest... Only it was a pity he had to... stick out like that, it was sort of grotesque, really, it sort of spoil the—the picture. No, the line. It spoilt the line. “What?” she asked groggily.

    “I said, it got too nice,” said Adam, seizing her little hand and kissing it. “Mmm... I’d have come if you’d done that much more, darling.”

    “Oh.”

    “Let me do something nice for you,” he said with a twinkle.

    “All right,” said Georgy gloomily, lying on her back.

    Smiling, he straddled her.

    “Don’t do anything without a condom,” said Georgy in a strangled voice with her eyes shut.

    “I’m not going to do anything for ages yet that requires a condom,” replied Adam, a laugh in his voice.

    She squinted up at him uncertainly.

    “You’ll see.” He bent and nuzzled Pinky and Perky again. “I’m enjoying this, I don’t know if you are,” he murmured after some time.

    “Um—yes,” said Georgy uncertainly.

    Adam moved his face between the pair of them. They were deliciously soft—silky... Would it be better for her if he did just get in there and get it over with? No-o... No, probably confirm her conviction that all men were chauvinist brutes like Mr Ramsay, and only wanted horrible things! No, better see if he could show her a  thing or two, first. Besides, this was lovely: she had a beautiful body, and it was the loveliest colour, palest pink against the navy sheets. With that incredible deep auburn patch—practically mahogany. Pity she shaved her underarms, must ask her not to, he thought, nuzzling, and putting a hand gently on the bush. He heard Georgy swallow, and smiled a little against Perky—or possibly Pinky. Then he began some very scientific kissing, which very, very gradually got lower and lower, until he was nuzzling her little belly, which was not entirely flat but a delightful little mound.

    “Mmm,” he murmured, pushing his face right into the yielding little belly.

    After a while she touched his head very gently.

    “Yes,’’ said Adam in a muffled voice: “touch me, darling. Hold my shoulders, or stroke my hair—anything you feel like.”

    She stroked his head timidly.

    Adam sighed deeply. He licked the little dimple.

    “Ooh!” gasped Georgy as her belly spasmed.

    “God,” he muttered as his body leapt in response. “Georgy, darling,” he said, slipping a hand between the thighs. He stroked that silky patch of skin very gently, and slowly kissed his way down further... At last his mouth was against the wiry auburn bush. Adam lay and panted for a moment or two. Then he stroked those inner silky thighs a little more and pushed them further apart, just a little. Then he nuzzled into her…

    Georgy felt confusedly that it ought to be terribly embarrassing, he had his face right down there. Only she didn’t feel embarrassed any more, exactly. It had been embarrassing when her tummy did that thing, she had expected Adam to laugh or something, only when he hadn’t, when he’d—sort of been pleased, or something—she’d felt— She didn’t know what she’d felt, only it was sort of happy. And now she felt very hot and trembly down there and she was wondering what on earth he was going to do next, and hoping he’d keep stroking her legs, it was lovely when he did that—

    “Oh!” she squeaked as his tongue snaked its way into her hair. “What are you—? Stop it!”

    Adam ignored this. He parted the lips gently and touched his tongue to her clit. Georgy’s body jolted sharply and her pelvis shot up towards him and she gave a tiny shriek.

    “Yes,” he said, raising his head and smiling at her: “that’s what I’m doing, darling Georgy. Isn’t it lovely?”

    “Yes,” whispered Georgy, staring at him wide-eyed.

    “It’s quite normal,” said Adam softly, tenderly stroking her leg.

    “Is it?” she whispered.

    “Mm. And I love doing it, so I hope you like having it done.”

    She gulped, and nodded.

    “Good! I’ll get on with it, then.”

    He teased her a little and very soon Georgy cried: “Oh! Oh! Oh, Adam; oh, Adam!” and grabbed his shoulders. She wasn’t quite coming, so Adam quickly pushed the thighs apart a bit more and got his tongue up there, at the same time suppressing with all his might his own urge to come, Georgy was tremendously exciting.

    “OH!” she shrieked.

    Adam did it very gently and she moaned: “O-oh...” on a long-drawn note and held his shoulders tightly. Then he tried jiggling it around a bit. By now his balls were aching and felt as if they weighed a ton and he was sure his tip had actually swelled with the effort to hold it in—oh, Georgy!

    Georgy gave a series of little gasps; then she suddenly gave a shriek, thrust herself at him and came furiously, while he slid a finger up her and gritted his teeth like crazy.

    When she was limp and sweaty he lay down shakily beside her, pushed the hair off her forehead and kissed her ear very gently and whispered: “I love you, darling Georgy. That was wonderful, having you come for me like that.”

    “Yes,” said Georgy, opening her eyes and staring at him in wonder.

   There was a little silence, while Adam’s heart hammered wildly.

    “How did you know to do all those things?” she said faintly.

    “Experience, I suppose. And—well, I was partly judging by your reactions,” said Adam, smiling a bit. He sat up and groped for the packet of condoms.

    “Uh—Georgy,” he said, looking with distaste at the rubber in his hand: “there’s no reason under God’s good sky why you should believe me, but if I swear I haven’t got AIDS—or anything else catching—and if it’s a safe time of the month—could I please do it without this damn thing? Please?”

    After a moment Georgy said: “Um—well, what would be a safe time of the month?”

    Adam swallowed. “Er—well, when did you have your last period, darling?” he said, very gently, cupping her chin.

    She looked up at him dubiously. “It only ended on Thursday. That’s safe, isn’t it?”

    “Yes. Thank God!” he said devoutly. He straddled her and kissed her, probing for her blindly.

    Georgy gave little squeak and he gasped: “I’m sorry! I’ve been holding back like crazy, I want you so much—hold me tight, Georgy!”

    “Yes,” said Georgy, hugging him fiercely with her slender arms. Adam panted a little and probed a little without effect and then had to get a hand down and guide himself—

    “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m not used to it,” she whispered.

    “Yes!” he gasped. “Uh—oh, God!” he gasped as he touched her. “Put your legs further apart, darling!” he gasped.

    Georgy put her legs apart obediently.

    “Knees up,” said Adam through his teeth.

    Georgy raised her knees and Adam groaned a little and probed and slid in and cried: “GOD!”

    Georgy gave a little squeak and clutched him convulsively.

    “All right?” he said, gritting his teeth.

    “Yes.”

    Adam was very still in her. Finally he said with an effort: “All right? Doesn’t hurt?”

    “No, it’s fine,” said Georgy with some relief.

    He gave a tiny laugh and then a tiny groan and began to move in her. It was miraculously good and he gasped: “Hold me! Tell me you love me, Georgy!”

    Georgy held him very tightly and even though she felt embarrassed at having to say it, was glad he wanted her to, said shyly: “I love you, Adam.”

    And Adam’s whole body became one surge of—he couldn’t have said, certainly then but even later, whether it was triumph or love or both, but it was certainly lust as well, and he thrust madly and yelled and exploded in a great shower of triumphant fireworks...

    “Was that all right?” said Georgy uncertainly an aeon later.

    “Mm,” he said into her shoulder. Georgy attempted to keep very still and to go on hugging him, but these were both difficult because she couldn’t breathe; so after some time of agony she said very politely: “Adam, you’re squashing me.”

    “Wha’? Oh—sorry!” he gasped, rolling off her. He gathered her closely against his side and said into the hair: “Wasn’ all ri’, was won’ful, shatt’ring.”

    “Good,” said Georgy.

    Suddenly she gave a huge yawn and Adam smiled a little and, recovering the power of speech, murmured: “Thank you, darling. I hate doing it with a bloody rubber. Though I could count the times I’ve done it without one on the fingers of one hand!” he admitted with a rather bitter laugh.

    “Could you? But what about your wife?” murmured Georgy in bewilderment.

    “I doubt very much if Claudia would let the Prince of Wales do it without a condom,” said Adam, kissing her ear, “but be that as it may, she certainly only let me twice.”

    “Twice?” gasped Georgy.

    “Mm. I think one was in order to convince me I ought to marry her, and the other was in order to persuade me to commit myself to a huge mortgage which at the time I couldn’t afford.”

    “Help,” said Georgy faintly.

    “My bank manager’s very words!” he said cheerfully.

    She gave a startled giggle.

    “It’s taken a long time,” said Adam thoughtfully, “but I’ve come to the conclusion that what was wrong with that marriage was that Claudia didn’t much like sex and she didn’t like me at all.”

    “I’m awfully sorry, Adam,” said Georgy in a tiny voice.

    “Thank you, darling. I was awfully sorry, too, for ages. Now I’m just bloody glad it’s all over and done with!” He groped for the sheet and wiped himself perfunctorily. When he glanced at her he saw that she was goggling at him.

    “Can you feel my spunk inside you?” he murmured.

    There was a short pause while Georgy did mental translations and filed a new word. “Yes,” she agreed thoughtfully. “I think it’s trickling out.”

    “Mm. It dries very quickly—gets uncomfortable in the creases.”

    She went very pink, glanced down at him, then blurted: “It’s wonderful how it—you know!”

    “Er—gets all stiff, shoots it out into you, fills you up, then, er, gets”—he pulled it out a little and wiped it again—“very limp and creased?”

    “Help! Yes!” she gasped. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

    “No!” he choked, laughing helplessly.

    “Well, I think it’s miraculous!” said Georgy on a cross note.

    “Yes,” said Adam, kissing her cheek. “Miraculous.” He lay down with a sigh and pulled her against him, closing his eyes.

    Georgy snuggled into his shoulder. “You shouted a lot,” she said.

    “Mm-hm. So did you.”

    “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

    “Lovely. Very flattering. Hell of a turn-on, too,” he murmured with a yawn.

    “Are you very tired, Adam?”

    “Shattered.”

    “So am I,” said Georgy, also yawning.

    “Mm. Go ’sleep,” he murmured.

    She pulled the sheet over them both and yawned again.

    When Adam woke up she wasn’t there. He had a moment’s idiotic panic and then he heard the lavatory flush and grinned to himself. Then he took a bet with himself—

    Sure enough, when she came in she was fully clad, though not in the jeans and tee-shirt he’d expected her to get back into.

    “What is it?” he said faintly.

    “It’s a housecoat, Aunty Christine gave it to me for Christmas: isn’t it horrible?” replied Georgy pleasedly.

    It was, indeed. A cotton garment featuring a selection of murky green cabbages on a white background. The collar was edged with a frill of green ribbon that didn’t match any of the greens in the pattern, and the bodice was decorated with a similar frill. The large, plain green buttons down the front were of course a different shade again. Adam took a second look at these buttons and decided they were seconds from a Burberry-button factory.

    “Get rid of it,” he said, closing his eyes with a wince. “Donate it to Joel, or something.”

    “Is that an order?” asked Georgy with a giggle.

    He opened his eyes again and smiled. “No, not my style. It’s a plea. Please, please, darling angel Georgy, get rid of that truncated monstrosity!”

    “It is a bit short,” agreed Georgy, glancing down at it. It came to her knees. Just. “Aunty Christine said it was far too long, so she took it up for me, but I think she took it up a bit much.”

    “I don’t want to know,” sighed Adam.

    “Aunty Christine said it’s a very practical garment,” noted Georgy.

    “Yes: replaces all other forms of birth control known to mankind,” agreed Adam in a hollow voice.

    She gave a giggle but said: “It’s not that bad, is it?”

    “Worse.”

    “I haven’t got another summer dressing-gown,” she said simply, sitting down on the edge of the bed and twinkling at him.

    Adam’s face was all smiles. In the past, certain other ladies had gone to great lengths to adorn their bodies, even if only briefly, with the appropriate drapings for weekends or weeks or even just nights with Adam McIntyre.

    “Of course, what I really need,” she said thoughtfully, “is a lacy black nylon negligée.”

    “With red satin bows at strategic intervals: God, yes!” He gave a yelp of laughter, and told her all about Livia’s appalling Christmas pen ad.

    “Awesome,” decided Georgy in a strong American accent.

    Adam winced. “If that’s out of that Ninja Turtles thing, you can drop it; or else we can end this dirty week away here and now,” he offered.

    “You haven’t—”

    “Of course I haven’t seen it! No, Joel and I were plagued by ads for Ninja turtles, kids dressed as Ninja turtles, kids sporting dangerous weaponry à la Ninja turtles, and objects in the shape of Ninja turtles all across America. Well, actually it started at Heathrow,” he remembered.

    “Help, and I thought I’d been victimized just because I had to take Petey and Denny to it!”

    “Surely their parents—”

    “That was the first time, Adam!” said Georgy with huge scorn.

    Adam laughed helplessly. “Come here!” he gasped at last. He gathered her into his arms, vile cabbagey housecoat and all. “Mmm!” he said, kissing her enthusiastically.

    Suddenly Georgy threw her arms round him and said with a little sob: “I love you, Adam!”

    “Mm, me too,” said Adam into the curls at her neck. “Nothing to cry about.”

    “No,” said Georgy, sniffing a bit. “It’s a bit scary, that’s all.”

    “Mm,” Adam agreed vaguely, getting a hand inside the housecoat. Those buttons were placed far enough apart, that was one good thing about it, he noted. ‘‘Ooh, these are still here!” he discovered.

    “Yes,” said Georgy faintly.

    Chuckling, Adam pushed her back against the pillows and began unbuttoning the housecoat. Georgy looked up at him doubtfully.

    “There they are! My Pinky and Perky!” he said pleasedly. He nuzzled them a bit.

    “Do you like doing that now?” she said faintly.

    “Mm-mm! –Oh, I see what you mean,” he said, looking up with a smile. “Yes, definitely: before, during, after, in-between, any time. Don’t have to have any serious intentions at all to enjoy this!” He looked at them again. “These,” he corrected himself, getting down to it again. This time Georgy hugged him gently, so maybe she’d got the point.

    “Nice?” he said eventually, resting on his elbow and smiling at her.

    “Yes, lovely,” she sighed.

    “Good.” Adam kissed her gently. “Lunch?” he suggested.

    “What? Oh! Help, we haven’t had any, have we?”

    “No, but don’t let me force you. Of course, I may just faint from hunger—”

    “You look pretty fit to me,” she said sturdily.

    “Yes, but darling, I’ve just lost a lot of protein!” he complained.

    “Pro— Ooh!” squeaked Georgy, clapping a hand over her mouth and goggling at him over the hand.

    Adam raised his eyebrows. “So they tell me,” he drawled.

    “Is it really?” said Georgy, taking the hand away but still goggling at him.

    “I’m no scientist, just purveying a popular myth,” explained Adam kindly.

    “I suppose it’s logical,” she said faintly.

    He rolled off the bed and stood up, grinning. “Either that or a popular myth, mm.”

    “Yes,” gulped Georgy, now very pink.

    “You can look,” he said with a twinkle.

    She peeked, gulped again, and looked hurriedly away.

    “Shall I make some coffee?” he asked, stretching.

    “Yes, that’d be nice. Um—did you say you’d brought some beans?” said Georgy faintly, not looking at him.

    “Yes.”

    “Beans? I mean, not ground?”

    “Uh—no,” said Adam, staring at her and thinking “Cheese Shop”.

    “What if Polly and Jake haven’t got a coffee grinder?”

    Adam’s long mouth twitched a little. “Then we’ll have to drive all the way down to Puriri and buy one at The Kitchen Shoppe,” he said, pronouncing it “Shoppy”. “Will it be open on a Saturday?”

    “Yes,” said Georgy faintly.

    “I’m sure they have, darling, in fact I asked Polly: they have,” he admitted, relenting.

    “Oh, good.”

    “I suppose if I’m going to make coffee I’d better put some clothes on,” he said sadly.

    “Or an apron!” squeaked Georgy—not looking at him, though.

    “That’s better!” he said with a laugh. She peeked up at him and smiled, and Adam’s heart did something very odd.

    “Thank you for coming up here to the bach with me, Georgy.”

    “That’s all right,” she said shyly.

    Adam smiled. He found his discarded linen trousers and pulled them on.

    “What about your underpants?” said Georgy faintly—so even though she hadn’t appeared to be looking at him, she must have been.

    “What about them?”

    She swallowed. “Is this typical macho post-coital behaviour?”

    “You can drop that, Petal! –No, I think it must be!” he admitted, going out.

    In the kitchen he belatedly remembered that he hadn’t brought the containers of food in with the rest of the bags, so he now retrieved them.

    “Yes, well: quiche, bacon and egg pie, peach pie, or,”—he investigated—“squashed Brie?”

    “I’m quite hungry,” discovered Georgy.

    “I’m ravenous! Er—does one heat up bacon and egg pie?”

    There was a short silence.

    “Almost definitely not!” said Georgy with a smothered giggle.

    “Ooh, ’eck. Ring up your ma and ask her?”

     Georgy went very red.

    “What?” he said mildly.

    “Um— I sort of— I didn’t actually lie!” she gasped. Adam goggled at her. “I sort of let her believe there wasn’t a phone here!” she gasped.

    Adam gave a delighted shout of laughter. He grabbed her and pulled her against him. “Ooh, I love you!” he said. “Cabbagey housecoat n’ all!

    “Me, too,” said Georgy, putting her arms round his waist. “You feel nice,” she reported. “Sort of—um muscly, I suppose.”

    “It’s all those ballay exercises,” he said in her ear.

    “I know: it was in that magazine.”

    “Hasn’t made me bum too pouty, I hope?”

    “Definitely not.”

    After a moment Adam said weakly: “Have you actually noticed?”

    “I always notice men’s—” Georgy hesitated. “—bums,” she finished bravely.

    Adam smiled. By the end of the week he’d get her to say “piss”, too! Probably not without blushing, of course! “Must be a real woman, then,” he said into the curls.

    “No! The direct opposite!”

    He gave a yelp of laughter.

    Georgy looked up at him, beaming. “I made you laugh!” she said pleasedly. “I meant to, and you did!”

     Adam bit his lip. “Hell, have I been an irritating superior idiot, darling?”

    “Um—only a bit,” said Georgy, peeping at him naughtily.

    Adam laughed a little and held her very tight. “Well, ring Ma about this pie?” he said eventually. “Swear her to secrecy over the phone number.” He looked at her face. “Not if you’d rather I didn’t, darling,” he added in some surprize.

    “It isn’t— Not the phone number!” she gasped.

    “What, then?” said Adam gently.

    Georgy went very red and said pleadingly: “Couldn’t it be just us this week?”

    “Mistakes over pies an’ all?” he said with his sidelong smile. “Yes, darling, it could, if that’s what you want.”

    “Yes,” said Georgy gratefully. “It is.”

    So they had a week of just them. Slightly interspersed with a couple of trips to Carter’s Bay, including a visit to the pub for which Adam wore sneakers and jeans, with a very ordinary blue tee-shirt, blending rather successfully into the scenery, plus a visit on the Thursday evening to the air-conditioned Royal Kingfisher Hotel where Adam, who had insisted Georgy pack her pretty silver dinner dress for just this sort of purpose, wore his white Hawaiian tux and fed her on “Papaye tropicale” (Georgy’s choice), overdone fillet steak with a mango sauce (Georgy’s choice) and “Millefeuille à la Kingfisher,” which they discovered was actually standard New Zealand pavlova, only with three sorts of fruit on it. This was in the up-market Te Waikare-o-te-Kararuha Room, which Georgy said dubiously didn’t sound like real Maori to her, but no, she couldn’t explain why. It was air-conditioned, and like the less expensive Hongi Heke room of costly pizza fame, very cold, but Adam had solved that: on the previous day he’d taken her for a casual drive during which he’d managed to find his way to the crafts shop that Polly had recommended, where he’d bought Georgy a delicate fluffy white mohair shawl with a silver thread through it. Ignoring her strong protests.

    They had only one visitor: a thin man in a limp tee-shirt and elderly jeans who turned out to be the American who ran the boating-supplies place in Kingfisher Bay brought them some fresh flounder one morning. Tactfully around elevenish.

    “Isn’t he lovely?” said Georgy enthusiastically as they stood on the shore, waving at his disappearing runabout. (It was: Adam had asked him.)

    “Delightful,” he agreed. Sol Winkelmann—such being his very American name—had turned to be highly intelligent and possessed of a lively sense of humour—not to say apparently devoid of illusions of any sort.

    “How on earth does he manage, up here, though?” she wondered, frowning over it. “There can’t be many people for him—um—well, to talk to.”

    “No, well, he mentioned he’d brought all his books out, didn’t he? And I think he’s the sort of person who has considerable inner resources,” he said thoughtfully. “And also the sort who fits an incredible amount of physical activity into his day as well,” he added. “Well, judging by his description of his fishing and flat-decorating activities, not to mention his retail business!”

    “Yes, I see what you mean,” she said slowly.

    Adam sighed a little. “The sort of person who plunges into productive activity if he ever does get depressed,” he murmured.

    “Yes, I’d think he was that sort, too,” she agreed. “Don’t you?” she added timidly.

    “No, I’m the opposite. I become almost totally motionless, mentally and physically, when I’m in the dumps.”

    “Mm. I suppose I never really have been,” Georgy admitted. “I always seem to read if there’s nothing I actually have to do.”

    “Yes,” he said, putting his arm round her and laying his cheek on the auburn head. “I’m glad you’ve never been really depressed, Georgy, it’s horrid.”

    “Yes,” she said softly. After a moment she put her arm round his waist and squeezed it.

    “I’d say he was really content with his way of life,” he murmured. “It must have been quite a big thing for him, deciding to move out here.”

    Georgy nodded hard. “Mm.”

    “It counts for a lot, being happy with what you do,” he murmured.

    “Yes.”

    “Like your friends Jemima and Tom,” he murmured, squeezing her a little.

    “Yes,” said Georgy again, pinkening.

    “Would you like to live their sort of life?” he murmured.

    “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “I suppose it depends on the other person,” she said in a low voice.

    “Mm: it would have to be what you both wanted.”

    “Yes.” Georgy hesitated again and then said in a voice that shook slightly: “Are you happy with your way of life, Adam?”

    “I—” Adam broke off, frowning. “Fundamentally, yes,” he admit-ted slowly. “Now that I’ve more or less shaken off the Hollywood thing—yes. Acting is what I want to do, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

    “Yes,” she said softly.

    “Are you happy with what you do, Georgy?”

    “I don’t know,” admitted Georgy honestly. “I’m very busy all the time, but… I did want to do my degree, I was desperate to do it.”

    “Mm,” he said thoughtfully, remembering something Polly had said to the frightful Phyllis at the Royal. “I can understand that.”

    “Only… I don’t know. Teaching is quite a challenge, I do quite enjoy... Well, the thing is, there isn’t anything you can do with a degree in Anglo-Saxon except teach it!” she explained earnestly, looking up into his face.

    “Mm, I see what you mean. What if you had the option of just doing research? A bit like Polly’s doing this year? I know she’s got a couple of doctoral students, but— Well, would that appeal?”

    “Um... Well, not all the time, I think I’d go potty,” admitted Georgy frankly.

    “No, I wasn’t thinking of all the time,” he murmured. “Say, business hours? Lead a normal life outside of that?”

    Georgy’s face broke into a grin. “I don’t think I know what a normal life is!”

    “No, I quite realize  that,” said Adam seriously. He dropped a kiss on the curls. “Would you like that, though, darling?”

    “Um—well, there is some research I’d like to... It’s my own fault, I could be doing it these holidays if I hadn’t let Mac talk me into this silly play thing!” she said crossly.

    “Yes!” he gasped.

    “I’m sorry, Adam!” she squeaked agonizedly.

    “No, don’t apologize! Salutary to see it from the other side!”

    “No, I am sorry: it’s your work, I didn’t mean to make fun of it,” said Georgy earnestly.

    “That’s all right. This particular show’s not real work, anyway: more a bit of a holiday.”

    “A busman’s holiday,” corrected Georgy glumly.

    “Mm...” Adam stared out over the shallows of the Inlet. It was pretty, in an unspectacular way. He’d like to take Georgy to some of the places he enjoyed: Lugarno, the countryside near Grasse, the Bordeaux country near Catherine and Henri’s, the Austrian alps, Switzerland— His father had assured him acidly that New Zealand had scenic attractions to rival all of these, but Adam had retorted even more acidly that it was a pity it hadn’t bothered to build any decent hotels near ’em, then.

    “Georgy, if some time in the future I was to suggest you give up the job, you—you wouldn’t miss it all that much, then?” he said hoarsely.

    There was a silence, during which Adam’s blood thundered in his ears and he felt as if he might faint.

    Georgy’s heart thudded painfully and she repressed an urge to put her hand on her chest. Finally she whispered: “That’s silly. We hardly know each other.”

    “Mm. Would you miss the job?”

    “No,” whispered Georgy.

    “My lifestyle isn’t— We could buy a house,” said Adam abruptly.

    She swallowed painfully.

    “I’m sorry, I’m going too fast for you.” He paused, then said rapidly: “The climate in England’s a lot colder but we could have a cottage, um, near Grasse, or— Well, what I’m trying to say is, I think you could adjust, and I’d try to—to give you a life as much like the one you’re used to as—as I could. A garden and so on,” he ended somewhat lamely.

    Georgy just swallowed again.

   “I know it’s far too soon. We’ll talk about it later,” said Adam hoarsely.

    “Yes,” she whispered.

    Adam’s arm tightened on her shoulders. He didn’t say any more.

    Georgy wondered confusedly when was “later” and if he’d change his mind and—since she was far from stupid—whether he’d see married life in a big old house like Jemima’s and Tom’s in quite a different light once his sophisticated theatre friends arrived from England, and decided he probably would.

    She also wondered whether, if he’d actually asked her to marry him in so many words, she would have said “Yes”—recognizing even as she did so that there was no need to wonder about it at all, she’d have said “Yes” like a shot, she’d have been unable to say anything else, even though her brain was telling her it was far too soon and he probably was only fantasizing anyway and even if he wasn’t—here Georgy felt even tremblier than she had been feeling—even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t be sensible, because they probably had quite different expectations of what life and marriage should be. Unconscious ones, because, she recognized guiltily, she didn’t have any conscious ones at all. Though she knew she ought to, everybody else seemed quite definite about that sort of thing, didn’t they?

    Adam spent the rest of the week with his emotions, not to mention his hormones, in a wild turmoil. Swinging crazily from tremendous exhilaration to bouts of torturing self-doubt, to immense happiness and back again...

    In the intervals of the mood swings, and frequently during them, he managed to teach Georgy quite a lot about sex and how to enjoy it, and specifically how to enjoy it with him. He was in no doubt that she did enjoy it, even though at one point she cried and declared she couldn’t and he was making her. At which Adam, who had been in the mood for a damn good fuck, had stopped abruptly, withdrawn, and said remorsefully: “I’m sorry, darling. If you can’t, you can’t. I’ve been expecting a bit much, I think. You’ll get used to it all. And you mustn’t feel you have to come, just be I’m in there!” She had lifted a woebegone face and whispered: “Don’t I?” and Adam, shaken to the core, had replied hoarsely: “No. Just hold me, darling.” When she did he shot his load on the spot, thereby teaching Georgy something else about sex, not to say about Adam, that he hadn’t quite intended but on the whole was quite glad about.

    By the end of the week Georgy, though her knees turned to water whenever she met his azure eyes, had decided glumly that he hadn’t meant that stuff about “later”, after all, and was trying to make the best of it.

    By the end of the week Adam was shatteringly in love with her and only forbore to insist she marry him more or less straight away from a fear of pressurizing her and, somewhere at the back of his mind, a scared feeling that it was all going too fast and he mustn’t let either of them rush into something that would effect the rest of their lives.

    By the end of that week, too, Livia Wentworth had arrived in New Zealand.