Wardrobe

12

Wardrobe

    Maisie Pretty was very flushed. She assured Adam, with a sycophantic laugh, that it was nothing, she was used to it, her daughter had been a ballet dancer—

    The whole Sewing Room knew that Maisie had stayed up until two-fifteen that morning finishing Adam’s black tights, that he wore in the final scene, because Maisie had made sure they did. So none of them looked impressed. In fact some of them looked quite sour. In fact the Mature Student muttered something very rude under her breath and began machining gold braid onto Hippolyta’s dark green velveteen very fiercely.

    Vicki Austin, who probably shouldn’t have been there, it was supposedly male leading players only, but so what, the Sewing Room was full of ladies anyway, said with interest: “They fit okay, don’t they? Are they supposed to have those rude dangly things on them, though?”—looking hard at the rude dangly things in question.

    “I’ve been wondering that,” Adam said in an apologetic voice to Angie and Maisie. He had a twinkle in his eye but Angie was pretty sure that Maisie only registered the apologetic bit, because she immediately went into a terrifically flustered speech  about the lovely drawing that that clever Pauline had done.

    She then made an artful pause and said: “Of course, she does have some very modern ideas, she’s only a young thing, you know!” and gave a very silly titter. –The Mature Student drew a very deep breath and machined even more fiercely.

    Adam gazed at her with a wild look in his eye but rather fortunately before he could speak Vicki said in surprize: “No, she isn’t, Maisie:”—Mrs Pretty wasn’t the sort of woman who asked very young female students whom she didn’t know to call her by her first name but Vicki wasn’t the sort of girl to whom such niceties would ever have occurred—“she’s quite old. In her thirties, at least.”

    “Then the rude danglers must be deliberate,” decided Adam, poker-face.

    “Yes,” said Angie with a hoarse cough. “Um—speak to Mac if you’re worried, Adam.”

    “I’m not in the least worried. Does this outfit have any sort of a top, by the way, or is my manly chest merely going to be sprinkled with glitter?”

    “That wouldn’t be bad,” said Vicki, eyeing it narrowly. “You’d have to shave it, though: glitter wouldn’t look too good in amongst the hair.”

    “Of course it would, dear!” cried Joel in amazement, coming up to them in a pair of green tights, a voluminous green blouse, and a large russet leather waistcoat that looked as if it had been designed to fit a body ten sizes larger than his. “Glitter all amongst the coal black fur? Frightfully sexy!”

    Mrs Pretty made a sound that was a mixture of shock and delight and which could only have been produced by the thoroughly prurient. Angie swallowed a sigh.

    “Yes, frightfully sexy when you’re trying to get the glue out of the hair,” agreed Adam coldly. Vicki giggled ecstatically.

    “There’s a jacket, Adam, but we thought we’d give you a fitting before we finish the seams. It’s supposed to be very tight across the back.” Angie produced something and, by dint of getting Adam’s shoulder blades practically to meet, eased him into it.

    “Can you breathe?” asked Joel with interest.

    “Only with the tum,” said Adam in a strained voice, making his tum go in and out. Vicki and most of the sewing ladies collapsed in helpless giggles.

    “Good,” said Angie mildly. “Keep doing that, then. It doesn’t do up, by the way.”

    “We can see that,” agreed Joel, goggling at it. “Are you going to add the fronts later, Angie?”

    “No. Josie, where are those dratted shoulder pieces?”

    Josie, a round-faced, fluffy-haired girl of about Vicki’s age, produced two lumpish things consisting mostly of silver braid. Angie pinned them to Adam’s shoulders.

    “Suit of lights! Of course!” cried Joel, slapping his forehead.

    “You’re slow,” noted Angie.

    “What about the cummerbund?” asked Joel eagerly, unabashed.

    “Bla’ sa’in,” replied Angie indistinctly round the pins in her mouth. She began transferring them to Adam’s shoulders. He winced, but didn’t speak.

    “Here it is,” volunteered Josie. “Um—it’s going to have some Velcro on it, but we haven’t put it on yet, we thought we’d wait and—um—measure you,” she said to Adam, very flushed.

    “I see,” he said, smiling nicely.

    “Uh su’hoshe—” Angie took the remaining pins out of her mouth. “It’s supposed to be very tight. I thought we ought to cut it on the cross, only Pauline said not to, she didn’t want a soft effect. Try it on him, Josie.”

    Going brilliant pink, Josie placed the satin sash round Adam’s middle.

    “Tighter,” said Angie.

    “What about me tum?” panted Adam.

    “Just don’t breathe at all. Um—I think that might be a wee bit too tight,” she said weakly as the satin creaked and Adam’s cheeks took on a purplish hue.

   Josie relaxed her iron grip.

    “Mm. I think we might have to stiffen it,” said Angie dubiously.

    “What with, steel?” gasped Adam.

    “No-o... Maybe a bit of Vilene. The trouble is, if you use that iron-on stuff it’ll ruin the sheen of the satin.”

    Maisie immediately volunteered to bring some of the non-iron sort, very heavy-duty, from home.

    “Ye-es... Righto, Maisie, we’ll give it a go. If that doesn’t work we might have to cover a belt with the satin.”

    “I’ll mark it, shall I, Angie?” asked Josie helpfully.

    Angie agreed to this and Josie marked the sash with chalk. Re-marking it after Joel had pointed out that Adam was too nice to say so, but he didn’t think he could actually breathe with the sash that tight, dear.

    “What about the chest?” Joel then enquired.

    “Nice, isn’t it?” said Angie carelessly, giving it a casual glance.

    Mrs Pretty turned puce and made a sound that was definitely more shock than delight.

    “Lovely, dear, but isn’t there a bit much of it on show? Or are fairy kings like that?” –The Mature Student made a strangled noise into Hippolyta’s gown.

    “He’s going to wear a horrible sort of…” Angie scratched her short untidy yellow curls. “Diadem, I think. Would you call it a diadem, Josie?”

    “Um—I’m not sure,” admitted Josie.

    “A stomacher, dear, possibly, but not a diadem on the chest,” sighed Joel.

    “A pendant?” suggested Adam.

    Mrs Pretty had recovered herself. “Oh, no, it’s definitely not a pendant, because I asked Pauline how it was going to be held on, because I couldn’t see a necklace in the drawing and I thought maybe it was just poetic licence—you know!”—silly titter—“only she said it wasn’t a pendant, definitely not!”

    “‘Not a bloody pendant’ was the actual phrase, I believe,” said Angie drily to Adam.

    “I see,” he said with a twinkle.

    Angie began turning up the sleeves of his jacket so he didn’t look nearly so much like a gorilla in a suit of lights. Josie helpfully handed her more pins.

    “Well, what is going to hold this not pendant, possible diadem and even more possible stomacher in place?” asked Joel.

    “It’s not a stomacher. It’s one of those things dowagers wear, if anything, only I’ve forgotten the word,” said Angie. “Hold out your arm,” she said to Adam. He held out his arm. “Yes—down,” she said. He lowered his arm.

    “Very clear,” sighed Joel.

    “I think it’s going to have elastic across the back,” said Josie in a shy voice.

    “How can it, the jacket is glued to the back,” Joel pointed out immediately.

    Josie went very pink.

    “Is it that sparkly thing that Pauline’s been working on?” asked Vicki.

    “Yes, I think so,” replied Josie.

    Vicki slid off the table on which she’d been perching. “It’s pretty,” she said definitely to Adam.

    “Will it show the chest hair, though, dear?” asked Joel in alarm.

    “Yes, lots. It’s kind of like a star, just—um…” Vicki looked down at her bright green sleeveless blouse. “Here,” she decided, putting a hand between the two salient points. Little, but very salient, it was obvious why Mac had decided to put her in that spangled bathing-suit she’d had on at the fairies’ rehearsal yesterday.

    Angie looked in some amusement at Adam McIntyre looking at why it was obvious Mac had decided to put Vicki in that spangled bathing-suit and said: “Yes, that’s right. Vicki, if you’re not doing anything could you get that clipboard over there and write down some measurements for me?”

    “Um, well, me and Josie were going to lunch,” replied Vicki dubiously.

    “You may be, Josie isn’t,” returned Angie simply. Josie gave a nervous giggle and looked apologetically at her friend.

    “I might as well lend a hand, then,” decided Vicki. “Only we’ve gotta go some time, Angie, we’ve gotta buy some textbooks today.”

    “Yes, but not until we’ve finished Adam and Joel,” said Angie firmly.

    Once they’d got Adam’s details sorted out and peeled the embryo jacket off him—it. was covered in tacks, and was actually a splendidly constructed thing, someone somewhere in the Sewing Room must know something about tailoring, decided Joel—Angie turned her attention to Joel.

    “All these things are too big for me, Angie,” he said sadly.

    “Yes, they’re being recycled. Do the tights fit, though?”

    “The woman has a great gift for going to the heart of the matter, does she not?” he sighed to Adam, lifting the skirts of the voluminous blouse.

     Adam and Angie choked, Vicki gave an ecstatic shriek of laughter, Mrs Pretty gasped and went very red, and Josie also went very red but gave an explosive giggle.

    “Take it out,” said Angie faintly.

    “Certainly!”

    Vicki gave another shriek of laughter.

    Joel had stuffed a silver bladder—somewhat deflated, true—down his tights. He removed it slowly.

    “Its stick came off,” he reported, “so I had to find a use—”

    “That’ll do,” said Angie hurriedly.

    “Your tights have gone all baggy,” Vicki pointed out.

    “No, no, dear, they were baggy already, somehow they just seemed to call loudly for padding, and as there was nothing else to hand—” Vicki collapsed in helpless giggles.

    “Come here,” said Angie resignedly. She grabbed Joel’s tights by the waistband and hauled them up ruthlessly.

    “Ooh! Help!” he gasped. “What is this, some native Anty-podean form of slow castration?”

    Mrs Pretty, now positively puce, murmured something about really ought to be back at the office, and made a crabwise motion in the direction of the door. Adam thanked her nicely once again for doing his tights so beautifully. Mrs Pretty made fluttering disclaimers. She finally went, but possibly only because Joel gasped: “Angela, dearest, if you keep on doing that I shall positively have to—sing Puck soprano!” —“Sing Puck soprano” very soprano.

    “Go and take those off, Adam, it’d be the end of world if you laddered them after all that,” said Angie with a grin.

    “Very well,” he agreed amiably, standing up. “Do I try on the gold ones, next?”

    “No, Maisie hasn’t done those yet: even her martyrdom has limits.”

    “Some,” muttered the Mature Student.

    “You find ’em all over the world,” Adam said to her with a grin.

    “Yes! I’m sure you do!” she gasped with a laugh, going very pink.

    Grinning, Adam strolled off towards the locker room and the vast stretches of unused female lavatories.

    “How many changes has he got?” grumbled Joel jealously.

    “Do you mean different outfits?” asked Angie simply.

    “Er—yes,” he replied weakly.

    “Three. Green and spangled when he first comes on, gold and spangled some time later, and black and spangled for the last scene. In my ignorance I was under the impression that dawn was coming with its rosy whatsits round about the last scene but Mac assures me that Oberon and Titania and the leading fairies are going to be all black and glittery for it.”

    “What about me?” said Joel with a pout.

    “I think you’re akin to the elves. Well, they’ve got green legs and little leather jerkins, too. Just be thankful you haven’t got bloody horns that light up.”

    “Eh?” he said weakly.

    Angie and Josie began to explain about the elves’ antennae and the engineering hoons’ fooling around with them—backwards, crossed, you name it…

    “Gawd,” he said at last. “Why couldn’t I at least have been a black and glittery Puck in the last scene, though?”

    “Dunno,” said the heartless woman, attacking his blouse—still on the bod—with a huge pair of shears. Joel shut his eyes.

    “Try this on,” she said eventually. She put his giant waistcoat back on him.

    “Did you mention little leather jerkins in this context?” he said faintly.

    Angie picked up the shears.

    Joel shut his eyes again.

    “You’re going to have a lovely cap,” said Vicki kindly.

    “Am I?” he said faintly with his eyes shut.

    “Yes. Anna’s making it. It’s like a dear little acorn cap. You sort of wear it on one side with its little stalk sticking up,” she explained illuminatingly.

    “Is it brown?” said Joel with his eyes shut.

    “Yes, of course.”

    “When can I see it?”

    “Try opening your eyes as a first step,” suggested Angie drily.

    “Have you finished with that snickersnee?” he asked faintly.

    “Yes.”

    Joel opened his eyes gingerly. The waistcoat was now a lot shorter and since Angie had removed about a foot on either side, was merely balanced on his shoulders.

    “We’re going to lace it instead of sew it,” she explained.

    “With spiderwebs, of course,” agreed Adam, perching on a table again, this time in his own slacks. The pale blue cotton ones. With them he wore a dreamboat of a blouse that Joel could have killed for: very pale fawn background, little blue and white clouds processing across it, and little bunches of forget-me-nots and teeny brown and purple pansies scattered in amongst the clouds.

    “It’ll be almost as pretty as that blouse,” he said, pouting.

    Adam sighed. “I’ll leave it to you in me will, all right?”

    “Well, where did you get it?” demanded Joel, still pouting.

    Adam shrugged.

    “He’s got enough clothes in that bloody flat of his to stock ten boutiques!” Joel said crossly to Angie.

    “I’m sure he has,” she agreed drily.

    “Is it English?” asked Vicki.

    “I really can’t remember, Vicki,” he said apologetically. “I think it’s one I got on a trip to France, but I did some shopping in Southampton on the way and I honestly can’t remember whether I got it there or in Paris.”

    Joel clutched his hair and moaned.

    “I’ve never seen anything as nice here,” she said admiringly.

    “Kelvin got a nice one at that Jeans United shop downtown,” said the Mature Student unexpectedly. “It cost a bomb, though. –That’s my son,” she explained. “He’s eighteen, all he thinks about is clothes and girls.”

    “That puts you in your place, dear!” choked Joel. “When do I get to see my dear little cap, Angie?”

    “Um—well is Anna still working on it, Vicki?” asked Angie.

    “Dunno. Have I written this down right, Angie? It looks funny to me.”

    Angie peered at it. “Possibly Joel’s waist is wider than his chest.”

    “I’m the same all the way down! Have been since the age of three!” he squeaked indignantly.

    “No, hang on, this can’t be…” Angie measured Joel’s arm again. “That’s his arm, there, not his chest!” she said crossly.

    “I thought it looked funny,” replied Vicki serenely.

    Angie winced.

    “It’s me that’ll have to wear the result,” Joel pointed out sadly.

    “She’ll be right, mate,” replied Angie bracingly in the vernacular. Joel cringed. “Why don’t you nip across to the Art School if you’re so keen to see your cap?” she added.

    “By meself?” he squeaked in horror.

    “You can’t miss it, it’s the one with all the trees in the middle of it,” said Vicki with super-clarity.

    “Also with the whacking great notice, ‘School of Fine Arts,’” added Angie drily.

    “I’ll come with you—if you’ve finished with me for the moment, Angie?” said Adam, getting up.

    “Yes, but only for the moment. We’ll want you again this afternoon.” She gave Adam’s black jacket to Josie.

    Adam and Joel watched with their jaws sagging as Josie got onto the table that Adam’s bum had lately been decorating, sat cross-legged, and picked up a needle.

    “I’ll just do these shoulder pieces,” she said in a vague voice to Vicki.

    Vicki sighed.

    “Her father’s a tailor,” said Angie neutrally.

    “The tailor of Gloucester, apparently,” agreed Adam.

    “No, Mr Green,” said Angie.

    “Dad’s pretty modernized, I learned all this stuff off Grandpa,” said Josie in a vague voice.

    “Mr Green, Senior. He still makes the occasional suit for Jake Carrano,” explained Angie neutrally.

    “He did him a lovely dress suit. Mind you, he’s got the figure for it, Grandpa says it’s a pleasure to dress him,” said Josie, not looking up.

    “We ought to let him dress Adam,” said Joel.

    “Mm. Sir Jake likes a traditional dinner suit. One of Grandpa’s old clients asked him to make him a pale grey one, so he washed his hands of him!” said Josie, suddenly looking up with a grin.

    “Help, we definitely won’t inflict Adam on him, then!” gasped Joel.

    “Shut up,” ordered Adam. “Come on, let’s go and find this Art School and take a look at your blessed cap. I wouldn’t mind getting a sight of my bloody diadem, either, it’s raised horrible echoes of that thing I had to wear as Hal V.”

    “Darling, that was armour!” he squeaked.

    “Not the armour, you idiot. That bloody necklace with the bloody off-the-shoulder shirt. It wouldn’t sit right so they glued it to me. It was agony—talking of your glitters in chest hair,” he added to Vicki. She giggled obligingly.

    “How we suffer for our art,” said Angie.

    “I’ll take you over,” decided Vicki. “Josie’ll be ages. But when I come back,” she said loudly to her: “we’re going, geddit?”

    “Mm,” said Josie.

    Vicki sighed. “Come on,” she said, leading the. way.

    For a little while there was silence in the Sewing Room apart from the hum of the machines. Then Josie, having finished stitching on one shoulder piece, put her work down and said in a stunned voice: “They’re really interested in what they’re going to wear, aren’t they?”

    “You could put it like that. What a pair of blimmin’ peacocks!” said the Mature Student with a sniff.

    At that the whole Sewing Room stopped work and burst into excited refutation, confirmation, or just plain dissection of the Mature Student’s opinion.

    After the Art School it was definitely time for lunch, so after considerable fumbling around Adam recalled the name of the foul hotel his Uncle Evan had taken them to, and, on the score that it was air-conditioned and their clothes were sticking to them, they got a taxi and went there.

    “Ugh,” said Joel in a hollow voice.

    “It is air-conditioned.”

    “It is also puce.”

    “Pale puce,” corrected Adam with a laugh in his voice.

    “It’s clashing with me new tee-shirt!” he whined. He was wearing the new palest pink tee-shirt with the little silver stars that was a copy of Georgy’s pale apricot one. On him, it didn’t look so good, as Adam had not failed to point out.

    “It’d clash with anything,” rejoined Adam. “Come on, shall we brave the dining-room?”

    “Will they let us in without ties?”

    “Probably not,” he said vaguely, looking round helplessly.

    Joel grabbed his arm and dragged him firmly in the direction indicated by the sign that said “Dining Room.” Actually it wasn’t easy: you had to go in a lift and then down a corridor, and then you got lost and finally you found some swing doors in frosted glass that you couldn’t see through with one of those American-style fake easels outside them bearing a notice that, in tasteful silver on a tastefully pale-puce air-brushed white background said tastefully “Poenamo Room.”

    “Poo Who?” said Joel weakly.

    “I suppose this is it,” said Adam, even more weakly.

   Joel perceived that Adam had lost his nerve. Well, it was pretty obvious he’d never worked up much in the first place: he still had the sunnies on, dears, even though it had been fairly dim in the lobby and corridor and extremely dim in the lift. Resignedly he grabbed his arm and tugged him through the swing doors.

    The maître d’ took a look at Joel in his star-studded pale pink with his deep cherry trou and opened his mouth whilst simultaneously looking down his nose. Then he took a look at Adam and visibly hesitated. Then Joel squeaked: “Thank God, there’s Polly!”—very loudly—and waved madly and Polly turned her head and smiled and got up and hurried over to them.

    After that everything was all right and Adam even took his sunglasses off to kiss her cheek.

    Given the pale puce, deep puce, and pale silver of The Poenamo Room—henceforward to be called by Joel, Adam and Polly and most of Polly’s acquaintance The Poo Room—not to mention the deep maroon jackets of the waiters—given, then, the place’s colour scheme, the only possible colours one could even have dreamed of wearing there were white or black and so Polly was of course in white. Narrow, sleeveless—no shoulder pads, dears, making every other woman in the room look like an American footballer in drag—some sort of linen mix, cut like a wee, collarless overall you innocently thought until you looked harder and realised just how artfully those two buttons above and below the just sufficiently loose waist were placed...

    “Paris?” asked Joel.

    “Milan, actually,” she murmured.

    “Ah. And lee chapeau?”

    “Couldn’t you let her sit down again before you interrogate her about every stitch she’s got on?” said Adam genially.

    “All right, but you’re not off the hook!” he warned. Polly only laughed. Since she had a lovely contralto gurgle of a laugh all the male eyes that weren’t already avidly fixed on her now swivelled in their direction. All the hetero ones, natch. All the female ones were already rivetted on Adam, natch. Including those of the parrot-like female at Polly’s table, oh, dear. Joel had never dreamed that Polly would even know a person like that, much less lunch with her tête-à-tête.

    “Phyllis Harding,” Polly introduced her.

    “Of course I know who you are!” she beamed.—Could parrots beam? This one could, anyway. Longish teef.—She then proceeded to prove it. And she had adored Adam in that film.

    “Thank you,” he said politely, as she finally released his hand.

    Then they got to sit down at last and Adam and Joel decided they might as well have cocktails, since Polly and Phyllis had only just started on theirs, and the maître d’ snapped his fingers and the cocktail waiter was there in a flash, darlings, a flash.

    “What’s that?” Adam asked with interest, looking at Polly’s.

    “A margarita: they can actually make them here. I nearly always have one. Our friend Peter says it spoils the taste of the food but then on the other hand he admits that here it needs to!” She twinkled naughtily at them.

    Phyllis gave a shriek of laugher and cried: “Polly, you are awful!”

    “Why are you here, if it’s that bad?” asked Adam, poker-face.

    “Well, it’s convenient, we were both coming in to town anyway. And very comfortable, isn’t it, Phyllis?” she said, smiling at her.

    “Yes, very comfortable. And very central, of course. And don’t take any notice of a thing this naughty girl says about the food,” she said, leering at Adam; “she and dear Jake judge everything by Paris standards, of course!”

    There was a slight hiatus while Adam’s and Joel’s drinks arrived and Polly made them taste them and said if they were awful they must send them back: at its prices The Royal had to expect that sort of thing. Phyllis gave another high-pitched shriek of laughter.

    “This is all right,” said Adam, smiling over his Pernod.

    “We always thought that was a girl’s drink, dear,” said Joel rudely over his Fallen Angel.

    Polly gurgled. Phyllis shrieked.

    “How is it, Joel?” Polly then asked.

    Joel removed a small orange umbrella from it and laid it tenderly on the pale puce tablecloth so that it could positively scream at it. “Tasty but not very alcoholic. But I don’t mind, I’ve got to drive him home this afternoon.”

    Phyllis’s jaw sagged slightly.

    “I don’t really like driving,” Adam explained mildly.

    “Tut, dear boy! Remember the macho image!” reproved Joel.

    Phyllis smiled uncertainly.

    Joel ate the first chunk of pineapple, the cherry and then the second chunk of pineapple off the cocktail stick that had been resting across the top of his drink. “It’s nourishing, too,” he reported.

    Phyllis gave a startled neigh. Polly smiled.

    “Drink it up nicely with the straw, Joel, and stop being silly,” said Adam sternly.

    Joel had removed the bright pink straw and lain it tenderly on the pale puce tablecloth next to the bright orange umbrella. “Is that what that’s for?”

    “In Australia they give women straws with everything, even whisky and soda,” reported Polly. “Special short straws for the chunky tumblers, of course.”

    Joel went into a terrific giggling fit.

    “Don’t encourage him, he’ll get worse,” warned Adam with his sidelong smile. “Tell him about your lee chapeau instead. In fact, tell me, it’s delicious.”

    It was a—Joel had thought at first white cowboy hat in very fine straw but it was neither. It was in the style of those tray macho Australian hats, the word “digger” came vaguely to mind, with the brim turned up on one side. There all resemblance to anything to do with diggers ended. It was made of some stiffened white fabric, possibly a linen, only one thickness, however, and so not quite opaque. Edged with a very fine strip of white grosgrain ribbon. It was smaller than yer normal digger’s hat, and worn tilted somewhat to the front with the hair swept up in a great big coil at the back. And also tilted just a lee-tle over the right ear, as it were. And held on with a very neat white grosgrain strap round the back of the head with the tiniest flat neat white bow on it near the left ear. But the really delish feature of the whole thing was that the turned-up side of the brim—which was of course the side above the left ear and the tiny bow, dears—the turned-up side of the brim was filled with white lilacs!

    “I got it in Milan, too, Joel, is that what you wanted to know?” said Polly with a twinkle.

    Joel replied instantly: “Sort of, but what were you doing in Milan?”

    “I was going to La Scala and doing a lot of shopping, and Jake was fixing up some deal whereby he’d cooperate in ravaging some part of the Italian coastline,” returned Polly calmly.

    “Thank you, Polly, but it’s quite unnecessary to pander to his baser instincts like this, you know,” said Adam.

    At this Phyllis, who’d been listening to the whole exchange with an uncertain expression, gave a little shriek, tapped Adam’s forearm smartly with her bright pink claws, and said: “Naughty boy! –I must admit it is a lovely hat, though, Polly,” she added with a sigh.

    It was. But on Phyllis, Lady Harding, it would not have looked good. For one thing the dame was fifty if she was a day, for another, the face looked as if it had been over-used during those fifty years, and for another thing she obviously dieted like mad, what flesh there was on the face and neck was alternately stretched tight over the bone and hanging in lank folds. And for yet another thing she could never have been pretty. At the moment she wasn’t even passable, because not only was there the face, there was also the bright yellow hair in a series of bubbly little curls under the determinedly youthful screaming pink satin pillbox with its big bow and perky veil and very mistaken bright blue plume, not to mention the matching screaming pink satin suit with its gi-normous shoulders. If Polly looked like something straight from Paris—or, indeed, Milan—Phyllis looked like something straight out of Dynasty. –Joel should know, he’d been glued to the entire thing, never missed an episode. In fact, now he came to think of it, her whole style was out of Dynasty, because she sported that white mask-like effect above the neck and that over-tanned, leathery look of the neck. Without, sadly, having the J. Collins face to support the mask.

    Nor did Joel believe for one moment that darling Joan would have worn a huge bright blue sparkly brooch on the screaming pink lapel. Never. Even if they were real sapphires and real diamonds. Which they probably were, because who else could afford to eat here but the sort of person who would have the real stuff?

    Adam smiled at Phyllis and agreed it was a lovely hat and asked Polly the name of the shop where she’d got it.

    “You’ll never remember it, darling,” said Joel faintly.

    “I know.” He got out his little pocket diary. “That’s why I’m writing it down,” he explained, writing it down.

    “When do you plan to be in Milano?” asked Joel faintly.

    “What? Oh, quite soon. Well, not Milan, but quite near there, I’m booked to do some foully meaningful interpretation of a Henry James thing over there for Derry Dawlish almost as soon as I get back home.”

    “You’ll be the sensitive New Englander abroad,” said Joel in a doomed voice.

    “More or less: yes. But Derry says if I’ll do this one for him, he’ll cast me in something really nice next time. He’s thinking of doing a Country Wife with all the trimmings.”

    “Is that one of those Restoration things?” asked Joel dubiously.

    “Yes,” replied Adam simply.

    “I get all those mixed up... I think I was in one once, a stage production, of course... Petulant?”

    “I’m sure you were!” choked Adam. “That’s Congreve, you illiterate.”

    “Aren’t they all?” said Joel in confusion.

    Polly choked. Phyllis was quite plainly at sea: she gave a forced smile.

    “Well, who wrote this Country Wife thing, then?” grumbled Joel, pouting. Very petulantly.

    “Wycherley,” said Adam.

    “Which?” he replied immediately.

    Adam and Polly groaned. Phyllis cried gamely: “Isn’t he naugh-ty?”

    “Yes, he is,” said Polly, twinkling at him. “If you’d stop making rotten puns for a moment, I might manage to pluck up enough courage to ask Adam if he’s been trying to hint that this Derry person is going to cast him as”—she swallowed—“Horner.”

    “What else?” he replied smugly.

    “I’ve seen a telly thing of that, he’s a frightful man!” gasped Joel in horror.

    “I wouldn’t go that far,” objected Polly.

    “He would, and did. Virtually in shot, as I remember,” said Joel in a hollow voice. “Darling, you can’t! What about the image?”

    “Damn the image. I’ve always wanted to play Horner, it’s a peach of a part. –He’s certainly macho,” Adam pointed out mildly.

    Joel winced.

    “I shall play him with tremendous charm,” Adam assured him with a naughty twinkle in his eye.

    Joel groaned.

    “He must have had charm, don’t you think, to be a lady-killer?” said Polly detachedly.

   Joel groaned again.

    “I’m sure you’ll be absolutely wonderful, Adam!” said Phyllis fervently.

    “Yes, but Phyllis, dear, the more wonderful he is, the worse it will be for the image!” said Joel urgently.

    Phyllis looked blank.

    “Horner is not Mr Nice-Guy,” explained Joel.

    Phyllis still looked blank.

    “You’d prefer me to do the Forster charter in Maurice, I suppose?” said Adam drily.

    At this Joel and Phyllis both looked blank, but Polly asked on a weak note: “They’re not making a film of that, are they?”

    “No: Derry was threatening to but couldn’t get the backers.”

    “Good. I thought the book was awful, but mind you, I’m not a literary bod,” she said with a twinkle.

    “Polly, the whole of the English-speaking world thought the book was awful!” Adam assured her fervently.

    “Well, that’s a relief, the types in the English Department are always telling me how semi-literate I am!” she said cheerfully.

    “Pol-lee!” protested Phyllis. “Don’t be silly! She’s terribly clever, she’s got a doctorate, you know,” she told them.

    “Never think it to look at ’er,” agreed Joel.

    Phyllis shrieked and, as the misguided maître d’ had shoved Joel between her and Polly, was able to tap his forearm smartly with her bright pink claws.

    “More drinks, anyone?” asked Adam as the cocktail waiter swanned up to them again and leered at him.

    “No, I’m starving,” said Polly definitely. “And before you say anything, Adam, this whole lunch is on me. It was going to be my treat anyway, wasn’t it, Phyllis?”

    “Yes, that’s quite right, it was,” Phyllis agreed eagerly, nodding the pink hat fiercely at Adam.

    “Accept, darling, then we can eat and drink ourselves silly on Sir Jake’s mills.!” urged Joel.

    “I’ll accept on condition that the next lunch is on me, Polly. I was thinking of taking Georgy and her mother to that Fisherman’s Wharf place— No?”

    “Um—not in this humid weather, Adam one of my aunties— Well, never mind.”

    “Somewhere nice, then,” he said, smiling at her. “—You, too, of course, Phyllis, and your husband, if he’s free.”

    “I’d love to!” she gasped.

    Poor moo: obviously had assumed she wasn’t going to be included, Joel concluded. Well, past experience, probably. Where in God’s name had Polly dug her up? They appeared to have nothing in common whatsoever. Except, presumably, husbands who could afford trips to Milano and/or large sapphire and diamond brooches. Well, maybe that was it. Did you have to socialize with that sort of woman when yer hubby was that rich, even in easy-going little New Zealand? Maybe you did. Gor. Likewise, strewth.

    “Eh?” he said, coming to with a start.

    “I said the avocado is always nice here, Joel,” said Phyllis with an anxious look. “Of course, Someone will probably tell you”—she tittered uneasily and he saw with an involuntary stab of pity that being with Polly’s inter-lec-tu-al friends from the Big World made her nervous, poor cow—“that you shouldn’t have the shrimps on it in this weather.”

    “It’s all right, The Royal’s air-conditioned throughout!” said Polly with a laugh.

    “Ooh, am I allowed, then, Phyllis?” squeaked Joel.

    “I think so,” she said, baring the teeth. “It’s always reliable.”

    Joel looked desperately inside his huge deep puce menu. “I think I’ll have to have it: if I’ve got to read my way through this tract we’ll be here till midnight.”

    “Is this ‘Papaye tropicale’ the same fruit as those things we had in Hawaii, do you think?” asked Adam dubiously.

    “Undoubtedly. –The Hawaiian equivalent to a dose of salts,” Joel explained to the table at large.

    “Paw-paw?” Phyllis and Polly said blankly. They looked at each other dubiously.

    “They do say you can use it as a meat tenderizer,” recalled Phyllis.

    “Any fruit would go through you like a dose of salts if you ate two pounds of it at a sitting like he did,” Adam explained.—Phyllis gave a startled neigh. Polly chuckled.—“Well, if it’s the same, I won’t have it, I got rather sick of it in Honolulu,” he decided.

    Joel had found it on the menu. “I definitely wouldn’t have it, dear, it says here ‘scattered with a whisper of fresh chilli’, yer know what chilli does to your tum, ducky.”

    “That’s got to be apocryphal!” gasped Polly. Joel goggled at her as she searched frantically through her menu. “Ooh, it does, too! ‘Scattered with a whisper’! I wouldn’t have believed even The Royal was capable of that one!” Before their startled eyes she produced a small white leather-covered notebook from her white patent-leather handbag and earnestly wrote the phrase into it with the attached small silver pencil.

    “Are you writing a tract on the language of the modern menu?” asked Adam in a very feeble voice.

    “Mm... Only an article,” murmured Polly, head bent.

    Adam swallowed.

    “Hah, hah, hah!” cried Joel.

    “She’s awfully clever,” murmured Phyllis.

    “She must also have an iron stomach,” croaked Adam. “Tell me, Polly, have you dragged Jake to an Australasian-wide selection of yuppie restaurants in pursuance of this research?”

    “Yes, of course. Jake usually makes them do us a plain steak,” she added kindly. “And before you ask, they will do a plain steak here but even Jake and even your Uncle Maurice have never managed to make them do it really rare.”

    “Oh. I just hate leathery steak,” he said sadly. He looked sadly back at his menu. “The caviar?”

    “Maurice is rumoured to have managed to get it out of them without that sour cream sauce stuff, but I’ve never heard of anyone else that has.”

    “Anyway, it’s fish!” said Phyllis brilliantly.

    Polly looked up with a laugh. “Yes! I’m sorry, Phyllis, is that my theme-song?”

    Phyllis went rather red, but laughed valiantly.

    Joel was studying his menu again. “Um... grapefruit with lee jambong dee Paree?”

    “That’s sort of nouvelle cuisine... The ham is quite lean,” murmured Phyllis.

    Adam looked suspiciously at the menu but wasn’t enlightened. “They’re not those fierce bright yellow New Zealand grapefruit things Ma forced on me that winter I was out here, are they?

    “No,” replied Polly calmly. “Anaemic Californian things and at this time of year very probably out of a tin.”

    “Not at The Royal, Polly!” gasped Phyllis.

    Polly smiled. “Well, maybe not. Remember that first time you and John took us to the yacht club and Jake was so awful about the tinned oysters?”

    “Yes! Wasn’t he naughty?” she gasped.

    They smiled at each other.

    “My goodness, what a lot of water under the bridge since then!” said Phyllis with a startled laugh.

    “Mm...”

    Somehow the subsequent chat led on to the subject of the Carranos’ “bach”. And that was the point, Joel was to reflect sourly later, at which he should have dragged Adam out of the place bodily. Actually in his blindness he said proudly: “I know what that is!”

    “Go on,” said Adam drily, sounding remarkably like his father.

    “Er—well... a country cottage, I suppose.”

    “Thatched roof, ramblers round the door an’ all?” said Polly.

    Pouting, Joel said: “Well, how would you define it?”

    “I wouldn’t. The usage is native to me.”

    “It’s a very comfortable bach,” murmured Phyllis.

    “Mm. Did I tell you Jake’s making threatening noises about building on?” Polly added in a doomed voice.

    “Oh. Well, the kiddies are growing up, dear.”

    “Not that fast!” said Polly crossly. “It was bad enough when he insisted on it being interior-decorated! Don’t look at me like that, Phyllis,” she added with a smile, “I know it was a dump, but I loved it. But—well, I like it the size it is. It’s nice and manageable, and we don’t have to have Nanny with us—well, we can’t, there aren’t enough beds now that Katie Maureen’s too big for the cot—and—well, I just like it the way is!”

    “Tell him that,” murmured Adam.

    “I’ve tried, but once he gets an idea into his head... “

    “Well, dear Jake always has been very stubborn!” Phyllis said with an uneasy laugh.

    “You can say that again!” she said bitterly.

    “Well, you went and married him, dear!” squeaked Joel.

    She suddenly smiled brilliantly. “Yes, so I did. I suppose I’m stuck with him! Have you decided what to have, Joel?”

    “No, I don’t speak enough French,” he said sadly.

    “Read the paras underneath the French words, dear,” said Adam kindly.

    “They’re too long! I’ve had scripts that weren’t that long! Can’t you recommend anything?” he added sadly to Polly. “What are you having to start with?”

    “The peach.”

    “Peach? Peach?” said Joel madly, flapping through his menu.

     Adam took it off him. “Here. Pêche à la Royal.”

    “I thought that was fish?”

    “No,” said Adam absently, reading on. “With beef and chives?” he croaked.

    “It’s very light. Sort of like prosciutto with melon,” explained Polly.

    “Why not have the melon, then?”

    “It isn’t real prosciutto,” said Polly simply.

    “See? She’s a purist, isn’t she?” said Phyllis, giggling.

    “Yes.” Joel wrenched his menu back. “What’s this yere Arty-chose Melanie like?”

    “Mucky,” warned Polly.

     Adam read through its description in his menu. “Sort of nouvelle cuisine?”

    “It might once have been, yes. Before they put the sour cream dressing on it,” returned Polly.

    “Sour cream? A million calories per teaspoonful!” shuddered Phyllis.

    When the eventual choices came, with a white wine that Adam had let the wine waiter talk him into, it was immediately obvious that they had to have a vote on whose was the prettiest.

    Phyllis’s rather solid tomato tart in its dark green case sat on a paler green lettuce leaf which Polly kindly identified as buttercrunch. To one side of the plate was an artistic swirl of tomato sauce in a different shade from the tomato of the tiny tartlet. On top of the tartlet was a small round green leaf surmounted by one smaller pointed dark green leaf, one tiny cherry tomato and two, count ’em, two, salmon eggs. On the other side of the plate from the swirl of sauce was one maroon-tipped orange petal which Polly maintained was a nasturtium petal. This story lacked credibility because she also tried to claim that the small round green leaf on the tartlet was a small nasturtium leaf. And also because she pronounced it “masturshalum” both times. The plate was a plain white octagonal one and very large.

    “I think it’s positively poetic,” sighed Joel.—Phyllis giggled.—“Much prettier than mine.”

    “All right: marks out of five for Phyllis’s starter,” said Polly briskly. “I’ll give it four.”

    “Me, too!” said Phyllis with a giggle.

    “Four point five,” said Joel, pouting.

    “Two, that orange petal sort of clashes with that salmon caviar,” said Adam, frowning.

    “Darling boy, that’s what gives it the extra point five!” gasped Joel.

    “Two,” he repeated firmly.

    “Write this down, Polly, we don’t want to lose track,” ordered Joel.

    Polly meekly got out her little notebook and wrote the marks down.

    “Let’s vote on mine now,” sighed Joel. “Pink and green is so very ordinary, don’t you think?”

    Joel’s large plate was also octagonal but it was pale pink with a dark green trim. In the middle of it sat a stemmed silver vase with an avocado-shaped bowl and in this sat an avocado half. On it was piled some pink shrimps in their paler pink dressing but you could see quite a bit of the avocado, there wasn’t that much shrimp. The shrimp was topped with three, count ’em, three, salmon eggs and a tiny puff of fennel or possibly dill.

    “They’ve given you a cucumber flower,” Polly pointed out.

    So they had! Wasn’t it clever? Sort of, um, a twisted little slice. It lay on the pink plate opposite the little silver pointed spoon and tiny matching fork with which he was evidently supposed to attack the thing. What would stop the silver vase slipping madly all round the plate while he held the spoon and fork?

    “Two,” Joel decided, pouting.

    “Two point five,” conceded Adam.

    “No, it’s very pretty: four!” said Phyllis archly.

    “I think they could have done more with the top of the shrimps. Three point five,” decided Polly.

    “You lose,” said Joel to it, poking out his tongue at it.

    “Polly’s now,” said Adam happily.

    They all looked at Polly’s peach halves. And thin slices of dried beef. Two. Polly’s plate was one of the huge white octagonal ones. The peach was not an exoteek one—Joel had secretly hoped for one of those blood ones—but a peach-coloured one. Peeled. One half was bottom up, so you could see this. From under it sprouted a frail cornucopia of beef. The other half was face up and in the hollow where the stone had been was set a white swirl of something. The second cornucopia of beef was set carefully in this white substance, so that it stuck up jauntily. The white substance was scattered with a few minute bits of chive. In the small gap between the two peach halves was a delicate bow of chive. Kind of a linking motif. Another bow lay right on the edge of the plate.

    “It’s really very pretty,” said Phyllis. “Quite tasteful, really!” She tittered. “I’ll give it four point five.”

    “Tray artisteek,” decided Joel. “Four.”

    “The beef and the peach sort of don’t... I don’t like it,” said Adam. “One.”

    “Adam!” protested Polly.

    “One point one,” he said with his sidelong smile.

    “Five,” said Polly with a horrible pout.

    “Overruled on the rounds of extreme prejudice!” said Joel immediately.

    “If I say four, will you count that?”

    “Yes.” He took the notebook off her and wrote down the marks. “Now for Adam’s!” he said happily.

    They all looked at Adam’s.

    “If it hadn’t called itself mushroom salad I’d give it five,” said Polly after a moment.

    “There’s a mushroom!” objected Adam.

    “Where?” she demanded scornfully.

    They all peered.

    “It’s a piece of mushroom, anyway,” he said weakly. Joel went into a terrific giggling fit.

    Adam’s “Champignons en salade de Printemps” was a poem of a thing. On one of the green-edged pink plates, but you couldn’t see much of it because spread out on it artistically were several leaves of different coloured lettuce: pale green, darker green with maroon tips, and maroon shading to white at the stalk end. Scattered artistically all over these leaves were tiny shreds of carrot, tiny shreds of some white substance, tiny shreds of something bright yellow which could only be lemon zest and which Adam confirmed by a cautious tasting was, and bright orange petals which Polly said firmly were marigold petals and not to argue. And tiny shreds of something bright puce and crisp-looking which Adam was terribly afraid was raw beetroot but wasn’t going to inquire about in case it was. Sprinkled artistically over and amongst these were several larger objets, to wit, several of the maroon-tipped orange petals, putatively nasturtium, of the kind which adorned Phyllis’s plate, three small radishes cut into rosebud shapes, and several tiny bows of chive. And, according to Adam, a fawnish shape which was a piece of mushroom.

    “It is luverly,” said Joel with a pout.

    “Mm... Four point five,” sighed Polly.

    “Five, I think it’s got real chick,” said Phyllis.

    “Yes. Five, all right, five!” said Joel crossly, writing down five for himself, too.

    They all looked at Adam.

    “Point one for the one piece of mushroom,” he said.

    “Ad-dum!” shrieked Phyllis.

    “Overruled on the grounds of extreme pettiness!” choked Polly.

    “Absoluter-ly. You vote five,” said Joel firmly to him.

    “No, I don’t.” Adam leaned over the table and snatched the notebook off him. Ne began adding laboriously. Joel watched him sardonically. “Phyllis’s wins,” he said at last.

    “Pooh, it does not,” said Polly rudely.

    “He can’t do sums,” explained Joel.

    “I think yours wins, Adam, doesn’t it?” said Phyllis.

    “His wins even with his point one,” said Polly.

    “You haven’t even looked at the sums!” he said indignantly.

    “Some of us don’t need to, dear, some of us can add in our heads,” explained Joel nastily.

    Adam began adding again.

    “Don’t wait for him, he’ll be here all night. It took three strong men sixteen weeks’ concentrated effort to sort out his tax position after he’d made that ruddy fillum,” explained Joel. “He went and did silly things like accepting cash money to go on American chat shows even though Clem had warned him not to.”

    They looked at him with interest.

    Joel ate a shrimp. “Maggie Thatcher was grateful, though.”

    Phyllis gave an explosive giggle. “Isn’t he naughty?” she said to Polly. “Who’s Clem, Joel?” she added avidly.

    As they waited for their mains and sipped the wine that Adam had been talked into—quite palatable, but somewhat on the sweet side though it called itself a Riesling—Phyllis, perhaps gaining courage from the wine, interrogated Adam avidly about the film he was soon to make in Italy. Adam found it very difficult to manage to tell her anything intelligible. For one thing„ it was obvious that she hadn’t heard of Henry James. He was floundering when Polly saved him by admitting calmly that she’d never read anything by him.

    Over the mains Phyllis interrogated him about Derry Dawlish, the director. She had seen a couple of his films—though she evidently hadn’t known they were Derry’s.

    “I always thought he was American,” said Polly mildly.

    “What? No!” said Adam crossly.

    “You told me he worked in Hollywood in his misguided youth,” Joel pointed out.

    “Must be where I got the notion from,” said Polly, unmoved.

    “What’s the veal like, Phyllis? It looks nice,” said Adam kindly.

     Phyllis told him in great detail all about the veal, which was very minceur.

    “Mine’s prettier,” said Joel smugly. In that it had puffs  of fennel interspersed with little sprays of borage flowers in a ring all round the huge white octagonal plate, yes, it was.

    “Don’t eat those flahs, dear, we don’t want a nasty tummy tonight,” Adam warned.

    Phyllis gave a shriek. “Aren’t they aw-ful!”

    “Dreadful,” agreed Polly with a twinkle. “Sort of a Laurel and Hardy act that doesn’t come off.”

    Phyllis gave another shriek. “Isn’t she ter-rible?” she cried, varying the theme slightly.

    “Incorrigible, yes,” agreed Adam, refilling her glass.

    “Heavens, don’t give me any more, Adam, I won’t have a clear head for bridge this afternoon!” she shrieked, giggling madly.

    “Bridge?”

    “Phyllis is very keen on it,” explained Polly. “Don’t look at me, I’m hopeless, but if you’re looking for a game, Phyllis is your woman.”

    “Adam?” gasped Joel. “Cards?”

    “Don’t you play?” Phyllis asked Adam in huge disappointment.

    “No. I can never remember who had what, or the bids, or anything like that,” he said in a vague sort of voice.

    Phyllis’s eyes bulged with horror. “Oh.”

    “I can play a Japanese game, though, it’s rather fun.”

    “Jake,” spotted Polly in a doomed voice.

    “Yes, he and Inoue taught it to us on the plane.”

    “Oh, you’ve met that lovely Inoue of Jake’s!” cried Phyllis.

    “Yes; I wouldn’t call him lovely, exactly. He’s got a mind like a steel rapier,” said Adam.

    “What he means is, dears, Inoue ended up with all the matchsticks,” explained Joel earnestly. “Thank God we weren’t playing for cash money!”

    Polly and Adam smiled. Phyllis smiled, too, but very weakly. She was obviously the sort of woman who always played for cash. If she won it would be her cash but if she lost it would be her husband’s, that was obvious, too.

    “Well,” she said, “I was going to ask you both round for a game, only now I can’t, what a pity! Never mind, shall we make it dinner?” She bared the teeth eagerly.

    Adam explained gracefully that he and Joel were rather booked up for dinner until the show started—lies, all lies, of course, but Joel admired the way he told ’em. Polly looked inside her little notebook and announced that so was she, and Phyllis knew Jake kept a strict eye on her social life—Phyllis nodded understandingly—because at one stage she’d been doing too much social stuff.

    Phyllis then let Adam refill her glass, in spite of the bridge, and asked him what Hollywood was really like.

    It went on in pretty much the same way until she had to dash off to the bridge—having of course refused pudding on the grounds that it was fattening. Adam had refused it, too. Polly had also refused it but on the grounds that The Royal’s desserts were all hopelessly elaborate and sicky. Joel had ordered a huge hunk of chocolate gâteau and made everybody suffer while he ate his way through it.

    “Why?” moaned Joel as the pink suit disappeared with a last arch wave.

    “We’ve known her for years.”

    “That is no excuse, Polly!” he said severely.

    “She seems to manage a combination of—er—toad-eating you and patronising you, it’s fascinating in a horrible way,” drawled Adam.

    “Poor Phyllis,” she murmured.

    “Eh?” they gasped.

    “I’ve always felt sorry for her. Did you ever see that film called Darling?”

    “Lovely Julie Christie?” gasped Joel, eyes starting from his head.

    “Oh!” said Adam. “Phyllis’d be the later metamorphosis, dear,” he added heavily to Joel. “Yes, I get it, Polly: no inner resources.”

    “Exactly!” said Polly, beaming at him.

    “She could hock that thing on her lapel, that’d give her a resource or fourteen,” muttered Joel.

    “Her jewellery’s her insurance, they’re really not that well off any more. John’s got a few directorships, but there’s not much family money in the business any more. Their son’s really much better off than Phyllis and John, because of the investments his grandfather made for him when he was little.”

    “This is heart-rending,” noted Joel.

    “It is, in a way. They’ve got a—well, a very smart house in a very fashionable suburb, but there’s three mortgages on it. Phyllis didn’t tell me all this, by the way; her daughter-in-law told me some and—um…”

    “Jake. Gossip at the club,” said Joel.

    “Mm. Well, there is a silly club—not like those ones in England, you can’t sleep there—or did they only do that in Edwardian times?”—Joel and Adam looked at each other wildly and shrugged madly.—“Anyway, it wasn’t club gossip, he—um—well, one of his companies holds one of the mortgages.”

    “Very well, maybe they’re not as well off as they once were, but why bother to waste time on the woman, Polly?” asked Adam.

    “Yes, think of all the really nayce persons you could have made a date for lunch with!” squeaked Joel.

    “Present company excepted,” she noted. “I don’t know, Adam—Jake says I’m a soft touch and that if we lost all our money tomorrow Phyllis’d drop me like a hot potato.”

    “I’m sure she would,” he said weakly.

    “She probably would,” agreed Polly with a little smile. “But I don’t really see much of her—once every couple of months, perhaps—and— Well, I think she’s quite fond of me, really, in her way.”

    “Actually, one got that impression,” admitted Joel.

    “I think everyone’s got a Phyllis in their lives, haven’t they?” Polly added.

    “Yes. Jack Ainsworth,” moaned Joel.

    “Well, why on earth don’t you drop him?” said Adam.

    Joel sighed. “Dear lad, all are not as ruthless as thee.”

    “Ruthless? Am I?” he said in mild surprize.

    Joel sighed. “Yes. Oh, you don’t do anything vicious, dear boy. Or even anything definite, come to that. You just quietly never contact the poor oik, or forget about the date for tea, or—” He shrugged.

    Adam was rather flushed. After a moment he said: “I suppose one has to have some sense of self-preservation.”

    “Either that or a hubby that’ll save you from yourself,” agreed Joel drily.

    “Yes. But you can’t have Jake, I’ve bagged him!” said Polly smugly.

    “Well, in his case it would have to be a wee wifey,” Joel admitted. “Flah-ry pinny over the breakfast china, an’ all.”

    “The breakfast china would of course have roses on it,” murmured Polly.

    “Natch,” he agreed.

    “Would these go with the ramblers round the door?” Adam asked acidly.

    “Of course!” choked Polly.

    “In Hampstead?” murmured Joel . “Oh, I dunno, though...”

    “That reminds me, Polly,” said Adam, ignoring him, “I know this is frightful cheek, only— Well, if you’re not using that bach of yours, would it be possible for me to borrow it for a few days—perhaps a weekend?”

    Polly swallowed, as Joel’s face took on the sort of look that suggested his extremities were being eaten by soldier ants but he was still managing—just—to hang on to his table manners sufficiently not to leap up screaming.

    “Yes, of course,” she said weakly. “Any time you feel you need to get away from your parents. I know what that’s like, I do an awful lot of riding out over the farm when I’m staying with mine.”

    Adam smiled a little. “Mm. Even the nicest ones can never remember you’re more than ten years old for more than five minutes at a time, can they?”

    “No. Well, five seconds, in Mum’s case. She always tries to wash my undies by hand. I keep telling her that they can all safely be chucked in the machine, but—” She broke off, and laughed. “Sorry! Yes, borrow the bach any time you like, Adam. It’s about an hour’s drive north of Kowhai Bay.”

    “In the Lamborghini?” he asked cautiously.

    Polly’s eyes sparkled but she replied sedately: “No, we always take the Land Rover or the station-waggon.”

    “I wonder if it might be available next week, Polly? There won’t be any rehearsals, it’s evidently Enrolment Week and Mac’ll be tied up all week.”

    “Yes, of course,” said Polly on a weak note. “We won’t be using it. Just give me a ring when you want to leave and I’ll let you have the keys,”

    “Thanks. I’ll have to check with Georgy, just in case Mac’s dragooned her into some unlikely activity next week.”

    “Signing Course Cards—yes,” said Polly weakly.

    “Mm. –Will you excuse me a moment?” He got up and wandered off to the Gents’.

    “Cool as a cucumber!” gasped Joel.

    Polly swallowed. “No, he wasn’t, poor thing: his hands were shaking, didn’t you notice?”

    “Uh—no,” he said, taken aback. “Were they?”

    “Mm.”

    There was a short silence.

    “That’s no excuse, Polly!” he said crossly. “Why did you do it?”

    “I couldn’t think up think up a plausible excuse. Sorry.”

    Joel pouted. “Jill’s going to blame me,” he said glumly.

    “Not if you tell her it’s all my fault,” said Polly, just as glumly.

    He looked up and met her eye. They laughed sheepishly.

    “Oh, dear!” said Polly with a sigh. “You don’t think Jill could be wrong about him, do you?”

    Joel’s eyes bulged.

    “Not about his immediate intentions, you idiot! No, about—um—the outcome of it, I suppose I mean.”

    “Tears all round? I’m sure she’s not wrong.”

    “He seems very genuine,” she murmured, frowning.

    “Darling Polly, seeming very genuine is Adam’s specialty, I thought one had understood this?” groaned Joel”

    “Yes, but— Well, Georgy’s so sweet, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.”

    “He doesn’t want to, Polly!”  he gasped. “This won’t stop him doing it, though!”

    “No-o…”

    “Darling, you have only seen him with your own lovely family, and his ma and pa and, um, lovely cosy people like that delightful Dorothy from your local library.”

    “Mm,” said Polly dubiously.

    “Wait until Livia gets here,” he predicted grimly.

    “Ye-es... The chameleon theory.”—Joel nodded grimly.—“I can see that, to some extent. Only I thought he’d gone right off Livia? Surely he won’t drop Georgy like a hot potato just because she’s on the scene?”

    “No, not just because,” said Joel heavily. “But dear Livia will not be unaccompanied. For one thing, she’ll doing the Big Star bit, and she’ll arrive with her own dresser in tow. A squashed sort of female, not a theatre person, some sort of Livia-toady from way back—think she might be a cousin or something. Livia’s taken to dragging her round everywhere since that bloody soapie.”

    “Oh,” said Polly faintly.

    “And for another,” said Joel even more grimly, “Livia will also have precious Jacky in tow, because in case it hasn’t dawned, Polly, precious Jacky not only does publicity for Adam; he also does it for La Livia. Since the soapie in question.”

    “Oh. No, it hadn’t dawned, actually. She must have made a fair bit out of that soap,” she said dubiously.

    “Not out of it, so much. Though she does get a percentage, her agent’s a shark-like person— Well, never mind. She did get a fair whack when they sold it to the Yanks, of course. But she’s been flogging the bod all over the UK for cash money ever since. Opening this, that and the other, advertising, um... Some foul new cheapy scent and soap, don’t tell me that hasn’t hit your local market yet?”—Polly shook her head numbly.—“Oh. Well, it was aimed at our Christmas market, I suppose you’ll get it next year. Well, there’s that, must have made a fortune out of it, dreamy soft-focus an’ all, and—oh, yes, some quick-frozen nouvelle cuisine TV din-dins, and a special Christmas one-off set of ads for lee male Parker-type pens—”

    “What?” said Polly faintly.

    “For the sophisticated man of the world, dear. Livia twiddles ’em between finger and thumb—”

    “That’ll do,” she said, wincing, but trying not to laugh, too.

    Grinning, Joel said: “Wearing, need it be said, ye black lace negligée with artful red satin bows, over nothing very much. Well, nothing at all plus Livia, natch.”

    “We miss so much, not getting your lovely English television out here!” choked Polly.

    “Absoluter-ly. Thems was in the mags, too, mind you. What’s more, darling, in the Christmas colour supps!”

    “Very up-market,” said Polly in a hollow voice.

    “Yes. Well, that explains how she affords the services of the dreaded Jacky.”

    “I see.” There was a short silence while she thought it over. “No, I don’t, Joel. Even if she does arrive in a blaze of publicity faked up by this Jacky, why should Adam—um—” She glanced warily in the direction of the Gents’ but there was no sign of Adam—“go all silly?”

    “Well, maybe that in itself won’t do it, I’ll give you that. Not out here in the Anty-podes. But a little bird has told one,”—he made a face—“that Livia will also be accompanied by darling Derry.”

    “The film director? Derry Dawlish?”

    “As ever was.”

    “Why?” she demanded wildly.

    “One gathers, or so one’s little bird reports, that in the first place—and this is a deep, dark secret, not a word to Adam—Derry heard all about this Midsummer Anty-podean shemozzle from Clem, and is very interested in filming a Victorian-type Dream.”

    “Really? Not out here, surely: haven’t the idiots in government withdrawn the tax incentives?”

    “Darling, I’m sure you would know. Anyway, as one says, not a word to Adam or he’ll dig his toes in over doing a spangled Victorian Oberon for all the world to see.”

    “Will he? All right, I won’t breathe a word. Was there a second place?” said Polly, somewhat weakly.

    “Certainly. The second place is that Derry has intended a holiday out here in these southern climes for some time past.” He pulled his ear with a little grimace. “Touch of yer Hemingways?’’

    “Big-game fishing?” said Polly in a hollow voice.

    “Yes.”

    She gulped. “But his films are so— Is this a leg-pull Joel?”.

    “No!” he said indignantly. “He’s like that: tray macho!”

    “If you say so. –No, all right, Joel: I provisionally accept the scenario that Derry Dawlish is coming out here partly to see Adam as a Victorian Oberon and partly to slaughter innocent marlins. Now explain why this will make Adam dump Georgy like a hot potato.”

    “Derry does not travel alone, dear,” explained Joel .heavily. “Not even when on hols. He will be accompanied by the coterie. Re-write man, val-lay, assistant director of the month, pet publicity man—see?”

    “What about the full camera crew?” said Polly weakly.

    “Not on the permanent payroll.”

    “Oh.”

    “Plus also,” he added, eyeing her sideways, “pet lady of the month. Who will undoubtedly be quayte notorious in her own right.”

    “I thought he was married?” said Polly limply.

    “Yes. She hates travel. Stays home at lee maysong in lee south of France.”

    “Oh,” said Polly faintly.

    “And Adam has never yet been known to have the guts to stand up and do his own thing when Derry and the crowd are around. See?”

    “Yes.”

    “And do not say ‘There’s a first time for everything.’ In fact,” he added, glancing in the direction of the Gents’, “do not say anything.”

    “No,” agreed Polly limply.

    They emerged from the dim puce lift to the brighter puce lobby of The Royal in a blaze of publicity. Adam’s lips tightened. He put his sunglasses on.

    “I’m sorry, Adam,” said Polly lamely.

    “Not your fault.”

    “No, there’ll be someone here on the permanent payroll: the lofty gent on the reception desk, very likely,” said Joel.

    Adam had time to say: “Mm,” as the flashbulbs popped and then they were swamped. The swamping had lasted approximately ten minutes and Joel was starting to feel desperate because he could see that Polly was looking very uncomfortable, and Adam was starting to get very short indeed with the vultures which, obscure Anty-podean media or not, was not good PR, when a scowling burly, silver-haired-man pushed his way roughly through the crowd, grabbed Polly’s elbow, and said grimly: “Come on, the car’s right outside.”

    “Oh! Bob!” she gasped in relief, clutching him.

    “Come on,” he said to Adam and Joel. He began forcing his way through the crowd of Press and gawpers, occasionally grunting: “No comment.” And at one point snarling: “Cut that out, or I’ll knock ya block off!” as a particularly persistent Press-person flashed his bulb right in Polly’s face.

    “Sorry about that, Polly. Didn’t realize you were with these two, or I’d have had the car all ready for ya round the back,” he said when they were safely in the Rolls.

    “Phyllis and I bumped into Adam and Joel by accident,” she explained. “Thanks awfully, Bob.”

    “Yes: thanks, Bob,” echoed Adam.

    “Any time,” he returned grimly. “Hey, we haven’t lost Dame Phyllis, have we?” he added in alarm.

    “No, it’s all right,” said Polly quickly: “she went early, she had a—”

    “Bridge game!” he finished, grinning.

    At that they all laughed, and you might have said relaxed, if it hadn’t been for a certain nasty shock sustained earlier, the word “bach” coming to mind…

    The obliging Bob dropped them off at the university. Joel stood on the kerb outside the main entrance, waving limply at the disappearing Rolls.

    “Well, come on!” said Adam. “Angie tells me that green blouse of yours is going to have large oak leaves loosely applied all over its sleeves: aren’t you dying to see if they’ve started on it?”

    “Eh? Oh—yes.”

    “Those shrimps weren’t bad, were they?” said Adam in alarm.

    “What? Oh, no, dear boy, the tum is perfectly well, thank you.”

    “Than what in God’s name’s up? Not fallen for the macho Bob with unrequited—”

    “NO!” he shouted.

    Adam looked at him limply. Several passing students paused, looked, and stayed to gawp. “What, then?”

    “Me system’s sustained a nasty shock, and if you dare to ask me what, I’ll wrap those trendy sunnies round your throat with me own fair hands,” said Joel sourly.

    Adam raised his eyebrows above the sunglasses.

    “Dirty weekends in BACHES!” shouted Joel angrily.

    “Oh. That,” he said, lips twitching. “With a bit of luck it’ll be a week.”

    Joel glared at him. After a moment he said: “Well, for Christ’s sake take precautions, I’d take a bet she’s never even heard of ‘em.”

    “I haven’t got anything catching,” he murmured.

    “Oh, no! ’Course not!”

    Adam goggled at him.

    “Correct me if I’m wrong, but preggy was bloody catching last time I heard of it.”

    “What do you think I am?”

    Joel took a deep breath.

    “Don’t bother,” said Adam hurriedly.

    “Dammit, I will!” he shouted.

    Adam goggled at him.

    “I think you’re a selfish shit, that’s what I think!” shouted Joel, very red in the face. “Have you any idea what you’re doing to that poor girl?” He took a breath and added more quietly, but very bitterly: “Or even to yourself, come to that!”

    Adam’s lips tightened. After a moment he said: “Thank you for your concern, Joel, but whatever Clem may have said to the contrary, I don’t actually need a keeper.” He turned on his heel and stalked into the Old Block, lips tightly compressed.

    “Ouch!” muttered Joel, shaking his hand as if he’d burnt it. He registered the gawpers, made a sour face at them, said: “Temperament, dears. Us Big Stars all suffer from it, yer know,” and walked slowly in his wake, scowling.