Episode 10: Click Go The Shears

Episode 10: Click Go The Shears

    Close-up, hold the smile, flutter the lashes, hold the smile, flutter the lashes, hold the smile… Being as how it’s the Silly Season (but what seasons aren’t, out there in Media Land?), that’ll probably make the national TV news. The flashbulbs of lesser media persons having already flashed and popped, I can now declare this lovely bazaar open. And let’s hope they give me some elevenses. Ooh, more flowers? How lovely! And are you a Brownie, dear? How lovely…

    No, his parents did not succumb to the famous Lily Rose charm. They did remain graciously polite throughout the rest of that frightful Sunday and the whole of the ghastly Monday and its unspeakable Last Night—Rupy and Gray both getting plastered, not to say plastering themselves with some foaming substance and getting into the Italian fountain on the Boddiford Hall Park Royal’s forecourt in nothing but the foaming substance being merely the half of it. Not to mention the ghastly Tuesday complete with its haze of hangover and the discovery that Marion deliberately hadn’t brought us any bread or milk when we got to the cottage. On the whole it would have been a lot easier to cope with if they’d just broken down and snarled and snapped like ordinary people. A lot. Bloody Marion turned up at crack of dawn on the Wednesday and told Lady Mother a string of lies before I was up—came down to the kitchen to find the pair of them in a huddle. And although John was expecting them to stay another whole day, gee, they didn't think they would, John, dear. Fancy that. When they’d gone he said grimly he was sorry and I said limply so was I, but I had tried, and he said he knew, and we dropped the subject. Personally I could still feel it hovering like a big black cloud, though.

    Then just as we felt things might be getting back on an even keel, and he’d started to really relax, the more so because Tim was deliriously happy for it to be just us—Lady Mother banished him and the basket to the kitchen to sleep, poor old boy—like, on the Friday around mid-morning, Derry Dawlish turned up out of the blue, complete with his retinue. He’d bullied the address out of Bridget.

    The retinue got sent ruthlessly off to the pub and D.D. proceeded to try to charm me into agreeing to try out for a fillum. Whether an unspeakable remake of The Pajama Game or Captain’s Daughter The Movie, or both, or neither, unspecified. I remained adamant, declaring I didn’t want any commitments. He kept on… Finally we had to ask him to lunch. That bulk doesn’t belie his appetite and he topped it off by drinking a huge amount of John’s good brandy. More persuasion in the afternoon but it still didn’t work and he finally rang the chief slave’s mobile and got the retinue to pick him up and take him away. With the parting shot that Georgy Harris had refused absolutely to do a film for him at first, too!

    John kept out of it throughout and though rationally I couldn’t blame him, emotionally I somehow or another felt real sour, y’know? So I bit his head off for nothing. He just became coolly polite until I broke down and apologised. There was nothing to apologise for, I’d had a trying day. Then why had he been so COLD? He didn’t think he had been but if he had he was sorry. (End of subject.) I burst into tears and ran upstairs and threw myself on the bed but the only soft-hearted male to turn up to comfort me was Tim. I’d just come down to find him in the kitchen plastering up the crack in the plaster that Lady Mother had spotted, when the phone rang. Bridget, in tears, she hadn’t realised, and Georgy had just told her that Derry had taken off for the cottage at crack of dawn this morning… I calmed her down and ascertained that she was staying on with Georgy and Adam for a bit, yes, and that—blankly—no, Darryn wasn’t there. Blast. Hung up, stomped back into the kitchen, said sourly: “Do you always do what your mother tells you to?” and marched out to sit on the front wall with Tim for ages and ages.

    Finally he came out and said no, he didn’t always do what his mother told him to and he was really sorry for it all. So I burst into more tears like a total nong and said why hadn’t he stayed there this morning and helped me get rid of Derry? So he sort of sighed and sat down on the wall beside me and said the decision was up to me and he hadn’t wanted to interfere. So I said hadn’t he believed me when I said I wasn’t interested in the film star shit? He had, but he’d also thought any young woman might succumb to the temptation, quite legitimately. I didn’t say anything, just scowled at the sea, and after a bit he put his arm round me and said he’d forgotten I wasn’t a young woman, I was a sociologist and a fellow. Yeah. But I had to smile, and I did feel a lot better. So we went to bed and afterwards he apologised all over again for his parents’ inability to see past the curls and the public persona. And the Australian accent? Er, he was afraid so. So I just sighed and said, yeah, no point in blaming them, might as well blame them for the colour of their eyes. Which went down very well. So after that things did get better. But somewhere in the background the big black cloud’s still hovering.

    He was due for quite a bit of leave but I wasn’t: I had to get off on a round of bizarre openings and then Joanie and Seve were expecting me. If he’d like to come… Gee, he leapt at the offer. Got out the diary, worked it all out, yes, that fits in fine. Do you have to do this opening nonsense, Rosie? Yeah, can’t let people down. I never said it on purpose, but it went over really well.

    So here I am, somewhere in central England, surrounded by floral frocks and a strange mixture of wrinkled grey flannels, honourable jeans (the middle-aged, upper-middle-class element), and urban grunge. Ooh, the cake competition? Yes, I’d love to help judge it! …Bummer, you’re only expected to taste. Never mind, I manage to make my tastes quite large and avoid the judging question entirely by merely agreeing with what the frightening Chief Judge, a tall, scrawny woman in a Guide’s uniform, decrees…

    Spain of course is very hot, but Joanie seems to be coping quite well. I slather myself with sunscreen, it’s just like home, only drier—more like Adelaide, those Christmas holidays in enforced exile at Aunty Kate’s come to mind… John’s worried about my skin. I’m worried about his skin and make sure he wears his panama plus and puts sunscreen on his bald head. He seems quite happy in the heat, and actually breaks down and wears shorts and espadrilles. Oh, of course, the Navy does wear silly white shorts when in The Tropics, he must be used to it. Great legs, but I already knew that. Him and Seve are getting on like a house on fire, thank God, and as both Joanie and Seve are used to me being a sociologist and not ruddy Lily Rose Rayne, we manage to have a really pleasant holiday like four adult human beings and I start to almost believe that maybe John does see me as an adult human being…

    Then a fresh planeload of Pommy tourists arrives at the nearby big hotel and I’m recognised, and a day later a crowd of fucking paparazzi turn up! –Silly Season, right. Seve’s got the solution, escape to the hills to a place his cousin owns, it’s fairly primitive but— John and me hire a car, and escape. It is fairly primitive. Wish we could’ve brought Tim, but the Poms still have these bloody regulations about quarantine for dogs.

    We have three blissful days and then Joanie turns up in the little car she drives, very apologetic but she thought we’d better see—

    The pic features John and me with our arms round each other. We are fully clad, one mercy, well, I’m in a bikini top and a sarong and he’s in white shorts, but the caption is: CAPTAIN AND DAUGHTER. They’ve identified him! Oh, no!

    There’s several others but that’s by far the most telling caption. Though on second thoughts the Froggy one that says SON CAPITAINE isn’t bad, and the other Pommy one that says CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN, is verging on brill’, but probably far too literate for its audience...

    So now what? After a long silence I venture that Admiral Hammersley’ll be on our side. Joanie notes helpfully that that makes one.

    More silence. Joanie notes that we are both free agents. And—er—will it be really bad for your career, John? No, but it’s not quite image the Navy— Heard that one before, yeah.

    Joanie has to get back, so she leaves us the big basket of provisions she’s brought, gives me a hug and a kiss, probably thinks I need them, and hurries off.

    John’s investigating the basket. “English bacon!” he says with a laugh.

    “Yeah. That’ll go good with the Spanish capsicums the garden’s full of. Dunno why they hadda survive while the tomatoes croaked. Um, will the Navy be cross?”

    “I dare say a delicate hint or two may be dropped in my ear, yes. But it won’t go farther than that.”

    I take a deep breath. “I know you’re a senior captain, but will this sort of publicity stop them promoting you to admiral?”

    “Er—in the first place, that wouldn’t be for quite a while yet, darling, and in the second place, I’m very happy where I am, don’t know that I want to move on to sailing a desk at the bloody Admiralty.”

    “Yeah, like Captain James T. Kirk,” I agree seriously.

    “Oh? Don’t think I know him.”

    I bite my lip. “No. He’s a character in— Sorry. It will affect it, won’t it? Your Father’ll be furious if it’s ruined your chances of promotion.”

    “No, he won’t. I grant you Mother may be,” he says lightly. “Father’s got more sense.”

    “Mm…” I stare glumly at the pic. His chest comes over real good. “You do look real good, I suppose the Navy won’t take it as good publicity?”

    “What, and put it on their next recruitment poster? I hardly think so,” he says lightly.

    I was thinking along those lines, actually. Well, he does look a bit like Patrick Stewart, in fact in my opinion he’s better looking than him. “No. Right.”

    “Cheer up, darling, I suppose it was inevitable!”

    No, it wasn’t. We should have been more careful. I should have been more careful, I’m the one that knows what the paparazzi are like: if they haven't got anything else juicy to chase up, they’ll hound us for months. Especially if the second series, which is due to go to air shortly after la rentrée, remember, is as big a hit as Brian Hendricks and the broadcasting Power Brokers are confidently expecting it to be: they’ve already sold all the foreign-language rights. You may say, you never heard that any of those wonderful actors in The Good Life or To The Manor Born were hounded by the paparazzi, and I believe that was true, but the thing is, you see, those shows didn’t deliberately feature anyone as the 21st-Century Monroe. Not to mention didn’t deliberately send publicity shots of the same in a Fifties bathing-suit or strangely stiffened bikini top to the tabloids. I was even allowed to do a Page Three shot, Sheila and Brian wrangled over the terms for ages but finally worked it out to the satisfaction of both parties: shot from behind, no pants, but not quite all of the bum showing, turned slightly sideways so as the punters could see the bikini top falling off me, no actual nipple. The paper fought good and hard for actual nipple but Brian won, it was nippleless Lily Rose or nothing.

    We’re due to go home in less than a week, and things are more or less back to normal. I’m sitting on the little front porch, apology for a front porch is more like it, it’s got one solid pillar made of whatever the house is made of, stone or something, and one metal pole, and no proper roof, it’s just, like, sticks, Seve made us bring a sheet of canvas to put over it, when a large modern silver car is seen grinding up the hill towards the house in a cloud of dust. We’ve got a great view up here, all brown, dry hills with the occasional goat that John reckons is a large contributing factor in the barrenness of the said hills. John’s gone down to the village in the hope of finding fresh fruit, have you noticed Poms never eat it at home but they go mad hunting for it when they’re in the great Abroad? Yeah. If that’s paparazzi, they’ll be disappointed, I’m wearing a huge droopy old straw hat we found in the house, John was horrified when I adopted it, he was sure it’d give me nits, a baggy white shirt of his, the shoulders are incredibly wide, I wasn’t imagining them or exaggerating them in my little feminine mind, and giant baggy cotton pyjama pants, striped red and white, with forty centimetres or so hacked off the ends of the legs so that they come to about four inches above the ankle on me. Picked them up in the village for a song. I’ve got the top, too, but it’s on the line at the moment. You need to wear loose cotton gear in this sort of climate, bugger the skin-tight Lycra crap.

    The car grinds up the hill very slowly, and eventually turns in between our gateposts, the place has got gateposts made of the same stone stuff as the house and painted in chipped dirty yellow like the house, but no gate and no fence, and crawls up the drive and stops by the porch. And a tall man with very neat light brown hair with a bit of silver at the temples gets out. Those oval khaki sunnies, never could stand them. There’s a lady, too, she’s wearing Blues Brothers shades, that’s more like what you need in this blazing blue heat, you can see he’s squinting in spite of the sunnies, but she isn’t. She’s in a loose-ish floral cotton sunfrock, so I unerringly decide she’s either German or English, especially because her nose and shoulders are a bit red on top of the tan. He’s very crumpled in a loose blue cotton shirt and baggy khaki shorts. The lady’s got short brown curls, rather untidy, and she’s carrying a big straw hat, red. There’s a couple of sulking teenage kids in the back seat. Never seen any of them before in my— Oh. Oh, shit!

    “Hullo, Commander Corcoran,” I croak.

    Politely he takes off the sunnies and squints more than ever. “Good morning, Miss Rayne. Hope you’ll forgive the intrusion.”

    “Yeah, sure. Call me Rosie,” I say numbly. “I never knew you were in Spain, too.”

    They’ve been on what he calls a motoring holiday, back home that’d mean a giant caravan attached to the modern vehicle, but I guess in his terms it means driving a bit, stopping off at a good hotel, driving a bit, stopping off at a good— Yeah. His wife’s name is Susan, she takes off the shades and smiles limply at me, she’s got brown eyes and she looks as if she’s had it up to here with bloody motoring holidays and sulking teenage kids. One’s a boy and one’s a girl and they refuse point-blank to get out of the car. Limply I ask the parents in, making the boo-boo of calling him Commander again and being told his name is Nigel. I couldn’t call him that, could I?—all John’s ever called him in my hearing is Corky, and calling him that ’ud be the greatest boo-boo since the Royal Navy was invented, I’m not so dumb I don’t know that.

    It is marginally cooler inside because the walls are very thick, but of course they’ve been sitting in the baking Spanish heat for about three months, now, and the stone never really cools down, not even at night. There is electricity, but it works off a generator in a little shed out the back, Seve’s cousin had it put in, and it runs off oil which has to be lugged all the way from the village in giant drums and costs an arm and a leg. So we don’t use it much. Hurriedly I switch the ceiling fan on. It is a good fan, only it uses up a lot of power. They collapse gratefully onto the battered sofa with the grungy rug over it, saying that’s better. It is until you get used to it and realise it’s still about 34 Celsius in here, yeah. I fetch them cold drinks, we mostly use the electricity to run the fridge, they’d’ve done better to get one of those gas ones like they have back home in Outer Woop-Woop. Choice of very cold lager or very cold lemon cordial. He picks the lager, she takes the cordial and doesn’t even try to remind him he’s driving. She does look dubiously at the cordial when I bring it so I tell her it’s made with bottled water, not the stuff from the well, and she cheers up.

    “Um, John’s gone down the village, he’ll be sorry to have missed you,” I say lamely.

    They exchange glances. Shit, have they come to stay?

    “Um, do ya wanna stay? There is a spare room, and the kids could sleep in here.”

    That’s very kind of me but they thought if it isn’t inconvenient, they might just spend the day and then get on to their hotel (see?) in Wherever.

    “Yeah, fine; John’ll be thrilled, we’re not doing anything.”

    Susan says feebly she didn't realise it was so isolated. –Her accent isn’t quite so la-de-da as his but it’s a close-run thing.

    “No; we came up here to hide from the paparazzi.”

    They exchange glances again and she admits that they saw the papers.

    He clears his throat. “Yes.”

    Then there’s a bit of a pause. I’m just gonna ask them if they wanna use the bathroom or force the kids to go, when he asks how long ago John left. I admit that actually they musta missed him by about five minutes: they woulda passed the turnoff to the village if they came up from the main road. They exchange glances again so if I wasn’t sure before there’s something up, now I am.

    Susan gets up. If she could possibly use the bathroom (I’m not gonna say no, am I? Jesus!) and then she’ll run the kids down to the village and get something for lunch; now, I’m not to argue, because they didn’t come here to eat us out of house and home, social laugh. If their kids are like most people’s teenage kids I sincerely doubt she’s gonna find anything in the village that they’ll eat, except maybe the ice cream. But all I say is Righto; you can get nice ice creams down there, go to the bar, okay? I show her the bathroom and explain the chemical toilet that Seve’s cousin put in (the alternative being a long-drop dunny out the back) and make sure there’s enough bog paper and leave her to it.

    Once they’ve gone I get Nigel another beer and me another lemon cordial and he clears his throat again and says thanks, and actually, there is something he wanted to talk to me about.

    Oh, is there? Fancy that, I couldn’t’ve guessed.

    “Er, we were rather—uh—taken aback to see that snap of John and you in the papers.”

    “So were we.”

    “Er—of course.”

    Agonising silence.

    I take a deep breath. “Commander Corcoran, I don’t know if John’s told you this, but in spite of the Lily Rose shit, I’m actually a sociologist. I took on the part in the show because I’m involved in a project that’s studying workplace group behaviour under imposed hierarchical conditions. The TV people don’t know.”

    He clears his throat. “Er—yes. Actually, not long before we left, Miriam Haworth spoke to Susan about it.”

    Uh—crikey. Lady Mother, he means. I just gape at him.

    “This is none of my business, of course,” he says in that haw-haw voice—no, it isn’t, is it?—“but I have known John for a very long time and we’re both very fond of him.”—Right, drag the little woman in, that’ll bolster up your position, you upper-class wanker.—“And of course, seeing you, um, as yourself, so to speak,”—embarrassed smile that he doesn’t mean a second of, so why bother?—“well, naturally it’s obvious that the television acting is—er—well, not the real you.”—Yeah, but Lady Mother will’ve wised up Susan that the real me’s not what she wants for the blue-eyed boy, either, eh? Shit, the man’s fifty, he’s made a mess of one marriage, what does the stupid woman imagine’s left for him? A puce and magenta cow from a suitable Navy family that’ll sleep with anything in a uniform the minute he’s off at sea again? (Yes, she did: I got that out of nice Velda Cross, she’s too young to actually remember his marriage busting up but of course his entire crew knows his entire life-story.)—“Believe me, Rosie, I’m not unsympathetic, but the sort of publicity you’ve been getting is doing John’s career no good at all.”

    “How do you know that?” I say tightly.

    Nigel’s on safer ground here, he’s being asked to deal in facts, not emotions. “Firstly, because I do know the Navy pretty well, I’ve been at sea all my adult life, and my family’ve always been naval people.”—I think he means had naval connections, his mother’s brother’s an earl, I sincerely doubt that earls have ever bothered to go to sea. Though some of his father’s side have always been in the Navy, yeah, ever since they emigrated from Ireland post-Cromwell and settled in the southern counties and started sucking up to Charles Stuart and his merry mates. I got all that out of John one evening when he was feeling very relaxed, it can never hurt to know as much of your enemy as poss’, can it?—“And secondly, because both Admiral Beaton and Admiral Hammersley mentioned the matter to me.”

    I’m blank for moment: Admiral Beaton? Then all at once that scene in the taxi with Miss Hammersley, coming home from the Ritz, comes back to me. John’s commander. His commanding officer, right. “What did they say?” I demand grimly.

    “Er, well, I think the point isn’t so much what they actually said, but the fact that they thought it needed mentioning.”

    “I can see that, I’m not that dumb! But I wanna know what they said!” I retort angrily.

    His lips tighten but he replies politely enough: “Hammersley said, more or less, that perhaps I could mention to John that it won’t do to be seen publicly like that with ‘the little thing’,”—boy, is that upper-clawss distaste—“though he knows you’re bright as a button.”

    “That’d be right. What about your boss?”

    He doesn’t like that, one does not have a “boss” in the Royal Navy. “Beaton said it looked as if John was making a damned fool of himself, who the Hell were you, and couldn’t I tell him to sheer off before the Sea Lords get hold of it and he ruins his career.”

    “Mm.” I think it over. He watches me, looking grim, that don’t-give-a-shit-for-anything-that’s-not-Royal-Navy of his is showing, again.

    “So why are you telling me and not John?” I say eventually.

    He’s not that dumb, his mouth tightens and he replies grimly: “I think you must know why.”

    I give him an ironic look, I’m not unsympathetic to his point of view, actually, in spite of appearances, but of course I don’t like being bearded on my holiday and being put in the wrong, who would? “It’s an appeal to my better nature, is it?”

    “Something of the sort,” he says tightly.

    “Right, and if I was Lily Rose?”

    He’s blank for a moment. “Oh! Er—well, as the question doesn’t arise… ” I just look at him. He goes very red. “Very well, I suppose the reaction would be to try to buy her off.”

    I suppose it would, yeah. I lean forward. “What people like you and Lady Haworth and your Admiral Beaton can never grasp is the point that people like Lily Rose are people, too!”

    “I really don’t see—”

    “I know you don’t. I think that’s what I loathe most of all about your class,” I say thoughtfully.

    He’s furious, he’s gone red as fire and the mouth tightens again. Glad it’s the upper-clawss Susan that’s married to that, and not me. Mind you, she’s so nayce she probably never does anything to bring it on. Feel sorry for those two sulky kids, though.

    After quite a while he manages to say: “At least you admit there is a certain question of class involved.”

    “Get real, Commander Corcoran! There’s a certain question of outspoken Australian yob with a crude Australian accent and a dad who’s a bookie! Maybe the half-his-age bit wouldn’t count so much with Lady Haworth without it, but as it is, that’s in there, too.”

    “Very well, put it like that,” he says tightly.

    After a moment I concede: “I suppose it was honest of you to admit they’d have tried to buy Lily Rose off.”

    “I think so,” he says tightly.

    “Yeah. Well, as I’m not her, what do you want?” –I’m not gonna spare him, he’s gonna have to spell it out.

    Grimly he replies: “Certainly that you avoid being seen in public with John. Unless you want to ruin his career?”

    “You haven’t explained exactly how that’d ruin it. He’s already captain of a huge great warship.”

    “No, well, there would be no question of his being sent as aide-de-camp to deepest Botswana or some such,” he says angrily. “However, doubtless your experience of workplace conditions will have indicated to you that there is such a thing as sideways promotion. He’d be shunted into a desk job and forgotten. Commissariat, or something. After that the very best he could hope for would be… Well, given his family’s connections, possibly Governor of the Bahamas, if no minor Royals were in the running at the time, and the right political party happened to be in power.”

    Gee, what a terrible fate. But as I can see that in their terms it is, I don’t say it.

    “Or High Commissioner to Fiji?” he says on an ironic note. –Yeah, hah, hah, very funny. There’s a coup going on there at the moment, or possibly two coups; I haven’t taken much notice, the Pacific all seems very far away, funnily enough.

    “I am a fellow at a very well thought of English university.” I say slowly.

    Ooh, he’s gone very red, chalk one up to L.R. Marshall! “Of course,” he says stiffly. “Naturally there could be no objection if that were the only factor involved.” He meets my eye. “Not on the Navy’s part,” he concedes stiffly.

    Right, Lady Mother still wouldn’t have a bar of me, and Admiral Sir Father wouldn’t be too keen, neither.

    “But some of the publicity for the Lily Rose character has really been… well, tasteless.”—He’s right, there; no argument there, yep. Though that Page Three effort in its way was very tasteful, but that’s the class thing again.—“And it’s most unfortunate that the television series has a naval theme. I have to admit that if you could give him up until it’s all over, the Navy would be able to—er—overlook it.”

    “You mean give him up entirely, do you? Not just in public.”

    “Yes,” he agrees in a hard voice. “I’m quite sure you intended this holiday to be just a quiet getaway, but it didn’t work, did it?”

    No, but it would have, if we’d had the sense to come straight up here to the hills. I don’t say anything, he’s got a point, and most of John’s village must know we’re having it away, certainly all of the locals and the few weekenders and retirees that speak to their butcher and superette manager and hairdresser as if they were human beings, and it’s only human nature to reflect that you could get a few dollars out of one of the tabloids by giving them an exclusive.

    “No. Um, say I kept away from the village and he just came round to the flat in town now and then?”

    That’s distasteful, it’s perilously close to mentioning S,E,X, but he replies valiantly: “I really don’t think that would answer. Don’t the papers know your address?”

    Yeah, the Sunday Supps sure do. And I suppose what they know the tabloids can find out with both hands tied behind them. Oh, and there were those women’s mags, too. “Um, yeah. More or less, yeah.”

    “Yes,” he says flatly.

    After a minute I say cautiously: “I’m committed to do one more series, then I’m pulling out, though I haven’t told the TV people that yet. The field work’s over, we’ll be writing it up next term.”

    “Good,” he says grimly. “And this rumour about a film?”

    Jesus God, I AM NOT LILY ROSE! “Total balls. Some mad fantasy of Derry Dawlish’s.”

    That takes him aback for a moment, Derry Dawlish doesn’t make populist crap, he makes Art. Pearl G-strings to the contrary. No, well, not to the contrary, come to think of it: name one hugely popular Sean Connery film that he ever wore a G-string in. Exactly. Every single Bond film, I’m not talking about the Roger Moore crap, of course, was five thousand times more tasteful and showed five thousand times less tit and bum of both sexes than anything D.D.’s ever made. But that’s Art for ya.

    “Er, he is a very well respected director,” he concedes weakly.

    Must mean for his Art, no-one respects him for the gratuitous embraces and the bottom-fondling, that’s for sure. I just say: “By the time he’s ready to start casting, I’ll have given it up and gone back to serious study. I’m writing a book on post-Cold War nationalism.”

    “Of course! And there could be no objection at all to your seeing John then!” he says eagerly.

    I eye him drily. “Not from the Navy, Commander Corcoran, right.”

    “His parents are very conservative people,” he says tightly.

    Gee, I noticed. “Yeah. I’ll try wearing horn rims and tweed suits.”

    He doesn’t think that’s funny but he says stiffly: “Possibly that might help.”

    “Look, a captain of a big ship, however many guns it’s got, is not your actual Prince Charles!” I say loudly, beginning to lose my cool.

    He looks down that rather bumpy nose, why did I ever think it was a nice nose? “I don’t think anyone ever claimed he was. But I could remind you that that was a marriage between very disparate ages, and it didn’t work out, did it?”

    I’m so mad I could strangle him! That poor, stupid little girl that was dazzled by the thought of being Queen… My God, she’d barely left school, who’s got sense or foresight at that age, even if they’ve got brains? And it was clear as clear she never had those. If you look at those early shots of her with him, it’s plain as the nose on your face that that’s a very unhappy girl, and this is not hindsight, it’s precisely what Mum, who’s pretty sharp when it comes to people, said in words of one syllable when the pics taken a bit after the engagement came out. Before they got the Queen Mum to brainwash her into going through with it, I think the story goes. No, honest, even Joslynne’s Mum admits it’s exactly what Mum said and she was right all along. And why do upper-clawss shits like Corky Corcoran imagine there was such an outpouring of popular feeling when she died? Because the populace at large is a load of lower-class nits that can’t see a girl that’s very unhappy in a miserably unsuitable marriage and made a huge great mess of her life, when’s it’s right under their noses? Right.

    “Don’t you ever say anything like that in front of me again, Commander Corky Corcoran, or I’ll wipe that upper-class sneer off your fat, self-satisfied upper-class FACE!” I shout.

    He’s gone very red. “I really didn’t think you’d belong to the Saint Di school of thought—”

    “I DON'T, you bloody cretin!” I bellow. “Of course she wasn’t blameless, poor, dumb little tart! She’d barely left SCHOOL, she was only a couple of years older than your Linda when they married her off to that up-himself prick! And I don’t say he might not’ve tried, but if it was anybody’s responsibility to see the marriage worked out, it was his! And so much for fucking noblesse oblige!” I’m so furious I can’t sit still, I bounce up and go over to the window and open the shutter a crack more and squint out at blazing blue sky and brown hills.

    I can hear him swallow. After quite some time he says stiffly: “I apologise. And I admit I hadn’t looked at it in quite that way…”

    There’s a long silence, during which I just squint at the brown hills and wish they were the Blue Mountains, reeking with the scent of eucalypt oil under the blazing blue sky of home. Or even smoking with a bushfire under the heavy grey humidity of home, would do.

    “I certainly wouldn’t fancy the thought of Linda marrying a much older man at that age,” he says in a shaken voice.

    I don’t turn round. I just say: “Right. Especially one that you knew had a Camilla P.-B.”

    “Er—yes,” he says lamely.

    Right.

    More silence. Eventually I turn round and say grimly: “All right, soon as we get home, I’ll cool it.”

    Don’t think he precisely understands my vernacular, there, but he says evenly: “Thank you.”

    “In the meantime, you want another beer? Wanna use the head?” I say nautically. He does, both.

    When he comes back I give him another beer and we both sit down and there could be a very uncomfortable period until Susan and the kids or John or all of them get back from the village, but there isn’t gonna be: I might as well salvage something from the wreckage. I’ve fetched my tape recorder, yes, it did come on holiday with me, well, I knew a lot of Brits visit Joanie’s village and find there’s nothing to do but drink beer or sangría and sit round talking to other English-speakers. “I’ve already got John’s views, but I’d be very interested to hear your views on the Falklands War, Nigel.”

    He looks limply at the tape recorder but if John’s done it he’s not gonna refuse. “Er—certainly, if you’re interested,” he says limply.

    Only academically, but I don’t say that. I switch on and say to it: “Commander Nigel Corcoran, Royal Navy. How old are you?”—“Forty-seven,” he says limply. “Forty-seven. Go on, Nigel. Were you with John in the Falklands War?”

    He does go on, very haltingly at first, but funnily enough I’m used to prompting and of course it’s a subject close to his heart. It’s very illuminating. Not about the Falklands, no, that’s standard for his class, gender and age. No, about Commander Nigel Corcoran, R.N. Very articulate, once he gets going, but in spite of the fact that he clearly does the liaison stuff between the other officers and the captain, and even the men and the captain, very capably, very limited and… inelastic, I think is the word. Yes, inelastic, in his thinking. And quite incapable of taking a wider view of anything: human emotions, the Falklands, Britain’s rôle in a post-Cold War world… Jesus. What school did he go to? Jesus. Musta been one of their failures, that’s for sure! One of the senior lecturers in the Department went there, and he’s a very bright cookie.

    Well, okay, what I chiefly gather, reading between the lines, is that there’s no support to be expected from Commander Nigel (Corky) Corcoran even after I’ve dropped the Lily Rose stuff, and that he’d rather see John dead than married to me. Well, that’s exaggerating a bit, but not much.

    I’m just assuring him that I won’t quote him (I will, of course, but I won’t attribute it personally), and labelling his tape “Royal Navy. Commander. Male. 47,” and the date, when John walks in with a great load of shopping.

    “Hul-lo! Got you going on the Falklands, did she, old man?”

    Nigel’s not so inhuman that he doesn’t give me a hunted look: am I gonna tell John what he was up to?

    No, because contrary to expectations, and even though I’m from the end of the universe and a yob, I do have something approaching a sense of honour. Added to which, there is a pragmatic side to it: break John up with his oldest friend? What good’d that do any of us? Corky’d be bitter and hate me more than ever, John’d be bitter and resent me for it, and I’d be guilty as Hell for behaving like a spoilt little shit.

    So I just get up and say: “Yes, I thought I might seize the opportunity. Thank you very much, Nigel, it was very interesting.”

    “Told you what was wrong with the Old Man’s tactics, did he?” says John with a laugh, dumping his shopping on the dining table and turning to grab Susan’s shopping off her and dump that: is the woman incapable of putting down a few bags of groceries?

    “No, of course not, ya nong. In the first place he’s far too loyal to do that and in the second place he genuinely approves of every move you made.”

    John waggles his eyebrows at Nigel and he admits, pretty limp but valiant: “She’s got me taped, John.”

    And we all collapse in gales of laughter, in my case it’s pure relaxation of tension and not an ounce of amusement in it.

    Linda and John—shit, did he name him after him?—refuse to come in from the car so after a bit of shouting from both parents they decide to leave them to it. Susan wants to come and play Kitchen with me, so I let her, but it’s pretty obvious she’s just about had it, so I sit her down on a kitchen chair, and fetch the gin bottle. Poor moo, even if she has been going into huddles with Lady Mother. “Hot, isn’t it?” I say kindly.

    “It’s terrible,” she says limply. “Of course, I’ve been to Gib, but I had no idea, really. The further inland we’ve come, the hotter it’s got.”

    Right, this is a bit different from air-conditioned officers’ quarters, eh? I don’t say it, I just put lots of ice in the gin and add a bit of cold lemon cordial.

    Once she’s got it down her I ask her if she’d like a bit of a lie-down before lunch and she leaps at it. So I take her into our room, fortunately there’s a passage, we don’t have to go back into the lounge-room and be interrogated by the Navy, and she collapses on the bed and I put the ceiling fan on and make sure the shutters are closed. “Look, if you’ve really had it, Susan, take all your clothes off and sponge yourself down with cold water.” There’s a big bowl on the bedside table for the purpose but I very considerately go and empty it out and bring it back with fresh water and something disguised as a fresh face washer. “Go for it; I’ll call you when lunch is ready.” She thanks me limply. Whether she’ll ever bring herself to do it is another matter, of course, but I’ve done all I can.

    I get on with making lunch, it’s just cold cuts and bread and fruit. After some thought I grab a couple of cans of lager and go out to the car—out the back door, I’m not setting myself up for a naval interrogation, the lounge-room door’s open.

    They’re sweltering, silly little buggers. Must be dear Nigel’s own car, it’s got GB plates, and of course it hasn’t got air-con. Jesus, Poms! “Have a beer. If you wanna stay out here, that’s up to you, but I gotta warn ya, the noon temperature in these here parts reaches 38 Celsius, that’s a hundred degrees in the old measurements. And in the afternoon,” I say coldly as John looks at the giant leather-encased chronometer on his bony wrist, he’s about sixteen, “it only gets hotter. It’ll be 43 by three o’clock. If you wanna make nits of yourselves by passing out in the bloody car that your dad hasn’t had the nous to put air-con in and having to be resuscitated by the fucking Royal Navy, go right ahead and stay here.”

    Maybe the phrase “the fucking Royal Navy” struck a chord, because John says sourly: “Dad thinks it’s my life’s ambition to drive a bloody warship.”

    “I bet he does, yeah.”

    “And all I’m fit for,” says Linda angrily, lowering her can, “is to marry a stupid lieutenant and fight his way up the ladder for him with all the bloody Navy wives!”

    “Yeah. Think all these flaming Navy families are the same. Once you’re eighteen you can go your own way, legally. Only of course it’s bloody hard if you’re financially dependant on them.”

    “Yes,” they admit, scowling horribly.

    After a bit Linda asks cautiously: “What did you do?”

    I think she’s asking the red and white striped raggy pie-jams and the sloppy shirt and the actual bought straw hat, blue and white stripes going round and round and round with a nice, bright, fuzzy yellow pom-pom on it, that I grabbed up from the hook on the back door in passing. Not Lily Rose Rayne, if ya get me. “Me? I was a bit luckier than you, there’s not so much unemployment in Australia. I did my B.A. in the teeth of all my female relations, the government there pays your fees but you have to sign your life away to pay them back, and worked part-time, like waitressing and crap jobs like that, and kept on doing the crap jobs and eventually got my Ph.D. I admit my dad was reasonably sympathetic but not to the point of subsidising my great mouth for years on end.”

    “Um, no,” they both say numbly.

    “I did tour guiding one summer, boy, was that a slog. It gets about as hot in Sydney as it does here—” I have to stop, Linda’s asking me breathlessly about The Olympics! I can’t tell her all that much, not all that much rubbed off on me. She’s keen on women’s swimming. I’m only keen on men’s diving, like when they bend forward in those skimpy little trunks and ya see what they’re really made of. I don’t say this. I’m sure it’ll be on English TV. Yes, but will Dad let her stay up to watch it? Probably not, but let’s hope he’s at sea, eh? They gulp, and grin feebly. Does Linda have to live at home? I thought she’d have to go to a boarding school, even poncier than Putrid St Agatha’s Academy for Putrid Young Ladies that I hadda go to. Giggling, she admits that she was sacked from her public school for smoking pot. And now she has to go to the local grammar.

    “Yeah?” I say without interest. “Dulls the mind. I prefer gin. If ya take too much you get a hangover as a sort of Early Warning.” They nod groggily. Suddenly John bursts out with a lot of unsolicited information about his school.

    “That sounds bloody. My brother Kenny, he went to a day school, but to hear him talk, it was just as bad, and then when he got home every arvo, Mum’d start nagging him to do his homework.”

    What does he do? I explain about him being a certified, card-carrying Environmentalist, like he’s got a B.Sc. and a good job as a lab technician but every spare minute of his time and every summer holidays he’s out there picketing this, that and the other with, oddly enough, the exception of the exact stretches of water his bosses have told him to analyse. They don’t know whether to be horrified or object or laugh or what.

    “There’s a fair bit of it about. Dare say you even get it in England, eh?”

    Suddenly John bursts out with a huge long story about his science teacher at school, who’s exactly like that!

    “Yeah, they’re all the same: only the comfortably in-work middle class can afford the luxury of principles. You guys wanna come in and use the spare room? We haven’t got a satellite dish but there’s a telly and a video machine and heaps of tapes. Um, some of them are a bit blue, they belong to the guy that owns the house, but—”

    They’re out of the car with shining morning faces.

    “–what the eye doesn’t see the naval heart won’t weep over,” I finish cheerfully.

    “And the maternal heart!” hisses Linda with fervour.

    Right. Poor kid, imagine being stuck at home with Mummy concentrating, in between the bridge games with the other Navy wives, solely on your unworthy, lumpish, slightly spotty, dental-braced self. “Yeah. Come on, if we creep round the back they won’t spot ya.”

    We creep round the back, I give them a six-pack and all the food I’d prepared for the grown-ups and they disappear into the spare room. It’s only light beer, but I don’t think it’s dawned.

    On inspection Susan’s asleep with the damp cloth on her forehead and all her clothes off and the fan on. I creep out. In the lounge-room they’re smoking Seve’s cousin’s foul cigars, Jesus!

    “Uh, sorry, darling, I know they make you feel green,” the nong says hurriedly.

    “Yeah. Peer-group pressure got the better of you. Don’t put them out, I’m not gonna come in here, that pong’ll hang around for hours. I’ll bring you more beer and something to eat, and I’ll have mine in the kitchen. Susan’s out of it: think she’ll sleep for hours, what the Hell’ve you been doing to her?”

    Nigel’s gone very, very red. “Nothing! For God’s sake, what did she say—”

    “She didn’t say anything, she’s a loyal Navy wife,” I return smartly. “All she did was, she lay down on our bed and went out like a light.”

    Feebly he offers: “I think the heat’s been a bit much, though we have been staying in decent hotels.”

    “Yeah, and driving all afternoon instead of having siestas like the natives, haven’tcha?”

    He bleats about their schedule. Pronouncing it with that soft Pommy “sh”. I dunno why that gets right up my nose, but it always has, even though most people back home do it, too. I always say like, “skedule,” it’s a much nicer word, try it if ya don’t believe me.

    “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get your lunch. Oh: I bunged your kids in the back bedroom, don’t worry, they’re not gonna come down with sunstroke.”

    He’s thunderstruck. “How in God’s name did you manage that?”

    John’s looking dry. “Five’ll get you ten she gave them beer.” –See, he’s got a much more flexible mind than Commander Corky Corcoran. Added to which he does know me rather better, of course.

    “Yeah. I’m gonna read my book in the kitchen, don’t worry that you’re depriving me of your Royal Naval company.” I go out on that. John’s chuckling. As I go back into the kitchen I can hear him saying happily: “She’s like that!”

    Yeah, well.

    Later. They’ve actually gone, not without bloody Nigel finding out what the kids were watching and bawling them out over it, and a groggy Susan smiling weakly and thanking me for letting her sleep. Thinks she’s let the sayde down? Yikes.

    Funnily enough I’m not a box of birds. John gives me a sharp look. “What exactly did Corky say to you?”

    “Eh?”

    “While we were in the village. In the intervals of the interview on the Falklands.”

    “Dunno whatcha mean. Well, actually I got the tape recorder out fairly early in the piece. Um, we had an argument about the Princess of Wales, actually.”

    “Oh, God!” he says with a laugh. He knows my views, Watson.

    “Yeah, well, I’m not saying he was prepared to like me, but that sort of put him off even more.”

    He gives me a troubled look. “Darling, that’s nonsense.”

    Oh, sure. Right. Nonsense, mm. I only say: “Well, I told him about my field work, a bit. He quite approves of that, I think, but he said something about they were upset by those bloody pics in the tabloids.”

    “Mm.” Another sharp look. “That was it, was it?”

    “Yeah,” I say vaguely. “Fancy a gin before bed?”

    He decides on a brandy and I have a very cold gin with lots of ice and some lemon cordial. Help, we’re getting low on gin and lemon cordial! We take the drinks to bed and in spite of the warming-the-brandy shit I have to fight him off to get the gin down me before the ice melts.

    … “You were very fierce!” he says with a laugh after I’ve demanded to go on top and fucked him like crazy and we’ve both come like the Challenger taking off and collapsed, panting, for ages and ages and ages.

    “Mmm… Didja mind?”

    “Mind! Hell, no!” he says with a laugh.

    Gee, that’s good. Probably I was so “fierce”, as he puts it, because at the back of my mind was the thought that this is gonna be our last week until the bloody third series has finished shooting, which won’t be until around Christmas. Something like that. Y’know?

    All this would be bad enough, was it D.L. Sayers that said something about it still being hampering for a woman to have a sense of honour, like back in 1935 or something? Is it what. But then the bloody Navy got in on the act!

    We drove back down to the coast to say goodbye, and thanks for everything and take care of yourselves to Joanie and Seve, and the minute we drew up outside the bar the road filled with a swarm of paparazzi. They recognised me even without makeup, in my Blues Brothers shades, with the hypnotic blue and white striped straw hat. The usual impertinent questions were shouted, in three languages, dominated by Cockney English and French-accented English—that was probably the lot from the paper that gave with SON CAPITAINE. Funnily enough John didn’t appreciate a load of unshaven paparazzi shouting: “John! John! Jean! Jean!” at him. We managed to fight our way into the bar, to find Seve had rounded up a posse of local strong-arm types who bodily shoved the paparazzi out and locked the place.

    After that the only problem was how to get away again but Seve was on top of that, too: the strong-arm types formed a phalanx of bodyguards to escort us back to the hire car. We were planning to drive it to the airport and leave it there. Unfortunately the airport’s quite a way from Seve’s place. We set off, and it went like this:

    Are they following us? Some of them, yeah. He takes a deep breath but concentrates on his driving. We get through the little town and out onto the open road… Are they still following us? Um, yeah. He thought my theory was that if one fed them enough crap to fill their space they’d go away? Uh, yeah. Only it’s the Silly Season and they need more crap, and, um— Glumly I admit that they’ll be hoping to snap him kissing me in public, or him and me together when he’s in his uniform, or, preferably, both. His lips tighten and he puts his foot down… Um, they won’t go away, they’ll have guessed we’re heading for the airp— He knows! Shit. Um, John, this is the sort of scene that killed poor little Di, and I know we’re not heading for a tunnel and it’s broad daylight and you’re not an official driver on Uppers on top of booze, but— He grimaces, and slows down. Yep, they’re still following us. After a bit one of their cars draws alongside and they wave madly. I smile and wave madly back. The cameras snap. Did I have to do that? Yeah, no sense in antagonising them. Could it get worse, if we did? Much worse, they’d be camping on our doorsteps all night and tapping our phones. He sees. (Very grim. Oh, God.)

    At the airport we were surrounded again and he refused point-blank to put his arm round me or kiss me but they snapped madly anyway. I smiled desperately in the hope that maybe they would go away, but they didn’t, in spite of my Lily Rose travelling gear that I’d put on in the hopes of placating them: pale pink linen-look slacks, slightly flared, with high-heeled pale pink sandals, and a very short black sleeveless top with a black ball fringe all round its waist, two inches above my actual waist. Plus and the matching hat, a pale pink straw version of what the tourists imagine is a male Flamenco dancer’s hat, shallow crowned, flat topped, flat, widish brim, meant to be worn tilted rakishly sideways. And, going one better than your actual male Flamenco hat, a black bobble fringe around the brim. I put it on for them and struck an attitude, Olé! They liked it but it wasn’t enough, oh, God…

    Fortunately we weren’t travelling Tourist Class so at the suggestion of the sympathetic lady behind the check-in counter we escaped to the VIP lounge and were then coddled all the way back to Britain with only six passengers, one very polite steward and two very polite stewardesses asking if they could possibly have my auto—You get it. I won’t say what airline it was because I don’t think the staff are supposed to ask the passengers to put their monikers on unused paper serviettes, are they? But of course in spite of the put-on accents, very strange indeed, they were all just nice working-class boys and girls, all their families and friends watch the show avidly. The passengers didn’t have that excuse. Three well-dressed middle-aged ladies reckoned it was for the grandkids, not realising Henny Penny monitors the demographics with an eagle eye, one well-dressed middle-aged man reckoned it was for the grandkids, one tired businessman that brightened amazingly at the sight of me reckoned it was for his daughter who’s my greatest fan, and one smart female exec reckoned it was for her little niece and just to put Best Wishes, Lily Rose. John drank rather a lot of whisky, who could blame him?

    At the airport I had to break the awful news that I couldn’t come down to the cottage with him for a couple of days as previously arranged: Sheila and Henny Penny between them had fixed up a Personal Appearance for me tomorrow. To prove it, Barbara and Mike were meeting me with the limo. –Sort of prove it, yeah: on the morning I’d gone for a very early walk, I’d actually gone down to the village and used the phone at the bar to ring Sheila and arrange it. And she’d rung Joanie and Seve and left a message to say it was all confirmed.—How long had I known this?—Um, for a while, only I hadn’t wanted to spoil our holiday.—No. Well, that was it, then, and he’d get on down to the cottage.—Hang on, we could give him a lift into town. Only look out, there might be a few— There were. We bundled into the limo under the sympathetic Mike’s supervision. I assured John they wouldn’t bother to chase us, they were airport paparazzi, it was their job to hang around and snap boarding or landing celebrities. But Barbara couldn’t guarantee there might not be some outside our building, because um, she didn’t know if we’d seen those photos in the tabloids… Quite.

    The flats did turn out to be paparazzi-free, but I pointed out that if John stayed, tomorrow’d be the morning they’d turn up in force, it was still the Silly Season.—Yes.—Mike offered to run him to the station, or did he want to hire a car?—It had better be the station, thanks, Mike.—He didn’t get out, he kissed me fiercely in the car under the interested and sympathetic gaze of Barbara and Mike. He’d ring me when he got to the cottage, okay?

    “Yeah, okay, John.” Barbara and me got out—no, we could manage the luggage, thanks—and waved sadly as the limo crawled off and disappeared round the corner…

    “That’s that,” I noted grimly.

    “Um, you’ll see him again soon, Lily Rose,” she said timidly, maybe the black scowl on my brow had caught her attention.

    “Something like that, yeah. Come on, let’s get this lot inside.”

    He did ring me from the cottage, missing me already. That was nice, I was missing him, too… Nothing wrong, was there? No. When did he have to get back to sea? Expecting to find new orders cut on Monday. Right. Bye for now, John. Bye-bye, darling Rosie.

    So by now I’ve had a whole three days of ruddy Personal Appearances, each one in a sillier outfit, and it’s Monday, and the blow falls. Somebody was sure busy while we were having it away like sex-mad rabbits in our scungy little house up there in the brown Spanish hills and personally I’d be quite interested to know just how much influence Commander Corky Corcoran and his flaming naval family do have with the Admiralty. Not to mention ruddy Father Admiral Sir Bernard Haworth, pushed by Her, you betcha. Because, gee, John rings up just as I’m about to have a cheese sandwich for lunch after an exhausting Personal Appearance at a new video shop where I didn’t even get a cup of tea. Been trying to get me all morning.—You know that feeling like when your stomach sinks right through your ankles? Yeah.—It’s a damn nuisance but he can’t get out of it—

    “Just TELL me!”.

    He does. The Powers That Be have decreed he’s gotta go off on some sort of liaison thing or exchange of whatsits or something, with the Yanks. That doesn’t sound too bad, only just watch out the Yanks don’t drive one of their ships into—

    “No, not manoeuvres, darling. It’s in the States. For six months,” he says.

    My ears ring. “What?”

    Part of the new strategic planning era, closer relations, bah, blah. Probably the Brits getting the wind up because the Yanks have been making noises about a complete nuclear defence ring around Home Planet USA to replace that Star Wars thing that never took off, something like that. My ICBMs are bigger than your ICBMs, that sorta crap. I don’t say any of this, I just say in a very small voice: “You mean you’ll have to stay over there?”

    Yes, based in Washington. And he’ll ring me every day, darling.

    After a very long time I manage to say in a very small voice: “Yes. Maybe it’s just as well, until I’ve finished the third series.”

    “I have to admit the same thought crossed my mind. And six months isn’t forever, darling!”

    No, right. Except a lot of things can happen in six months with a huge great ocean between you, and whatever good intentions he might start off with, I happen to know that Washington, D.C., specialises in puce and magenta ladies, because I’ve seen all those films like Absolute Power with Judy Davis.

    “Um, what’s going to happen to Dauntless?” Apparently Corky will be temporarily in command, this appointment’s not forever, I know! –Do I?

    “Can you come and say goodbye before you go?” –I never meant to say that, I meant to be really honourable and the sort of woman that D.L. Sayers would respect.

    He does have to come up to London, yes. He’s not sure… He’ll definitely ring me when he gets here. Er, did any paparazzi turn up on my doorstep?

    (Yes, actually, and Imelda Singh also turned up, and gave them an interview, it was her last weekend before school, unfortunately.) I admit that some did.

    “Mm… Look, I think it would be the height of tactlessness to let myself be snapped going into your building at this point. Er, well, not that it’s a diplomatic posting in any sense...” I get it out of him that they’re going to give him a briefing in London and then he and Kenneth Hammersley together are going to issue a brief statement to the Press.

    “My God! What if they ask you about me?”

    “No, darling, it’ll all be very carefully arranged, our PR people are onto it. Fixed statements, written questions only.”

    Dumb Rosie says in awe: “Can you do that?”

    “Certainly, provided that one invites the right Press.”

    Gulp.

    “Darling, I’m afraid I have to go.”

    “Yeah, me, too, Mike’s picking me up at two, I gotta have some lunch.”

    “Of course! Ring you very soon! Bye, Rosie!”

    “Bye-bye, John.”

    So there you are. Game, set and match to the Royal Navy, eh? No, be fair, Lily Rose Rayne’d be a mere fly on the wall to the Navy. Game, set and match to bloody upper-clawss family connections and Influence. Yeah.