Episode 11: Stiff Upper Lips

Episode 11: Stiff Upper Lips

    September. La rentrée. Huge pictures of Lily Rose’s mug next to a rose-shaped cake of soap with a pink bottle of perfume mistily in the background blossom on buses and hoardings all over London, advertising “Lily Rose”. In quotes, literally. Don’t ask me why, I’m merely the vehicle. London still hot and stuffy. We start work on the third series. Sheila tries to make me accept three offers for cameos in other telly series, one nice little part in an intellectual telly serial, not Dickens, some other intellectual telly writer, and one nice little cameo in a film, it’d only really be a Personal Appearance, I’d be me (sic), all of them provisionally in advance, the contract with Henny Penny being due to expire (L.R. Marshall) or due for renewal (Sheila Bryant Casting) at the end of the third series. John’s in Washington, rings me every day except when caught up in stupid meetings or travelling between Washington and some other place to look at ships or meet Yank commanders of ships or whatever.

    October. The women’s mags blossom with huge pictures of Lily Rose’s mug next to a rose-shaped cake of soap with a pink bottle of perfume mistily in the background. Gee, on the back cover of three shiny ones in the same month? The second series is now in full swing. The ratings are sky-high. Coincidentally the commercial channels start to blossom with lovely ads for “Lily Rose” complete with me in pale pink skin-tight angora holding the soap delicately to my nose and then lowering it and cooing: “Mmm-mmm… Lily Rose. It does everything for me… and for my skin.” Cut to pic of the full range, with actual W,O,R,D,S, no voice-over, “Complete care for you & your skin,” complete with the shampoo, they’re gonna start pushing that specifically later, cut back to me looking languishing, artistic fade into rosy mist with pink bottles…

    John’s in Washington, rings me every day except when caught up in stupid meetings or travelling or etcetera. The Yanks incapable of pulling their fingers out but don’t quote him. –More like, they don’t want to impart details of their strategic plans to the Brits in spite of having agreed to this joint planning era, or whatever the crap it is, for the sake of PR and being seen to do the right thing. I don’t suggest this. Did I know the series has started airing over there and is surprisingly popular? No; gee, thanks for the compliment. Well, he supposes it is very English, with a laugh. I think that’s probably why it’s popular, they think it’s the genuine cute little England with its genuine cute little belief that Britannia still rules the waves and its other genuine cute little traditions that make it a real historical place to visit but you sure wouldn’t like to live in a place where they don’t got decent air conditioning and barely a decent freeway to their name and still drive on the wrong side of the road. I’m not about to say any of this but the thought waves somehow penetrate all across that transatlantic cable or whatever the Hell they bounce the calls off these days and he says with a laugh in his voice: “Say it, Rosie!” All right, bugger him. I say it. He laughs like a drain: Exactly! Missing him?—Yeah, horribly.—Good. Look, he might be able to wangle a long weekend off, maximum time together, mm? Weakly I concede that sounds very nice but Sheila and Henny Penny between them have got my weekends horribly booked up, I assumed there wouldn’t be any reason to keep them free. It’s not wholly true, in fact Sheila, with her eye on that film that D.D.’s threatening, has been over my schedule with a fine-tooth comb and had a fight with Timothy from Henny Penny about working me into the ground: hasn’t he noticed I’m starting to get shadows under my eyes? (That does tend to happen when you bawl yourself to sleep every other night, yeah.) However, I’m trying to be one of those honourable women that D.L. Sayers would respect, you see. John urges me to recheck my timetable. At least he didn’t say schedule, soft “sh”. I look glumly through the diary… Last weekend of the month? he urges. Ooh, here’s the last weekend of the month, all nice and blank. “No. Personal appearances,” I lie. He’s terribly dashed. Not sure he’ll be able to get away in November. He will try to get back for Christmas, if he does he’ll have to see Mother and Father, of course. (Why? –Don’t say it.) Couldn’t I possibly cancel those personal appearances?—No.—Oh, well.

    Next day he rings me with the bright idea that I can use the cottage, why not? Especially if any of the damned personal appearances are down in that area! I’m about to refuse grimly, thinking of D.L. Sayers, only then I think of poor old Tim immured with bloody Marion, and hesitate. Um, I’ve got to open a new supermarket in Chichester, is that anywhere near Portsmouth? Yes! Jolly laugh. Haven’t I learnt any English geography yet? Funnily enough I haven’t been motivated to go out and hunt for a proper map to replace that one of Arthur’s with the hedgehogs, so, no. (Don’t say so.) Good, um, but could I take a taxi from there to the cottage, John? He gulps, he’s forgotten I can’t drive. Er, not that close, darling. Eventually I decide I’ll fix something up. Probably Barbara would like a weekend in the cottage, doubtless her socio-economic bracket believes that weekends in under-heated country cottages are highly desirable. (Don’t say it. Make a mental resolution to buy an electric heater.) Yeah, okay, John, great. He’s very pleased. Reminds me that Marion’s got both spare sets of keys and to rescue Tim, as if I’d forget.

    Ring off silently determining to leave Tim with nice Velda Cross in future. And I will invite Barbara, I think they’d probably get on great and Velda’s really into the cosy couples bit, maybe she’ll find a nice young man for her! Um, probably a nice young naval officer, that’s all the Crosses seem to know, but never mind. Better than a wet dreep like Gavin Kensington in PR, in the first place he’s so up himself, being second-in-command to Timothy, that he barely notices mere PR girls in waif-look narrow charcoal grey suits, he’s currently having an affair with a lady accountant in a similar executive position to his that he met at the local wine bar’s happy hour that all the shiny junior execs from all the shiny firms in Henny Penny’s neck of the woods go to on Fridays, in the second place he drives one of those revolting Honda Porsche-clones, not that I hold any brief for Porsches, either, but at least they don’t look as if they’ve been extruded fully-formed from the back end of something disgusting, and if that wasn’t enough, in the third place he’s into Cher and Tom Jones. Very loud, played as he drives the clone in and out of the Henny Penny carpark, see, that’s how I know.

    Barbara’s thrilled, so we go, rescue Tim, Marion had bunged him into a kennel in the back garden, poor fella, assure her we won’t need her to bring bread or milk, no, and not to bother about the cleaning for this weekend, thanks, and escape. After a bit Barbara says groggily that she didn’t seem very friendly.

    “No, she hates me. The sort of moo that’d hate me on principle, one look at the curls and the tight tee-shirts’d do it, but as well, not only has she been his devoted slave and completely ruled his domestic arrangements for yonks, she’s also been into bringing him hot din-dins that he hasn’t asked for, geddit?”

    She shudders and says faintly: “Yes.” And will she be able to get petrol in the village? Gulp. I never looked, not being a driver. Hang on, we’ll stop at the superette and ask Murray or Belinda Stout.

    It’s Murray, Belinda’s probably getting their dinners. Yes: we passed it: go back, turn left at the top of the High Street before it joins the Portsmouth road, it’s just down there. Graham Howell’s. And it’s great to see me again! Good to see him again, too, Murray, and how’s Belinda, and the kids? We get the full story, also the latest developments in the Terry Stout Refusing To Take Up That University Scholarship After All The Work He Put Into Getting It saga, and buy some nice sliced bread, some marg, a couple of frozen pizzas and, in case bloody Marion’s accidentally-on-purpose turned the fridge-freezer off and ruined all John’s cheesecakes, a nice frozen strawberry cheesecake.

    “Why didn’t he want to take up the scholarship?” asks Barbara dazedly as we set off for the cottage.

    “They insisted too much and he’s a teenager.”

    She gulps, she’s got it.

    Tim’s ecstatic to be home again, bouncing and licking like crazy, we don’t say “Down” or “Sit” much, both of us are fully sympathetic. Defiantly I bring his basket in from the kitchen and put it by the fire and light the fire. Barbara wants to know if he sleeps in it at night? Not any more, I say airily. She goes into a terrific giggling fit, so then I get brave enough to ask her to look in the freezer compartment of the fridge for me. She does and reports it’s empty. Is the fridge even switched on? I whisper. Um—no.

    Suddenly it’s all too much for me and I ring up John without considering the fucking time difference or whether he might be going to bed or just having breakfast or in the middle of a top-secret meeting at the Pentagon. I get him, he’s got a mobile number over there. Baldly I say: “It’s me, I’m at the cottage. Look, did you empty the freezer before you went to America?”

    “What?” he says. “At the cottage? No, the freezer should be full of frozen peas and cheesecakes.” Then there’s a sizzling pause coming over the transatlantic cable or bouncing off a satellite or whatever. Then he says: “Don’t tell me—”

    Very loudly I say: “I AM telling ya! The fucking thing’s off and empty, and what’s more she makes Tim live in a kennel, did you KNOW that?”

    He didn’t, that’s new, he rather thinks. Look, he’d sack the bloody woman without a second thought, Rosie, only is there anyone reliable who can take over from her? Well, I know Velda Cross will look after Tim. Actually I think Belinda Stout’s friend Lynne Carter might take over the cleaning, she does cleaning for quite a few of the posh retirees and weekenders in the village, but the weekenders only need her to come in once a week and not always that often in the winter, and she could do with some more work. He thinks that sounds fine and he’ll ring the bloody woman and sack her immediately. Gee, what’ll Lady Mother think of that? (Don’t say it, whaddaya think I am?) Er, look, darling, he has to go—

    “Yeah, righto, John. See ya.” I hang up before I remember it’s bad Pommy manners to ring off before the other party’s said goodbye, especially if it happens to be your devoted lover you’re talking to at the time. Oops.

    “He’s gonna sack the cow,” I report to Barbara.

    “You mean she did do it on purpose?” she gulps.

    “Yeah, he left it full of cheesecakes and peas.”

    She just gulps.

    A Truly Awful Thought strikes and I rush to the cupboards but thank Christ, she hasn’t sabotaged Tim’s tins. Wuff! Wuff!

    “I should think so! Poor boy!” I open a tin fiercely, the electric can-opener’s in hyper-drive. “And the minute Tom Hopgood’s open tomorrow, we’ll buy ya some real M,E,A,T and B,O,N,E,S!” I promise. “Come on then, good boy!”—Pant, snuffle, gollop, gollop, gollop, gone!—“That’s the butcher: Tom Hopgood,” I explain to the paralysed Barbara.

    “Yes. Was she starving him, as well?” she says faintly.

    “Nah, he always eats like that, he’s a dog,” I say carelessly as Tim comes over to lean against my leg. “Yeah, good boy!” I say, ruffling up his ears. “You can give him his water, Barbara. Put it in the other bowl. Oh: rinse it out with hot first, Marion will’ve sanitised it with something stinky.”

    Looking horrified, she rinses it very, very thoroughly with hot water and sniffs it cautiously before rinsing it twice with cold water and then filling it and putting it down for him. Slurp, gasp, slop, gasp—

    “He’s a dog!” I gurgle.

    “Yes!” she squeaks, giggling. “Isn’t he lovely?”

    Yep, no argument there. And I always did know Barbara was the salt of the earth, but this proves it, see?

    We only discover minor oddities as we get the dinner, like, the microwave’s unplugged and the good dessert bowls have been moved to the very top and extremely-out-of-my-reach shelf of the oak dresser in the dinette, but they’re enough to keep me at simmering point, you betcha. So when the phone rings, I bounce up and snarl: “Yes?”—prepared to give no quarter. Of course it’s John, the bitch has told him a string of lies.

    “John, there was no power cut—no power cut, it’s only October.” Now, darling, I can’t possibly know that! “John, I warn you, I am very, very angry.” Now, darling, be reasonable— “This power cut put Tim in that KENNEL, did it?” I shout. Er, no. But well, as I say myself, it’s still only October— “Do not quote me against myself, John Haworth!” Now, look, Rosie— “Explain how the power cut moved the good dessert bowls that she caught me using for breakfast to the top shelf of the dresser where I can’t reach them, John.” He makes a funny noise in his throat and manages to say that that’s ridiculous. “Yes, isn’t it? I could add that the microwave was unplugged as well as the fridge but of course once they’d had one power cut she would run round unplugging all the electrical appliances in case they had another, wouldn’t she? But all this is only circumstantial evidence, I recognise that. And I don’t think I’m imagining leaving half a dozen spare pairs of knickers here, but Barbara and I’ve hunted all over the house and we can't find them: we’ve checked every inch of that Harrods of a linen cupboard of yours, and all the drawers in your tallboy and the tallboy in the spare room, and all the dressing-table and bedside table drawers and the washing-machine and the drier, and even the sideboard and the kitchen cupboards and the cupboard under the stairs—” He tries to interrupt: Rosie— “and there’s no sign of them, but heck, I imagined the whole thing in the first place! Well, there is one sign of them: in the cupboard under the sink we did find a crumpled red rag which when unfolded proved to be the remains of a pair of stretch-nylon knickers with the remains of a Marks and Spencer label on them,”—the ironic vein’s run dry, alas—“so EXPLAIN THAT!”

    “Mm. I see,” he says as I manage to stop panting.

    “Look, ring Velda Cross: she’ll know if there was a power cut,” I say limply.

    “Mm. I’m very sorry, Rosie, darling. It’s not that I doubt your word, but— Well, didn't want to condemn the woman without a fair hearing.” I can hear the grimace in his voice.

    “Yes, Captain’s Report. But if you can tell when they’re lying, surely—”

    “I was pretty damn sure she was lying, but it was benefit of the doubt. Now, please don’t say it was a question of taking your word against hers—”

    “No, all right, I suppose it wasn’t. We only had the evidence of the empty freezer and the turned-off microwave, there’s nothing to disprove the story of the power cut.”

    “Exactly. Thank God for that logical mind of yours,” he says weakly.

    “I think the knickers prove something, though. Unless you think we manufactured—”

    “No. Stop it,” he says limply. “Of course I don’t, not for an instant.” Gee, that’s good, because ya know what, folks? If I’d of got mad enough I reckon I could of done it.

     “So do you want Velda Cross’s number?”

    “Er—it’s not because I doubt you, darling.”

    “No. But you gotta have proof, fair enough.” I give him Velda’s number.

    “Thank you. I have told Marion that I definitely don’t want her to look after Tim again.”

    “Oh, good,” I say, sagging.

    “How’s everything, apart from that?”

    “Well, pretty good: Barbara loves the cottage,” I say, smiling at her. She gives me a relieved smile: she was afraid she was gonna witness the great Lily Rose-Son Capitaine break-up, there.

    “That’s good. Manage to light the fire?”

    “Yeah, only you haven’t got much wood left. Where do you buy your wood from?”

    There’s a dazed silence.

    “Wood,” I prompt. “Like, firewood. –Is there another word in England?” I say to Barbara .

    “Um—kindling?” the poor girl offers feebly.

    “No, that’s thin sticks, right? –Yeah. Firewood, John. Like, where do you buy it?” I say clearly.

    “Darling, while you were off on your bizarre openings last summer, I spent the best part of a week splitting logs… You did look outside?”

    “Yeah, I know! You keep it at the side of the house near the drive, your Mother thinks it oughta be round the back, it makes the drive look untidy. No, there was only a few logs. Like, maybe a dozen.”

    “Perhaps that’s it, they might have come over and shifted it? Though Father’s not supposed to do too much lifting these days.”

    “No, it’s not here. We went all round the cottage, me and Tim showed Barbara everything, and down the back and that funny little glasshouse, it’s still empty. Could it ’a been nicked?”

    “What?”

    “Like, pinched. Stolen? Do ya get firewood thieves here? Aunty Kate’s neighbours, they had their firewood stolen one winter, but mind you, wood does cost a fair bit in Adelaide.”

    “Darling, stop wittering, let me think.”

    I let him think. He decides it’s just on the cards Mother and Father might have decided to use it, or told a friend they could, or told his brother he could… What is the time, here? Mm, well, he’ll check tomorrow.

    “Yeah, checking’s good, John, only where do we get more wood?”

    “Oh! …Hell, the fellow who delivers only supplies large logs, they need to be split. For God’s sake promise me that whatever happens you won’t go anywhere near my axe and you wont let Barbara, either.”

    “Maybe she knows how to—”

    “Just promise, Rosie!”

    I promise.

    And do I think we’ve got enough wood for the weekend? Being as how it’s only Friday and we’re planning to drive back on the Monday, no, only I’ve brought a little electric heater. Oh, good. Will Velda Cross will still be up? Yeah, she’ll be up waiting for the same SF programme we’re waiting for, she always watches it. (I've discovered Barbara’s an SF fan, too, it’s a great bond. Just shows ya can’t tell by looking, eh?) Good, he’ll ring her. And he’s very sorry about all this. Yeah, me, too, only I don’t say so. Bye-bye for now, Rosie.

    “Bye-bye, John.”

    I hang up and report to Barbara. She’s terrifically relieved, though she got most of it. It’s funny about the wood, she says slowly. Yeah, isn’t it? Um, has Marion got an open fireplace? she squeaks. Dunno. But I note by the by that John loathes anything smacking even faintly of dishonesty so unless Someone’s left the full value of the wood in cash— We leap to our feet and turn out the few nooks and crannies that we didn’t think of searching for Hidden Knickers but no, not a red razzoo. Barbara even re-checks the drier but there’s still nothing in there except a very dry hand-towel and a very, very, very crisp piece of nylon that could be my pale green Tuesday knickers, yes, but without forensic examination we could never prove it to Mon Capitaine’s satisfaction. She leaves it in there, though noting that her instinct would be to pack it carefully in sealed plastic and send it to the lab. Giggling, I agree.

    Then we sit down and turn his neato little telly on… Nothing.

    Barbara bounces up. “She’ll have unplugged it!”

    “Yeah, she did, I already—” She’s discovered that. She checks the aerial connection. It looks okay. Yeah, but possibly the firewood thieves in these here parts are also aerial thieves, Barbara? We try turning on and off a few times. Nothing. Hang on, she says brilliantly, does anything else work off this fuse? This is too technical for me but she runs and gets the electric beater from the kitchen and plugs it in the TV’s power-point. Nothing. Ah, hah! She investigates further. Two more sockets nearby aren’t live. Where’s the fuse box? I cringe, but admit I think it’s in the front lobby place, and be careful, Barbara! She knows what she’s doing, her dad’s an electrician. She goes out to the lobby. I tiptoe after her, ordering Tim to Stay, no sense in all three of us getting fried. It’s got its own little cupboard. She opens it.

    “Look at this,” she says in an odd voice.

    I come and peer blankly. Several white thingos, sort of sitting there electrically, a big black OFF switch, I know those, I’ve had to deal with one or two of those in my scungy-student-flat days, and in the bottom of the neato little cupboard some very, very neat rolls of wire and a spare white thingo. “Um, yeah?”

    Barbara picks it up. She glances at it then holds it out to me, her face expressionless.

    “Um, sorry, Barbara, it looks like a white fuse-boxy thingo to me.”

    Oh. Well, do I see this copper wire?—Um, yeah.—Does it look all right to me? Not broken, both ends fixed and taut?—We called him Tortoise because— Sorry. Um, yeah.

    “Right. Assimilate this,” she says grimly, plugging it into the back thingo where there was a sort of thingo that I didn’t realise needed something to be plugged into it. “Come on, we’ll try the TV again.”

    We go back in the lounge-room and bingo! The telly comes alive and our programme’s just about to start!

    I sit down numbly. “Are you telling me that that, um, thingo, was that a fuse?—Right.—That that fuse leapt out of its whatsit, this’ll’ve been during the power cut, and laid itself very neatly on the bottom of the box like that?”

    “Exactly. Of its own accord. I’m quite willing to ring John and tell him so,” she says grimly.

    Gulp. Ya might need to, think he’ll be ropeable, what a piece of unnecessary spite.

    “If you ask me, Lily Rose, she rushed over and did that straight after you rang to say you’d be collecting Tim.”

    That’d be right, yeah. Icing on the cake. “Yep. Icing on the cake,” I say.

    “That’s right. Gilding the—” Her voice wobbles. “Gilding the lily,” she says, and we both break down in gales of laughter. Well, let’s face it, it was laugh or cry.

    When the programme’s over Velda Cross rings us up very puzzled, of course there wasn’t a power cut, they haven’t had a storm. And is the power on at the cottage? Feebly I say it was bloody Marion unplugging everything and John’s gonna give her the push, and she seems satisfied. Could we pop over and see her tomorrow arvo after we've done the supermarket in Chichester? Of course! Whenever we like! Would we like to come for dinner? It’ll be very informal, just her and Duncan and some friends of his from— I’m accepting before she can even say H.M.S. Dauntless.

    As Tim and me are hopping into bed it dawns that it was this Friday that was gonna feature Euan on Parkinson, and we missed it. Gee, silver lining.

    The supermarket Opening is as gruelling as usual, because as usual their Management try to foist huge piles of free groceries on me, in fact on both of us, and I have to explain that our Management won’t let me accept anything with Brand Names on it… But Barbara could accept them! No, she isn’t allowed to, our Management thinks it could lead to legal Complications… Well, Own-Brand? they say eagerly. We give in and allow them to fill cartons with packets of Own-Brand rolled oats, toasted muesli (just as well one of us is a muesli-eater), ooh, Weetbix clones, good, soup mix (no idea what we’ll do with it, don’t think I know anybody in England that can make soup from scratch), prunes (guess they’ll go with the muesli), sultanas (they can go to replenish John’s stock of up-market Named M-something raisins that I don’t think he’s realised needs replenishing), pot-scrapers (always come in handy, gulp, possibly not this many, maybe OUDS would like them?), instant noodles (hope Barbara likes them: I loathe them and I’ll take a bet John’s never heard of them and Rupy refuses to touch them, having once had a delish Chinese boyfriend that taught him about real noodles), split peas (these might have to go to the Singhs, see above under soup mix), firelighters (ooh, what about— No, no firewood—pity), and a selection of other dry items that can be manufactured at minimal cost, stored in cheap plastic, and kept for millennia in huge Own-Brand warehouses. Ooh, and some Own-Brand sultana cakes, Madeira cakes, tea cakes and carrot cakes! I never knew they had Own-Brand cakes! Barbara has to remind me that they’re fresh and she doesn’t think we’ll ever— Oh, well, the freezer’s empty, I say pointedly. Smiling feebly, she agrees it is, yes.

    Look, are we sure we don’t need—? Because they do have their own butchery! Er, no, it’s not precisely Own-Brand, Miss Rayne, er, Lily Rose, of course, but— We look glumly at the labels. No-o... Ooh, these’ll be okay! Beaming, they pile another carton with giant family-size packets of Supermarket Brand chuck steak, stewing steak, ox kidney, bacon bones and bones for the dog. Have we got a— No. They put the catsmeat sausage away. They add some of those keep-it-chilled thingos to the cartons, they’re smothered in Brand Names but we heroically overlook this. The cartons themselves are smothered in Brand Names but does anybody ever look at cartons? Or, put it like this, let’s hope they can get them into the car for us without the photographers catching them at it.

    What with the strain of it all and all that meat in the back we have to head straight for the cottage to have a nice hot shower and re-christen the freezer, so we do.

    When we get there, gee, there’s a firewood thief on our drive chopping up logs!

    “I’ll handle this.”

    “Wait, Lily Rose, it might be—”

    Too late, I’ve got out. “Who the bloody Hell are you, and what the fuck ya think ya doing, mate?”

    He straightens, smiling. Fortyish, tall, not bad-looking, receding light brown hair. “You must be Rosie.”

    “And?”

    “Terence Haworth,” he says, transferring the axe to the left hand and holding out his right.

    Uh—oh, good grief, no wonder that smile reminded me of— John’s brother? Right? Forty-three and commands a sub? Right? –Right. All the same I don’t give in, no sirree. “So it was you?” I say grimly, hands on hips, legs well braced, think the technical term might be arms akimbo, here. Goes good with the Lily Rose apricot wool suit and the high-necked, but very tight, fuzzy apricot jumper I’m wearing with it because it’s a bloody chilly day.

    “What, that came along like a thief in the night and stole three hundred cubic feet of firewood that John had split by hand? Not guilty. Wouldn’t dare,” he says, giving me that wanking Haworth grin, don’t do that! It’s bad enough the man’s on the other side of the bloody Atlantic Ocean—

    “I’ve got absolutely no idea of what three hundred cubic feet—”

    “About two cords,” he says, grin, grin.

    “Highly amusing. If that’s not it, whose is it, and why are you here?”

    He leans on the axe—presumably John’s axe—grinning. “John warned me you were a hard case. Take no prisoners, that it? This wood is for you, he rang Jack Powell at crack of dawn our time—that’s his wood man—and got him to deliver it by long-distance bribery. I think you owe seven grandkids signed photos—something of the sort. And I’m here because he rang me very shortly after crack of dawn and ordered me to get on over here and split it for you.” He eyes me sardonically. “Sealed orders, naturally, but I am liberty to disclose—”

    “Look, shut it, you wanker!”

    He grins. “He bet me I couldn’t provoke you into calling me that in the first five minutes. I’m at liberty to disclose that they incorporated not letting you or Barbara anywhere near this axe on pain of instant dismissal from the Service and tearing off of all me Navy buttons.”

    “Hah, hah,” I produce limply, biting my lip.

    Terence Haworth grins again. “This is Barbara, is it?” he says as she comes up to us, having parked neatly on the side of the road rather than pulling into the drive and blocking his car which is up beyond the humungous pile of wood against the house—surely the senior wanker could never seriously have imagined for an instant that even us two feeble little feminine things could have overlooked something like that?

    “Yeah, Barbara Bates.”—Unlike all the theatrical types he doesn’t immediately ask if she’s related to Alan, terrific joke. He just grins and holds out his hand.—“This is John’s younger brother, Terence, reputed to be forty-three and command a sub.”

    Smiling feebly, poor Barbara shakes his hand.

    He pours on the upper-clawss charm: “We’ve no idea who pinched the wood, I’m afraid. I admit Mother did ring me some time back and suggest I might make use of it, but I wouldn’t dream of depriving poor old John, especially not when he’d split and stacked it all. And she apparently suggested the same thing to Corky Corcoran’s wife,”—I wince slightly in spite of myself: another huddle—“but Corky swears on his Navy buttons it wasn’t him.”

    Gee, I hope that impressed Barbara, because none of it impressed me. “Hah, hah. Well, thanks for coming over. One or two of us unprejudiced observers here could suggest who the firewood thief mighta been, eh, Barbara, but we don’t wanna get our collars felt for slander, so we’ll jes’ lay low and say nuffin’.”

    Shit, Barbara is impressed by the wanker, she’s gone all pink and flustered. “Um—yes! I mean— Well, it’s been frightful, Terence,”—gee, why’s she telling him, father-figure he ain’t, even if about twice her age—“and we found the fuse for the television socket actually removed, not to mention poor Lily Rose’s best undies fried in the clothes drier—” Oh, God, she’s said it.

    He looks at me with interest and raises an eyebrow. He’s got a much smoother face than John’s, possibly technically handsomer, nothing like as impressive, though. I bet he’s practised that in front of his mirror; definitely the God’s-gift-to-women type. Divorced twice, both frayghtfulleh unsuitable, Lady Mother didn’t know whether to be more pleased he was getting rid, or horrified at yet another undesirable scandal in the family.

    “John didn’t mention those particular points,” he murmurs.

    “No, well, I reported the fate of one pair of red knickers and he seemed reasonably convinced, so I dropped it. And we never discovered the fuse until after I rung him.”

    “Oh?”

    “Look, believe what ya like! Either the Prosecution’s gonna hold back half the incriminating evidence for the fucking trial, or we didn’t feel the stupid woman merited an actual flaming Court Martial on top of bloody Captain’s Report, and think what ya LIKE!”

    He looks at me with that little not-quite-smile of John’s, I could kill the wanker!

    “She thought we’d better not actually crucify her,” murmurs Barbara.

    Me? Balls, I never said— Um, maybe I said something like— Well, after Barbara made us each a nice hot mug of Horlicks before beddy-byes I felt a lot more charitable towards the whole of— Oh, forget it.

    “Mm, I see,” he murmurs, doing it again.

    “Forget it. At least we’ve got Tim out of her clutches. We’ve gotta get this stuff inside and change, we’re going out to dinner,” I say brutally.

    “Yes, um, perhaps you might like a cup of tea, first, Mr, um, Terence?” falters Barbara.

    “Commander,” I say in a bored voice. “No, he wouldn’t.”

    “Lily Rose, don’t be awful, he’s chopping up the wood for us!”

    “Barbara, you total nit, he’s doing it because Captain Haworth, R.N., ordered him to! We’re incidental!”

    Terence Haworth scratches his light brown hair. “Actually I’m doing it for two young women who appeared to be being victimised by a bitch of a woman whom I’ve been afraid for years was going to get her hooks into John, but if you like, I’ll just creep quietly away now.”

    Funnily enough I’ve gone rather red. “No. Sorry. Um, well, how was I to know? All the rest of them have been sticking together,” I mutter.

    “Yes, that Commander Corky Corcoran was really awful to her, and she won’t tell any of us what he said!”  bursts out Barbara.

    “She’s assuming most of that,” I say in a hard voice.

    “Really? I’ve known Corky Corcoran for years. Wouldn’t think she’d have to assume a syllable of it.”

    “See?” she cries.

    Who, me? “Yeah. I suppose I’m sorry, but so far all the ones I’ve met have been sticking together like glue. Well, thanks for chopping the wood. I guess you can have a cuppa if you want one. Though there was nothing stopping you from getting one for yourself.”

    “There was, actually, I haven’t got the keys. –Gutless. Didn’t want to face the Blaine hag,” he explains.

    “I should think not!” cries Barbara supportively.

    Barbara, he’s six-foot, male, broad-shouldered, forty-three years old, why should he be scared of— No, on second thoughts. “Can’t blame ya for that. Uh, where was the axe, then?”

    His eyes twinkle, at least they’re not sky-blue like John’s and Father’s but grey, a bit more like Hers but, though this may well be my imagination, a warmer shade. “No prisoners, eh, Rosie? In his little greenhouse.”

    “Huh? Oh, the little glasshouse place! Right. Okay, we’ll call ya when tea’s up.”

    “Can’t I give you a hand with those cartons?” he says nicely.

    “Nobody’s stopping ya,” I grunt, heaving one— Uh, not heaving one up, Jesus!

    He comes up and picks it up, no sweat. “Fond of porridge, are you?”

    “Not all that, well, only with full cream milk and brown sugar. I’ve been opening a supermarket. I’m not fond of giant bones and chuck steak, either, in fact I dunno what chuck steak is, but we’re hoping Tim’ll be able to tell us that. –Shit, where is he?”

    “Guarding the car. Go and look, if you—”

    I’m up the path like a rocket. It’s a wanking Porsche, that figures. Tim’s lying right across the two seats, I’d say he was guarding that tweed coat he’s on top of, as well. He pants madly, and moves his tail. “There you are, ya funny fella! Whatcha doing, eh? Whatcha doing, eh? You guarding Uncle’s coat? Good boy! Good boy!” I pat him and rumple his ears and he licks my hand like anything.

    Slowly I go inside, reflecting that there can’t be all that much wrong with a bloke that Tim’s guarding the coat of the minute he turns up. Added to which he didn’t rush up and go Grrr! and start guarding us when we confronted the said bloke.

    “I’d say he's guarding that coat of yours, rather than the car; hope ya don’t wanna wear it this century.”

    “No. What? Oh, Hell, has he started that trick again?” He’s investigating our packets of soup mix and lentils and pot-scourers.

    “You can take that look off your face, we can’t accept any Brand Na—”

    “Yes, I’ve told him that,” says Barbara in an agony of embarrassment.

    “Oh. Right. Sorry. Hey, don’t suppose you can make soup, Terence, can you?”

    “No—sorry!” he says with a laugh.

    “Bummer. Uh—Velda?” I say to Barbara. “Never struck me like a soup-maker, but she’s into the cosy-couples-in-cosy-cottages thing.”

    “How old is she?” asks Terence.

    “Dunno. About Barbara’s age, maybe. Young,” I say clearly.

    He grins. “Then I’d say it’s odds-on she doesn’t know how to make soup, either; unless she’s a professional chef?”

    We ignore that. Barbara’s examining a packet very carefully. “It has got lots of different, um, grains in it.”

    “Pulses.”

    “What?”

    “Rhonda Singh explained them to me. If they’re, like, peas and lentils, they’re pulses. But if they’re, like, wheat or barley, they’re grains.”

    “Oh. What are these little red ones, then?”

    Peer, peer... “Dunno. Small, eh?”

    Funnily enough, at this point Terence Haworth breaks down in helpless hysterics all over his brother’s old-fashioned cream kitchen.

    And we do give him a cuppa and then give in and ask him to Velda’s with us for dinner. First ringing her, I do know enough about England now to do this, to check if it’s all right. Which of course it is.

    Velda’s stressed that it’s very informal, just wear casual clothes, so I get into a pair of stretch velvet things that are halfway between slacks and tights, like, no feet but definitely contour-hugging, these are very dark brown, I got them because they looked warm, not for the colour, but it is quite a nice brown, and a Fifties tight jumper in a warm, soft shade of yellow, a lovely style with tiny, like, insertion-lace vertical stripes in it, but knitted in. Wardrobe’s got a team of knitters that do them from genuine old patterns, and the only reason I scored this lovely jumper permanently was that Gloria, the make-up girl, upset a bottle of eye-liner on it, not the peel-off sort, unfortunately, and it ran all down one arm. Nothing would get the stain right out, not even Raewyn and Sally’s best dry cleaning efforts when I took it home in desperation. Paul did his nut, we were halfway through filming an episode where the jumper features largely, and all the scenes with that week’s ageing paramour had been done and she’d been paid. It was re-shoot all her scenes and pay her salary again, or rearrange all my remaining scenes, ouch. So we had to finish the filming with Lily Rose shot from one side only. Since then Raewyn and Sally have had another go at it: there’s still a definite grey trail all the way down the left arm, but it’s not bad at all. Barbara approves, but then blenches as I put on the grey fuzzy jumper over it. It and its emerald-green splodge. (Raewyn and Sally have explained that it’s dye, its permanent, but I already knew that. They’ve offered to dye the whole thing emerald green, or black? I’m thinking about it.) After a short argument over whether or not it is actually winter I concede that if it’s warm in Velda’s cottage I’ll take the grey jumper off.

    Barbara sighs, but just asks me if I think she looks all right. She always looks all right, that isn’t the point. Cunningly I say yes, but if I was her I’d try for more of a Friends casual look. I’ve discovered she’s a terrific fan, well, all those skinny girls of course strike a chord. Personally I can’t bear that Ross guy, how anything can be that much of a dreep and still breathe, not to say not having been strangled by all who know him, is beyond me, and as for actually being attractive to any red-blooded female of the opposite sex— Yeah, I know there’s a lot of it about in real life, but it’s the whiny voice that really, really gets up my nose, like, I have to physically turn it off, y’know? Also I can’t stand the Lisa Kudrow character, partly because it’s fake Seventies kooky and totally out of touch and partly because take away the fake bit and the blonde good looks and add on thirty years and she’s Joslynne’s Mum in person. Oh, yeah. You betcha. But I love all the other characters, especially the two guys, so ya could say I’m ambivalent about the show as a whole. Barbara rushes off. I wait.

    She comes back still in the black skinny-rib and black tights, but with a short purple singlet over the former. Like, the sort that’s meant to show an inch of skin at the waist, not an inch of black jumper! The mantle of Aunty Kate descends on me and I march her right back into her bedroom and force her to get out of both top garments and put the purple singlet on over the modest grey jersey-knit bra, let’s hope if anyone gets inspired to undress her this evening he’ll be so carried away by that stage that it won’t put him off, and then force her to wear on top of that a nice pink cardy that she’s already expressed doubts about, not because it’s skin-tight, which it is, or very short, which it is, both of these effects being meant, but because it’s pink, and kindly do up three buttons over the tits for her. “Jennifer Aniston,” I say firmly before she can button up the rest of the buttons. “Not to mention the entire cast of Anorexia McBeal, haven’t you noticed how the girls are wearing their twinsets this millennium?” Predictably she giggles, tells me not to call it that—I always do, in the hopes that maybe the hint will penetrate the brain and attach itself to a T-cell and do some good of its own accord—and admits that she supposes it is the In look.

    “Yeah, ’course it is!” I say bracingly, attacking her neat waif-look with her hairbrush. I manage to fluff it up a bit and she starts to look a lot more like a girl. Then I get really inspired and rush off to my room, to return with a long, thin, purple ribbon that I don’t reveal came off a box of chocs that a besotted naval admirer sent me not long since, all tied up with a huge bunch of lovely purple chrsyanths, bless his conventional heart, and a small pink rose from the huge mixed bunch that I scored from the supermarket today. The long ribbon goes right round poor Barbara’s head and gets tied in place with a few bobby-pins to help it, most of it being artfully half-obscured by little wisps of black hair, good grief, this would curl if she’d let it, and the pink rose gets pinned into the bow. Extra. And don’t dare to tell me a more feminine look’s not coming back. She doesn’t dare, though I don’t think she believes me, and we go downstairs. Terence is sitting in John’s chair, reading a newspaper.

    “Ready?” he says, not admiring Barbara’s get-up or apparently even noticing it, the up-himself, upper-class naval wanker.

    So I say aggressively: “I dunno where you got that from, but if you could leave it for fire-lighting, we’d be quite obliged, all his stock of that’s vanished from his wood box, as well.”

    He gets up. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sit in the captain’s—”

    “Shut UP!”

    He bites his lip. “No, I am sorry, Rosie. Sort of gravitated to the place by the fire automatically.”

    “Yeah, well, gravitate yourself outside and get Tim to stop guarding that coat, he’s gotta have his tea.”

    Funnily enough nobody corrects my dialectal usage to “dinner” and Commander Haworth meekly goes out.

    We wait… Barbara ventures that I was a bit hard on him, wasn’t I?

    “Yeah. Well, he might have said you looked nice or something!” I burst out.

    Poor girl, she goes very red. “I don’t think I’m his type,” she says in a small voice.

    No, right, because guess what, she’s a PR girl who’s dad’s an electrician and he’s a naval commander who’s dad’s an— Forget it. He’s too old for her, she’d be about twenty-three at the most, and with his track record, thank God he isn’t interested.

    We wait…. Barbara ventures that it’s taking him a long time.

    Grimly I march out to the front door and wrench it open. “HEY!” I below into the dark—can’t see a thing, the car’s round to my left, up the drive. “What the fuck are ya doing?”

    “He won’t budge, the stupid bastard!” calls a ruffled Naval voice in reply.

    At this a Thort strikes and I huddle my parka on and dash out. “Whose is that coat he’s on?” His, Terence’s. No, well, it is an old one of John’s but—

    “You bloody nit!”

    “Look, how was I to know that Tim’d suddenly start doing his guarding nonsense, he hasn’t done it since he was a pup!”

    He’s not that old: four, isn’t that twenty-eight in human years? In fact the same age as me. So it can’t be that long since he was a pup.

    I peer at him. Guarding, yep. “Stand back.”

    “Look, Rosie—”

    “Look yourself. Come on, Tim, boy, you guarding John’s coat, eh? Good boy! Master’s coat! Come on, wanna come inside? Want dinner? We’ll bring the coat, eh?” I kind of pat him while pulling at the coat at the same time, God knows if this is gonna work but manifestly I can’t do worse than a wanking, upper-clawss naval— Shit, that was easy. “Yeah, come on, boy! Meat, eh? Come on; in we go, we’ll bring Master’s coat! –Wanker,” I note as we pass him.

    In the kitchen Tim eats ravenously and Terence says feebly: “Why didn’t it work when I did it?”

    “Dunno. Maybe he thinks you don’t love John enough,” I say airily.

    He gnaws on his lip, scowling. Nayce people don’t say that sort of thing, even as a joke.

    “Well, I don’t steal his coats,” I point out mildly.

    “Look, it’s as old as the hills, he gave it to me, for the Lord’s sake!”

    “Mm.” I’ve had time to have a good look at it now, and ask: “When?”

    “What? Well, just before he took off for the States, actually, so I suppose it does still smell of him, to a dog.”

    “Mm.” I’m grinning like an idiot: of course it’s the awful coat, I mean jacket, I’ve been rude about! “Give it up, Terence, I don’t think Tim’ll ever let you drive off with it.”

    “No,” he concedes sourly.

    “Did he say why he didn’t want it any more?” I ask, grinning like an idiot.

    “Er—no.”

    “No,” I say, smoothing it carefully. “Well, I think I can guess. Never mind, there’s a big Aran-knit cardy upstairs still in its plastic dry-cleaning bag, that’ll only smell of dry-cleaning fluid, you can borrow that for tonight.”

    “Thanks,” he says meekly.

    So we go. Velda’s rounded up a crowd of lovely naval types in mufti, only two other young couples like her and Duncan, and three unattached ones, grinning like anything. They’re a bit shy at first because they think I’m Lily Rose, not to mention that Velda’s obviously wised them up that I’m also the Captain’s Girlfriend, not to mention that Terence is the Captain’s Brother. But as Terence is manifestly pretty easy-going and not one fourteenth as impressive as him, and as I enter with a pile of cakes and the statement that I hope Duncan’s mates eat supermarket Madeira cake because I let the supermarket foist buckets of them on me under the mistaken belief that anybody could make a trifle, and the further statement that I’ve brought a bottle of gin, pretty soon they all relax. My dear little pink baby doll, Mr Curtis (Nevil), is there, pinker than ever. Unfortunately he’s a bit young for Barbara. However, a very nice Jimmy Parkinson seems very struck, and gets her phone number, and Barbara relaxes like anything—well, the gin’s an influence, here, she is a one-glass-of-white-wine girl, remember—and giggles a lot, and a lovely time is had by all. Terence volunteers to come home with us at the end of the evening but no way, I’m not sticking my neck out, village-gossip-wise, I don’t care where he lives, he can go home. Velda points out he’s too drunk to drive, and he’d better use their spare room.. On second thoughts, Barbara’s too drunk to drive, too, we’d better walk. Gallantly Jimmy Parkinson escorts us, I must say it’s a very good sign that he didn’t allow himself to get totally bombed.

    We walk slowly home under a cold, star-spangled sky, me with my hands deep in the pockets of my parka and Barbara and Jimmy Parkinson walking rather close together. I nip indoors quickly and let them have a lingering goodnight. Yes, of course I watch them from behind the front curtains! Well, just long enough to make sure he does kiss her. Can’t be bad, eh?

    Next morning me and Tim are woken rather early by these loud sort of CLONK! CLONK! noises from outside. “Why didn’t you bark?” I say groggily. He just licks my hand. The master bedroom’s over the right-hand side of the house if you’re at the front door looking out, and of course the drive goes down the left-hand side: I peer out but all I can see is a grey-green sea, choppy waves breaking, and a grey sky with lots of cloud. However, the noises do sound sort of familiar. Though personally I wouldn’t’ve thought Terence would even be compos mentis yet after the amount of grog he put away. Unfortunately this means Someone’ll have to give him breakfast…

    I pull on John’s old navy Navy jumper over my wincey pie-jams, these are the blue pair that I bought, as opposed to the pink pair Mum donated, add the fuzzy jumper on top of that, boy these October mornings down on the south coast of England are nippy, and totter downstairs. As an extra precaution putting my parka on before I open the front door and stagger blearily over to the drive. “Why in Christ are ya chopping wood at this hour—”

    Shit, it isn’t him! It’s a short, dark, red-cheeked man with a five o’clock shadow and a very battered red jumper. Garter stitch, according to the experts, though easy to do, doesn’t keep its shape well and has a tendency to run. On the evidence of this jumper they’re right.

    He straightens, grinning. “Hullo. Jack Powell. Thought I might as well split some of this for you. Knew Terence Haworth’d never get through it, not half the man his brother is, is ’e?” All in the local accent.

    I just gape at him.

    “Jack Powell,” he repeats, waving his hand at the old green truck parked up the far end of the drive beyond the immense pile of wood. Uh—piles, he’s started another pile on the other side of the drive, against the garden wall.

    I peer blearily at the truck. Yep: “Jack Powell” is what it says on the door, in chipped gold letters. And a phone number.

    “Wood,” he says, grinning like anything.

    “Uh—oh! You’re John’s wood man!” I cry idiotically. “Hullo! I’m Rosie Marshall.”

    “Yeah. Nice to meet you, Rosie,” he says, grinning like anything and sticking out a hard, hot, dirty hand. In all likelihood one that’s been spat on, too, don’t they do that before attacking things with axes? Limply I shake it. Ow!

    “Nice to meet you, too, Jack. Thank you very much. You’ve done an awful lot,” I say admiringly.

    He grins. “Yeah. Terence didn’t get through much, did ’e?”

    I’m agreeing that he didn’t when a small, grimy, skinny boy of about nine or ten in baggy black denims and a baggy black tee-shirt over a very long, raggy grey jumper, also garter stitch, what’s the betting his mum’s the knitter, dashes up panting. “Hey, is that your dog?”

    “No, you nit, that’s Captain Haworth’s Tim!” says Jack Powell, aiming a cuff at his spiky brown head that’s obviously meant to miss.

    He ducks anyway.

    “Yeah, this is Tim. Who are you?”

    Jack Powell explains that this is his grandson, Gareth, if I hadn’t already realised that giving your kids fancy and unlikely names is a global phenomenon and not just confined to the shores of Oz and the Good Old U.S. of A. I would now, and apologises, grinning like anything, for having had to bring him. Gareth volunteers that Mum and Dad’ve had another row because he’s signed up for another tour of duty. Ouch! Jack Powell notes that she wants him to go into business with that twit Andy Simpson, probably the only bloke in the country that’s managed to run a nice little electrical business into the ground.—Is he an electrician?—Yeah, Electrician’s Mate, he explains. And if his daughter didn’t chuck Steve’s pay away with both hands they could’ve saved up enough by now to start a business of their own. Dunno why I was imagining that Gareth’s father was Jack’s son, not the other way around. I smile feebly.

    Jack Powell then reminds me that I owe him an autograph or two. And signed photos! agrees Gareth, jumping. –Not because I’m Lily Rose Rayne, whaddareya? Just because he’s a little boy. Though he does volunteer that I look different on the telly.

    “Yeah, all tarted up,” I agree. “You wanna play with Tim?”—He does, yes.—“Okay, you can take him down the beach for a bit. But he’s gotta have his breakfast soon.”

    Gareth notes they never had any, Grandpa wanted to get out of it, and Jack Powell tells him to shut it, though looking wistfully at me.

    Yeah. Pity we never managed to score any Own-Brand sliced bread, but. Though on second thoughts there were some Almost Own-Brand sausages that somehow crept into one of our cartons… “Well, there’ll be some sausage and kidney and a bit of toast going in a while, Gareth, unless you'd prefer porridge or muesli?” He wouldn’t. Jack Powell makes polite noises but soon gives in, grinning like anything, and admits he wouldn’t prefer porridge or muesli either. I go inside, grab one of those giant pieces of frozen ox kidney out of the freezer and bung it in the microwave on defrost. Does Jack Powell look like the sort of grandpa that’ll give the game away if we offer his grandkid sultana cake for breakfast? No, but on second thoughts Gareth looks exactly like the sort of little kid that’d immediately let it out to his mum, which’d drop poor Jack right in it, especially if she’s still mad with the hubby for deciding to go back to sea. Right, scrub the sultana cake.

    And by the time Barbara comes downstairs smiling like anything in her wonderfully neat pale pink quilted dressing-gown with the tiny frill of lace at the neck we’re all three of us sitting round the kitchen table making a start on it, with Tim sitting by Gareth’s chair, and me and Jack kindly pretending not to notice the kid giving him bits of kidney. She admits she is quite hungry, funnily enough. That is often the result, when you miss out on the hangover, of drinking a lot of gin and staying up until the small hours and getting up before the effect of the alcohol’s worn off, in my experience, so I don’t comment but serve her with a really hearty breakfast, to wit, two chipolatas and three slices of kidney on two slices of wholemeal toast. And by the time Jack’s got round to approving of John’s Royal Choice marmalade (out of the jar, whaddaya think I am?) on some of those currant buns we didn’t notice the supermarket people slipping in with the Madeira cakes, we’re all getting on famously and we’ve had almost the entire Powell family history (Jack’s divorced, reason he spends a lot of time with Sylvia and Gareth, plus and her Steve’s away at sea a lot, so it’s a male influence in the house, not to say a hard hand—Gareth just sniggers), plus everything about Gareth’s school, and his class’s recent visit to the submarine (Terence’s, presumably), and his friend Nobby and Nobby’s cat Whisky that’s not like a dog, of course, but not bad for a cat, he knows lots of tricks!

    This is about as early as you might expect Terence Haworth to roll up, and he does.

    Gee, we’ve eaten all the sausages, Terence. He grins feebly, boy does he look green around the gills. He notes that Jack’s done a fair bit of the wood. Jack replies Oh, he noticed. I give in and order him to sit down. There aren’t any more chairs, he notes, so I order him rather loudly to go and get one of the wanking dining-chairs for Chrissakes, are they sacred? He smiles feebly and obeys, and after he’s got round half of a mug of real coffee made in the sacred coffee-pot admits he could manage a slice of toast. Hard cheese, we long since ate all the bread. Half a currant bun? Gareth explains that the marmalade’s good. Terence looks at the jar and gulps. Right, John’s best marmalade that he was saving for the next Royal Visit, thought so. Well? Er, yes, not too much marmalade, thanks, Rosie. He thinks I’m gonna spread it for him? I burn a bent bit of bun in John’s pop-up toaster and shove it on a plate in front of him. “Eat, already. Gareth, pass Terence the marmalade.” Meekly he spreads marmalade and eats.

    After breakfast guess which one of them ends up splitting the logs and which one ends up sitting droopily at the kitchen table telling me I’ve used John’s good omelette pan for the fry-up and John’s good dinner plates instead of the breakfast set? Yeah, right, no prizes there. Actually I never knew he had any ordinary dinner-plate size— Um, yeah, hang on, that first morning when he made us scrambled eggs, they were on these icky heavy things, kind of pale fawn with horrible darker fawn stripes round the edge that match the other breakfast things. Well, I haven’t seen them for yonks, so Marion must’ve hidden them in a top cupboard. That’s rubbish, Rosie, you’re getting paran—Barbara gets up and silently investigates all the top cupboards and proves it. See? Commander Terence Haworth, R.N., subsides. Though rousing sufficiently to note that I’d better rinse that pan before I put it in the— I bash it down on the table under his nose. “Look, Know-It-All, do it yaself, if that ya that keen!” Shit, he does.

    After that I stop him from turning the dishwasher on before Barbara and me have had our showers and force her to have hers first. It still means she’s gonna be left to his tender mercies while I— Ooh, no, she isn’t, here’s nice Jimmy Parkinson! Hooray! I run upstairs grinning like the Cheshire cat.

    Unfortunately Terence is still here when I come down again, washed and in jeans and John’s navy Navy jumper, it reminds me of him, no wonder poor old Tim went and lay on his coat, I know just what he feels! No, we can't come to anywhere unlikely to look at ruddy country houses, Terence, we got no bread and no milk and almost no marg, and in case anyone’s forgotten, Barbara’s car’s sill sitting outside Velda’s place.

    Jimmy and Terence both offer eagerly; Barbara says shyly she could do the shopping if I like. What a good idea! I let her and Jimmy go off together, why don’t they walk up, then they won’t have the bother of bringing two cars back? They walk off together…

    “Worked out well,” I note jauntily.

    “If you want your little friend to become involved with one of John’s junior officers, yes,” he says limply.

    “Yeah, I do, actually. He seems like a nice boy, and all she was meeting were up-themselves PR types that drive Porsche-clones and listen to very loud Cher and Tom Jones in them,” I note pointedly.

    “Mine’s a real Porsche and I listen to Mozart in it,” he says meekly.

    “Good on ya,” I say without interest.

    “What’ve I done?” asks Terence baldly.

    Glumly I admit: “Nothing, really. Except you’re here and John’s on the other side of the ruddy Atlantic.”

    “Mm,” he says, and squeezes my elbow. “Chin up.”

    I wrench away. “Don’t be sympathetic! I can take anything but that.”

    “No. All right, then. –Where are you going?”

    Jesus God Almighty, I’m going outside to stack split logs for that lovely man that’s been splitting them all morning! I take a deep breath. “Outside. Help Jack.”

    “He doesn’t need—”

    “HE IS A PERSON, TOO!”

    He gulps but rallies to ask as he follows me like a bloody sheep: “Do you shout at John like that?”

    “No, because alone of your wanking family, he doesn’t need it.” I march round the corner of the house. “Hi, Jack, I’ve had my shower, can I give you a hand to pile the logs?”

    Jack’s very pleased and even though of course I start off doing it wrong and have to be shown, doesn’t mind showing me. After a bit it dawns on Terence that he’s totally redundant and he offers feebly to walk Tim. Yeah, good, do that. So they go.

    After a bit Jack grunts: “Is ’e capable of walking ’im without losing ’im?”

    “Dunno. Wouldn’t say so. But don’t worry, Tim’s capable of walking him without losing him.”

    He sniggers. “Yeah!”

    We split and pile companionably. After a bit I ask was this the same amount of wood that John had before?—Yeah.—We pause and look at it thoughtfully. The pile against the house side now runs the entire length of the sitting-room, though Jack’s considerately decided it shouldn’t be piled up too high, so as I can reach it. Jack volunteers that that Blaine bitch’s brother-in-law drives a lorry. Yeah, right. We fall to again…

    By lunchtime a very wet Gareth has been retrieved from the rock pools revealed down by the shore by the outgoing tide and the logs are almost all split. And Jimmy and Barbara have come back from the village in her car, beaming, with all the shopping and a few little extras she thought we might need like matches, we could only find one little box in the kitchen, and light bulbs, we couldn’t find any spares at all when the one in the little front lobby place conked out yesterday, and like that. And Tim and Terence have turned up panting and in the case of one, looking almost human. And in the case of the other looking as if he could go another fifty K, no sweat.

    After Gareth’s been forcibly stripped by his grandfather and told he’s a silly little wanker and re-dressed in a pair of woolly red socks (mine), a giant Viyella shirt (John’s) and a giant brown jumper (John’s, but he can keep the thing, for mine, it's hideous) and demanded, almost in tears, a pair of trousers, and been awarded a pair of John’s shorts which go round him twice and have to be tied on with a piece of rope produced from his exasperated grandfather’s pocket, and after Jack’s put Gareth’s wet things in the drier, we have our lunch. Muffins, big pot of tea, apples, sultanas, cheese, and sultana cake. What do we have for lunch in Australia? asks Gareth thoughtfully through a muffin. I think about it. Everyone looks at me hopefully: am I gonna say something terribly exotic, like fresh pineapple, banana fritters, prawn salad? Or something terribly down-home and Nevil Shute-cum-Arthur Upfield (Jimmy’s already revealed he’s a fan), like lamb chops, fried eggs, and white bread with cold beer for the menfolk and a pot of tea for Mum? Or, in the case of Gareth, something totally potty like goanna fillets and emu eggs?

    “What, on a dull grey autumn day like this, ya mean? Um, well, back home we call these ‘English muffins.’ Well, English muffins, big pot of tea, apples, sultanas, cheese, and sultana cake.”

    The adults all collapse in laughter so Gareth has to pretend he thinks it’s funny, too.

    “What did you think we ate?” I ask, taking a big slice of genuine English mousetrap.

    “Dunno… I thought you said you grow pineapples there?” he says aggressively.

    “Yeah, I did. Not where I come from, though: in Queensland. About as far away as—dunno. Spain, maybe.” I shrug. “Australia’s a big place.”

    “Well, have you ever eaten kangaroo?” he demands avidly.

    “That’ll do,” says Jack.

    “That’s okay, Jack. You can’t know unless you ask. Yeah, I have, Gareth, loads of times. I’ve had emu, too, when I was in the Alice, um, Alice Springs, that’s right in the centre of the country. The Red Centre. Well, you can get it in the poncy restaurants in Sydney, mind you.”

    “What were they like?” he gasps.

    “Just meat. Kangaroo’s just like beef. But not fatty. They get it a lot in Adelaide, my Aunty Kate, she lives there, she often buys it for stir-fries.”

    There’s a numbed silence.

    Well, what more can I say?

    Evidently I can tell him about my mum’s garden, according to the kind-hearted Barbara. So I try describing Mum’s scruffy back garden and its citrus trees, peach trees, and nectarine tree, not mentioning the tamarillo tree (tree tomato to some, good old Uncle Jim refuses to call them anything else) because I don’t wanna get involved in stupid explanations—

    “An orange tree?” gasps Terence.

    “Yeah, and some of us woulda thought some of you woulda been sophisticated enough, not to say know enough of world geography, to realise it’s not the seventh wonder of the world.”

    “What else does she grow?” asks Gareth tensely, totally ignoring this by-play. Look, the climate’s hotter, but otherwise we lead just the same sort of lives as you do! This fails to convince anybody so I list the spinach—it isn’t, it’s silverbeet, but I’ve already found out they never heard of it over here—the broccoli she’s had occasional success with, the peas some years and the really exciting green beans. They’re all glaring at me. Defiantly I add: “Tomatoes and sweetcorn. Big de—” Apparently the sweetcorn is. Jesus! So I don’t tell them what the Franchinis grow, I don’t want them to take off into orbit.

    Gareth tries to ask me exactly what we’d have for lunch in summer but his grandfather mercifully shuts him up and changes the subject. And after lunch he mercifully takes him away and Jimmy suggests we might like to come for a drive. So we do. I get to sit in the back next to Terence Haworth, lucky me. But Barbara’s having a lovely time, so it’s worth it, isn’t it?

    Nice Jimmy’s offered to feed us but it’d mean a drive all the way into Portsmouth and back, and then back again, for him, is he sure? He’s sure. Actually, I’m bushed, so I pass it up. Barbara’s keen so she changes into something incorporating the pink cardy, he must’ve admired it last night, and they go.

    And that leaves me and Tim and John’s brother, doesn’t it?

    “Shall I go away?” he says meekly.

    “That depends on whether John’s assumed you’d come over today and spend the entire day and the evening, or not.”

    He rubs his chin. “Look, we were starting to wonder just how far the Blaine bitch might go, so I offered to keep an eye on you.”

    “We’ve got Tim to keep an eye on us, and before you ask whether he’d go for her, he just about took her arm off when she only tried to pick up my satchel, so I think he would, yeah.”

    “Mm, but he's used to her coming in and out… John’s asked me to get the locks changed. The fellow’s coming on Monday.”

    I look at my watch. “Is he? Then you’d better ring him first thing and ask him not to, because Jim Potter’s coming in about ten minutes.”

    “Who?”

    “Potter, Ironmonger, that Potter. Jim POTTER!” I shout. “From the hardware store!”

    Uh—oh, the local one? Yeah: he said he’d do it himself if we could hang on until this evening. –It was Velda’s idea to ask him, she knew he does locks and things. Not for the bloody retirees and weekenders, though, unless they’re willing to pay him a small fortune: it’s too labour-intensive. Sure enough, Terence barely has time to glare at me before a knock’s heard at the door. He’ll go. He won’t, it won’t be her, it’ll be Jim! We go together. It is Jim, Haworth paranoia to the contrary. He doesn’t ask, like an Aussie locksmith would, why ya can’t do it yaself, mate, he just agrees it has been a nice day, the rain held off, eh, notes we got a new lot of wood, then, agrees he would like a cuppa, ta, Rosie, and falls to. Terence wanders off disconsolately and finally lights the fire while I make a cup of tea.

    John rings up while the tea’s brewing. Hullo, darling, is everything all right, did Terence turn up? before I can barely draw breath to say Gidday.

    “Yeah, Terence did turn up, he’s here now, and I’m having your locks changed,” I say firmly.

    “What? There’s no need for that, darling, I’ve asked Terence—”

    “His bloke was gonna come tomorrow. I’ve got Jim Potter here now.”

    “Well done, Rosie!” he says with a laugh in his voice. “Make sure he does the back door, too, won’t you?”

    “Yeah. I asked him for a couple of extra sets of keys, only I never thought Terence might want a set.”

    He thinks there’ll be plenty of time for that, and hopes Terence managed to split enough wood for us.

    “He done some,” I admit temperately.

    “Oh?”

    “Jack Powell come over this morning and done most of it,” I admit, eyeing Terence sideways. “He wouldn’t take any money, but Barbara had piles of shiny photos left over from the supermarket thing so I signed some for him. Hey, and guess what! We had a great time at Velda’s last night and Barbara’s met a lovely— What is he?” I say loudly to Terence.

    He jumps a foot. “What?”

    “Jimmy Parkinson! What is he?” Sub-lieutenant, he imagines. “Sub-lieutenant, Terence thinks,” I say happily. “One of Duncan Cross’s friends. Isn’t that good?”

    “Super-good, darling!” he says with a laugh. “So Terence has been looking after you, has he? Goo—”

    “I wouldn’t say that,” I admit.

    “Oh?”

    “He done his best. Only actually, I’ve been bullying him.”

    John goes into a paroxysm, you can hear him clear as clear, all the way across the Atlantic. When he can speak he gasps: “Let me speak to him!”

    “Okay, but I’m gonna be here,” I warn.

    “That’s right, darling, you stand there bullying him!”

    I hand the receiver to Terence and go over to the fire.

    First he says: “Yes, isn’t she?” Then he says: “No, you idiot!” Then he laughs and says: “Five times in every breath, I think!” Ugh, I bet John asked him if I’d called him a wanker. Then he says that Tim seems to be in seventh heaven. After that they only seem to be talking about wood. Then he says: “Aye, aye, sir!” grinning like anything, and hands me the receiver.

    “What was all that ‘aye, aye, sir’ stuff?” I ask John.

    “Promising to keep an eye on you and follow his orders,” he says primly.

    “This’d be, like, following his orders with his head swivelled round over his shoulder so that the eye’s—” He’s gone into another paroxysm, the wanker. “Yeah, very funny. I think she done her dash with the fuse box thingo, actually.”

    I’m probably right and am I getting enough to eat? Who, me? “Stacks. Um, the supermarket gave us loads of stuff. We thought we’d take a bit home but leave most of it here. Um, well, do you like instant noodles?”—Instant what, darling?—Right, never heard of them. Better donate them to Velda.—He’s sorry, but he has to go: surrounded by damned paperwork.

    “Yes. Where are you?” I ask dolefully.

    He can’t describe it; men never can, can they? Washington, in his flat, at his desk with a big pile of papers in front of him. Are the trees very pretty over there? Quite pretty, yes. I give up and let him tell me to take care of myself and promise to ring me tomorrow and say Bye-bye, Rosie darling. “Bye-bye, John,” I say sadly.

    Tactfully Terence goes out to the kitchen to fetch the pot of tea while I blow my nose hard.

    Then we have the tea with a dash of John’s whisky in it at Terence’s suggestion—mm! It does liven it up! And Jim does the back door, and checks that all the keys work and that I know which key’s which and has another whisky without tea, and having been fervently thanked, goes. It’s very dark by now, that twilight stuff they have in England doesn’t last into October. Tim doesn’t like men fixing his doors and he's been having a good sniff round but now he comes up and leans against my leg and makes a huffing noise. And Terence says lightly: “Bloody isolated, isn’t it?”

    “Yeah, it is, I hadn’t realised. I’d be very grateful if you would stay, actually.”

    He pats my shoulder and we go inside quite companionably and after a short fight over who’s gonna give Tim M-E-A-T which I win, need you ask, agree that since I had all that fried stuff for breakfast maybe something light would be a good idea for tea. I don’t ask his advice or what he likes, I don’t want a load of Pommy crap or on the other hand a load of Pommy good manners, equal crap, I just make what I would at home, given what’s available, like, frozen pizza from Stouts’ superette and then currant buns and honey followed by sultana cake. Terence says happily it’s just like High Tea with Nanny and my jaw hits the floor.

    “You’re kidding!”

    “No. Well, not the pizza. But otherwise—certainly.”

    “Not that! You had a nanny?”

    He makes a wry face at me. “Not just me. John and Fiona as well.”

    I nod groggily.

    “One theory is that it enables the two generations to see one another as human beings,” he notes neutrally.

    “Another is that it alienates them forever, too,” I croak.

    “Mm. Well, Mother isn’t really the maternal type, it was probably just as well.”

     I nod groggily.

    “You must’ve met some other people who—”

    “No! Jesus Christ!”

    Poor Terence looks at me doubtfully.

    “Never mind,” I say heavily. “Forget it.”

    Slowly he says: “I doubt if it made much difference, Rosie. When we were teenagers there were as many tensions as in any family with three kids. Well—Fiona’s unsuitable boyfriends, my unsuitable girlfriends, my lack of ambition, my lack of prowess on the sporting field, my failure to distinguish myself academically?” He shrugs.

    “What about John?”

    “He was older, of course. Seven years is a big gap to a kid. No, well, looking back I can see there were unsuitable girlfriends, in fact all of those wiggings in Father’s study would’ve been about them, apart from the one episode where he borrowed the car without permission when he was about sixteen. Being John, he drove it sedately and carefully from point A to Point B, refilled it with petrol for the Old Man, and drove it sedately home again, but—”

    “Shut up,” I say in a stifled voice.

    “But Father did his nut all the same,” he ends drily.

    “Any father would,” I say limply.

    “Mm.” He’s watching me drily.

    I swallow, and croak: “Did he really refill—”

    “Of course.”

    Our eyes meet: we break down in howls of laughter.

    “Oh, dear, it’s so like him!” I admit, mopping my eyes.

    “Mm. Though the episode where he crashed his own car, driving far too fast, racing some unsuitable friend, wasn’t in the least funny. He was older then: home for the Easter break, his last year at school. Our doting maternal grandfather gave him the car against Father’s better advice. He was all right, escaped with a busted leg, but the car was a write-off.”

    “What about the friend?”

    “He was fine, his car wasn’t involved: John’s car skidded into a bend.”

    I nod, shuddering.

    “That was the most inglorious episode of his entire career. After that he pulled his socks up, passed his A-Levels with flying colours, and went to sea like a good little Haworth. Don’t get me wrong, I was just as keen to go to sea, but I always wanted to be in subs, and no Haworth had ever been a submariner. Didn’t go down too well with Father. Grandfather supported me—Mother’s father—and that went over like a lead balloon.”

    “Potty.”

    “Mm. Families are. –Am I boring you?” he asks politely as I look at my watch.

    “No, but the show’s on this evening, I’d better watch it.”

    “Of course!” We go and sit in front of the telly with glasses of whisky, he doesn’t ask me if I want one, he just pours. Not that I mind whisky. It’s the episode with Amaryllis Nuttall as Daddy Captain’s ageing paramour. Dunno if you’d remember her, back in the Sixties and Seventies she was in a lot of long-running serials, costume, mainly. Though she played the boyfriend’s girlfriend in Michael Manfred’s cops-and-robbers thing for half a dozen episodes, too. Rather pixie-like features, supported by a really good bone structure, she looked bloody ridiculous in high-necked fluorescent orange skinny-ribs and flared jeans, though come to think of it, just as incongruous in a crinoline. The good bone structure means that though she does look her age, which must be around fifty-five, she looks wonderful with it. Terence must’ve seen all those old serials, he’s glued to it, and declares at the end when Daddy Captain and Doctor have successfully got rid of her that the man must be mad or gay or both. And wasn’t I lucky to have had the chance to act with her!

    “Ye-ah. Well, she was very nice to me, she was nice to everybody. But that rather vague manner, like, the way she drifts on and says her lines in rather a faraway voice, that isn’t put on, y’know. She does it in real life, too, it’s not easy to cope with. And she’s hopeless at remembering her lines, they had to shoot it in really short takes, Paul was furious, it upset all his camera angles, not to say the entire shooting schedule.”

    He’s looking at me in horror. “Not incipient Alzheimer’s?”

    “Don’t think so. Well, I wondered that, too. But Michael Manfred says she’s always been like that, it’s why she’s never had a stage career. She was very popular in his cops thing back in the Seventies, but they had to write her character out, they couldn’t cope with shooting one line at a time, not when she wasn’t a leading part.”

    He nods groggily.

    “Her hubby came with her every day, he’s not in the Business, he’s retired. He spent all his time picking up handbags and coats and scarves and things that she’d put down and forgotten about. He said she was thrilled to get the part, but if her agent hadn’t rung him up and made sure he put it on their calendar, she’d have forgotten to come.”

    “God.”

    “Mm. I couldn’t help wondering how much of it was natural, and how much was… well, a rôle that she’s been playing so long she’s forgotten how to be anything else. You know: ‘poor little helpless, fluttery me.’ We had Coralee Adams back for the next episode and she reckoned that it was all put on: Amaryllis wanted to be different from everybody else, round about the time they were all rushing round being very Mod in those mini-dresses and great pants suits. Like Diana Rigg in The Avengers,” I explain helpfully.

    He nods groggily.

    “She’s not really a very good actress, you know. Always plays the same character. So she needed a gimmick.”

    Terence begins to object, then nods slowly. Adding that I’m very sharp.

    “Well, I’m not Lily Rose Rayne, that’s for sure,” I say casually.

    “No,” he agrees with a wry smile.

    “You don’t need to say anything, I know you all thought John had fallen out of his tree.”

    He grimaces. “Not quite that. Oh, I don’t deny that was my parents’ reaction. But I’m not that generation. I suppose I thought—well, that it was mid-life crisis, unlike John though that seemed, and that he’d certainly picked something gorgeous for it. And good luck to him. When Mother rang me up and earbashed me for hours about sociology and Australia, I didn’t know what to think.”

    “Yeah. So, um, did you ring John?”

    “No, came over, the week he was here chopping wood and you were opening fêtes.”—He’s noticed I’m looking at him an a mixture of awe and horror.—“Yes, brave as a lion, that’s me.”—I nod fervently.—“He suggested that I say the words ‘Lily Rose Rayne’ and be dropped where I stood.”—I gulp, and nod again.—“Boxed for the school, in his younger days, you know, and kept it up for quite a while in his twenties.”—I nod speechlessly.—“So I merely said, was he the luckiest fellow in England as any natural fellow would assume, or was Mother right in saying he was involved with an Australian lady sociologist only disguised as the greatest dish since Monroe and on course to ruin his life and found another Haworth dynasty. –This was all outside on the front lawn, I caught him while he was chopping, you see. So he dumped the axe and we had a short sparring match. –Nothing serious!” he says to my look of numbed horror. “Just enough to show me that if I got any more pointed he might mean business. Then we had a whisky and he more or less said that it was none of my bloody business and none of Fiona’s bloody business, either, but you were a sociologist and not an actress, and any natural fellow would be quite right in assuming he was the luckiest fellow in England.”

    After a minute I ask groggily: “Was that It?”

    “Er, well, yes, brothers don’t actually weep on each other’s shoulders and sob their little hearts out in real life like on the box—”

    I bash him with a cushion. “Only in American soaps, you moron!”

    He wrests it off me, grinning. “Yeah. Something like that. Anyway, I admitted that I was on his side, whatever it was, and Mother and Fiona could get choked. That didn’t go down too well: as you may have noticed, he is Mother’s greatest fan.”

    “Mm.”

    “Ewe-lamb syndrome?” he says, raising an eyebrow. “I was never the favourite son, so perhaps I can see her more clearly. She’ll never give in, I’m afraid, Rosie.”

    I lean forward urgently, “No, but Jesus, Terence! What does she want for him? Another puce and magenta cow from a naval family that’ll sleep with anything in naval trou’ the minute he’s off at sea? I mean, for God’s sake, he’s fifty, even if he is a dish: how many chances does she imagine he’s got left?”

    “I don’t know, Rosie. I don’t think she sees him, or the issue, very clearly at all.”

    “No.”

    “Puce and magenta?” he murmurs.

    I gulp a bit but explain. Terence goes into a frightful sniggering fit and confides that he always thought Kay Wadham-Smythe was the bitch to end all bitches, and “puce and magenta” is her to a T. And we have another whisky.

    “Terence,” I say slowly, sipping it, “who told you in the first place about me and John? I mean, you said your Mother rung you up after you already knew.”

    He grimaces. “Who else? Bloody Corky Corcoran. No idea what he imagined I was going to do about it.”

    I might have known. I just nod grimly.

    “Um, John is very fond of him, you know,” he says edgily.

    “Yes. I wouldn’t dream of trying to split them up, it’d be the dumbest move I could possibly make.”

    “Good,” he says, sagging.

    There’s a short pause. We sip whisky.

    “John is very stubborn,” he says slowly.

    “I've noticed.”

    He smiles a little. “I mean, if he’s made up his mind about anything, he won’t change it.”

    “Not even if your Mother wants him to?”

    “No.”

    “But have they ever really been in conflict over anything before?”

    Terence rubs his chin slowly. Finally he says: “Yes. Has he said anything about his divorce?” I shake my head. “No… Look, Rosie, you’ll think I’m the world’s worst coward, but please don’t let on that it was me who told you, okay?”

    “I won’t think that at all. I don’t think very many men could stand up to him when he was ropeable, and once a younger brother, always a younger brother.”

    He nods gratefully, and gets up and very slowly fetches a big book from off the bottom shelf of one of the bookcases against the opposite wall, John’s got lots of bookcases, and then the silver-framed photo off the top of his big roll-top desk.

    “This is Matt,” I say uncertainly, looking at a coloured studio portrait of a sweet little round face topped with neatly combed, short brown hair.

    Terence sits down beside me on the sofa. “Yes, taken when he was four. John divorced Sonya when he was five, he didn’t want to wait until Matt was old enough to start taking any of it in.” He’s opened the big book, it’s a photo album. He looks through it slowly. “This,” he says finally, pointing to it.

    A very posed photo, like a ruddy publicity shot of the Royals. Must’ve been taken just after Matt was born, so in 1977. Just head and shoulders, the baby’s face in a shawl, kind of between them. Sonya’s very blonde, the wavy hair rather loose and artfully tumbled, just over shoulder-length, nice little diamonds in the ears, wearing something droopy in blue, the eyes very wide and fake innocent, very pale blue. I have actually seen this album before: I had a good snoop round that Friday afternoon me and Tim had the place to ourselves. John’s not quite smiling, he’s in a collar and tie, very conservative, the eyes very blue. Silently Terence takes the silver-framed photo of Matt off me and lays it on the opposite page. The round, dark brown little boy’s eyes look at me solemnly. He’s the dearest little thing.

    After quite a long pause I say: “I do know all about recessive genes, Terence, if that was what you were gonna ask me.”

    “Yes,” he says grimly. “Two brown-eyed people can have a blue-eyed child if they both carry the recessive gene, but there is no way that two blue-eyed people can have a brown-eyed child.”

    “Right, they only carry the recessive gene.” After a moment I say: “Did John realise?”

    “That Matt wasn’t his? Not until he was two, and his eyes were clearly brown; they had a bluish look for a long time.”

    “Right. And your Mother?”

    He grimaces. “That’s where the conflict came in. She didn’t realise that Matt couldn’t possibly be his: don’t think they did any genetics when she was a girl at school, and she’s barely opened a book since, too busy getting up delightful little bridge parties. When Matt was three John just told them he wanted a divorce, and at first she refused to countenance it. Whatever the trouble was, they could work it out, no need for actual divorce, etcetera. Father kept out of it: he knew damn well that Matt wasn’t John’s, and that bloody Sonya had been sleeping with anything in, as you so graphically put it, naval trou’, for years. Added to which, as perhaps you may not have noticed, he’s shit-scared of Mother.”

    I gulp as this inelegant expression comes out of Terence’s upper-class mouth in his frayghtfulleh nayce acc’nt, but nod.

    “Yes. Well, John ignored her, but she kept on and on at him, drove over to see Sonya and earbashed her about working out their differences, no need for actual divorce, etcetera, possibly try a marriage guidance counsellor—she was desperate by that stage: normally a Haworth doesn’t admit to anything as humble as a marriage guidance counsellor that he can’t manage his own messes.”

    I nod feebly, thinking of his two divorces, and Terence makes a wry face.

    “Eventually John sat her down and gave her a brutal lesson in genetics. Being John, he’d brought along a nice simple textbook to back him up. There was the most frightful scene—unfortunately I was home that weekend, so I came in for the lot. He finally had to rope Father and me in to back up his and the textbook’s genetics. Not to say, get a brandy down her. After that,”—he takes a deep breath—“and this is where the conflict comes in, Rosie—she was adamant that he should not only divorce Sonya, he should cite Matt as proof of infidelity and refuse to acknowledge paternity. Er, whether or not it might have been legally feasible isn’t the point—”

    “No, I get that, Terence. Crikey,” I croak, swallowing hard.

    “Mm. Mother didn’t give an inch, she’s never spoken Sonya’s or Matt’s names from that day—”

    “But the poor little boy musta believed she was his grandmother!” I cry.

    “Yes,” he says grimly. “Needless to say, John didn’t give in, either. They simply separated until the divorce could go through without fuss. Sonya had custody of Matt: John could hardly oppose it, being at sea so often. But she was hardly a possessive mother, and in fact any time John was home he took him for weekends and holidays.”

    “But when he got older he must have wondered why his grandparents—”

    “No, well, John just said that Mother was very bitter over the divorce, and the poor little fellow seemed to accept it. Father managed to see a fair bit of him behind her back, and get down to his school and take him out for weekends, that sort of thing.”

    “Good.”

    There’s a short silence.

    “Well, as I say, if John makes his mind up about anything he won’t change it, even if Mother does her best to persuade him to.”

    “No.” I’m thinking this was a bit different than unsuitable girlfriends, though; the poor little boy! “Thanks for telling me,” I say slowly.

    Terence bites his lip. “Sorry, it seems to have had the opposite effect from what I intended.”

    “No,” I say, trying to smile. “I am glad you told me, and it does prove he can stand up to her when he wants to.”

    “But?”

    “Nothing. I keep thinking about the poor little boy… Um, does he know John isn’t his father?” I croak.

    “Yes. John would never have told him, of course. Unfortunately, the year he turned seventeen the cretinous school started them on elementary genetics. John was at sea, or perhaps… No, well, Matt simply walked straight out of class and went up to Sonya’s London flat and taxed her with it. Apparently she just shrugged and said John had never denied paternity.”

    “So—so what did he do?”

    He makes a face. “At the time—this would have been just over six years back—Sonya was in with a rather frightful crowd of jet-set hangers-on, and there was one woman in particular—definitely a puce and magenta type, Rosie—who had shown considerable interest in Matt, even though she was more than twice his age. American, former starlet, four successful divorces from wealthy tycoons, that type? Mm. Matt went off to her suite at the Dorchester and moved in, subsequently accepting an offer to be taken to California and turned into a movie star.”

    I’m goggling, open-mouthed. “Miss Hammersley just said he went on the stage!”

    “Miss Hammersley would. No, well, don’t think she’d know the whole story, though I’m damn sure her brothers do. John dashed after him, of course, but Matt was very bitter, said he should have told him, etcetera, and refused point-blank to come home. I think John thought he’d get it out of his system if left to himself.”

    “And—and did he?” I croak.

    “Well, more or less, Rosie. I don’t think he was ever serious about wanting to be a film star, poor boy, just wanted to get on out of it. Eventually he calmed down and took—uh, whatever the American A-Levels are,”—I tell him SATS but he just nods foggily—“and let John send him to Stanford. Some sort of engineering degree, he’s finished it now, but he refused to come home. Said there was nothing for him here. He’s working for some Silicon Valley firm, full of sharp little Yankee yuppies,” he ends with a sigh.

    Gee, what a terrible fate. I eye him ironically but don’t say it. “That sounds all right. And these days, there’s quite a lot of unemployment even in Silicon Valley: he must be pretty bright and hard-working to have got a job and kept it.”

    “What?” he says foggily. “Oh, well, yes, I suppose…”

    “Has he got a girlfriend?”

    He shrugs. “Strings of dim little American bimbos, all into that stupid street roller skating they do these days.”

    “Good,” I say firmly.

    Terence smiles feebly. “Well, yes, he seems happy. Hasn’t been back since, mind you. John gets over there every so often. I suppose it’ll be easier for him now, with this daft secondment.”

    “Yes, good! But why on earth’s he talking about coming back for Christmas, if Matt’s over there?”—Terence flounders. Wants to see me? See the parents?—“Blow that! What’s Matt gonna think, the one Christmas he’s actually in the States, if he takes off for England? Hang on, what are you doing for Christmas?”—Terence flounders. Due a bit of leave, hadn’t thought, probably see the parents.—“Then look, why don’t we both go over there and join up with John, and then we can all go over to California and see Matt! Or if he wants a white Christmas I suppose he could come to Washington,” I add with less enthusiasm, having experienced this highly overrated Northern phenomenon. Terence is still floundering, John might not— “Oh, pooh! Hang on, I’ll ring him up and suggest it!” I rush to the phone.

    “Hi, ’s’me. No, nothing’s wrong, I just had a great idea: Terence was telling me Matt’s settled in California, so why don’t you stay there for Christmas, and we can come over, and then we can all go and see Matt!”

    “We?” he says groggily.

    “You and me and Terence! He reckons he’s due for some leave! And his girlfriend, of course! –Hey, you wanna bring someone?” I say eagerly. Terence flounders. No-one special. “He says there’s no-one special, maybe Bridget might like to come,” I say eagerly to John.

    “Y—Just hold on, Rosie. What, exactly, has Terence said about Matt?”

    “About doing his degree at Stanford and his Silicon Valley-type job and his strings of girlfriends that do in-line skating.”

    “And?”

    “Nothing. Oh, do ya mean him having brown eyes and all that? I asked him if you’d realised he couldn’t be yours so he told me about the divorce and all that.” –In the background, Terence is gulping a bit.

    “I see. Why didn’t you ask me?”

    “I didn’t want to upset you, you nong, what if you hadn’t realised? Well, how much genetics do most English naval captains have to learn?” –In the background, Terence has put his hand over his face.

    “Er—that’s a point.”

    “Yeah. So, whaddaya think?”

    “On principle, it’s not a bad idea, though Matt may not want to have his elderly dad and elderly uncle foisted on him for the festive season. I’ll think about it. Oh, and on the Bridget point: you do realise that Terence is—ah… a player?” he says primly. I’m reduced to a gulp. “Gotcha,” says John blandly. “But he is, darling. I don’t think we want to expose your nice little Bridget to that. In fact I was rather doubtful about exposing your nice Barbara to him.”

    “Yeah, well, one of them was rather impressed, but guess who it wasn’t.”

    “Fortunately. I will think it over, darling. Talk to you tomorrow, all right?”

    “Yeah, fine.” I don’t ask what he’s doing: I can hear people talking in the background. If it’s work, I don’t wanna know that he’s slogging his guts out for the Navy on a Sunday and if it isn’t, I definitely don’t wanna know, because there’ll be a puce and magenta lady in there somewhere, at least one of those voices is definitely female.

    “Bye for now, Rosie,” he says.

    “Yeah. Bye-bye, John.” I hang up and report to Terence that it’s not a bad idea in principle and he's thinking it over.

    “Good. The idea’s starting to appeal, I must admit! I know several people at the Embassy— Though Sidney and Deb may be coming home for Christmas, of course. No, well, I think we could have a damn good time, certainly in Washington!” he says with a laugh. “But are you sure you want me along?”

    “Yeah, ’course, ya nit, or I wouldn’t’ve suggested it.”

    “Fine!” he says, rubbing his hands. “Might make a few calls myself, tomorrow. And who’s Bridget?”

    “Just a friend of mine. She might be busy, though.” Blow, come to think of it, me and Rupy more or less promised to be in Della’s Christmas show, I might be busy. Though I suppose they have planes to the States right up to Christmas.

    Terence gets us each another whisky and since I could just fancy them obligingly fetches me a packet of the cheesy biscuits Barbara got at the superette today. We munch and sip and finally he gets up the courage to say: “Do you often lie to him like that? So—uh—coolly?”

    When I lie, I always lie coolly, no point in doing it otherwise, eh? “You do realise this is a logical paradox situation, Terence? But no: I only lie if it really, really matters, or if it doesn’t matter at all. And usually I only bother to lie to people I care about. Or really hate, of course.”

    He nods groggily.

    “I think he does know I’m capable of it.”

    “Maybe, but that’s a damned long way from accepting it!” he says with feeling.

    “You came out of it smelling of roses, mate, whatcha complaining about?”

    “Nothing. I think I’m trying to warn you,” he says, shuddering.

    “Yeah. Thanks.”

    “No, truly!” he says anxiously.

    “Yeah,” I say loudly. “Thanks, Terence, I got it.”

    He smiles feebly and subsides. And since it’s pretty late and I’m yawning my head off I let Tim out and since Terence swears he’s capable of letting him in again and of making up a bed on the big sofa, and of staying awake until Barbara gets home, I go up to bed. There was quite lot of food for thought in all that, but I’m too sleepy to think about it, I’ll do me Scarlett O’Hara bit and think about it tomorrow.

    In the morning we gotta head back to town, and bloody Terence just about oversets me by giving me a hug and saying: “Stiff upper lip, Rosie! And remember, for what it’s worth, I’m on your side!” After I told him I can’t cope with sympathy!

    “Yeah. Thanks. See ya, Terence.”

    Still October. Apart from discovering Marion’s sabotage, and the revelations about Matt and the divorce, and Jack Powell chopping up three hundred cubic feet of wood, that was a pretty average weekend at the cottage, like, trips to the superette, lots of food, nice evenings with Velda and Duncan Cross.

    Since then I've had a couple more of the same, one with Barbara again, though unfortunately Jimmy was back at sea, and one with Rupy, he started off terribly country gents’ hairy tweedy, but as I had hysterics and as Jack Powell turned up to see if I needed any odd jobs doing and asked me if I knew there was a Yeti on my front porch, gave it up. He warned me that Jack seemed rather keen, but I had actually noticed that, not being blind.

    John’s contacted Matt, he was evidently thrilled to know his father and uncle wanted to come out to California (of course, poor boy), so we’re going, John’s made the plane bookings for after Della’s Christmas show. Bridget was thrilled to be asked, but didn’t think she could swing it, finance-wise, so I lied and said the tickets were a special offer, bring a friend for half price. In that case she could swing it, hurray! I also lied about them being round trip to California with one stop-off in the States. Well, why not? The airlines have specials all the time, it’s not impossible. So it’s settled! Unfortunately she hasn’t been able to get down to the cottage yet, she’s got a small part in a very serious West End play which has been a great critical success and on the strength of it landed a small part in a very serious telly play where everybody ends up dead of an overdose or on the game or both, plus one of the handmaidens in the Stratford Antony and Cleopatra that’s coming up next year, so she's pretty busy, and of course on Sundays pretty flaked out. Well, the telly play’s in rehearsal but the Shakespeare isn’t, but being Bridget she’s already started learning her lines and worrying over the interpretation and trying to get her hands on as many videos of as many versions as possible.

    November. I’ve actually made it in to my hutch of an office at the university several times this month, in between rehearsing the third series and bloody personal appearances. Told Mark I couldn’t cope with tutorials this term, he’d have to find another mug. And it was him that wanted me to get involved in a stupid TV series in the first place, so drop it! Surprisingly enough he dropped it.

    I’m conscientiously working on my chapter for the book, incorporating most of Mark’s suggestions, when the departmental secretary gives me a buzz. There’s someone here to see me. Eh? A schoolgirl, she says in lowered tones. Oh, God, it’ll be Imelda Singh, wanting to disprove her Dad’s point that sociology is bloody hard slog and requires the pulling up of socks and passing of exams, or—well, maybe just wagging school, or maybe wanting to see what university is really like as opposed to the lies her brother that’s been at one for years and her sister that’s finished her degree and her other sister that’s just starting her degree this year have of course told her… Send her along, thanks, I say glumly.

    “Come in!” I shout to the tap on the door.

    The door opens very cautiously, you’d certainly know it was a kid, possibly most of the First-Years are still timid enough to do that but the rest aren’t. A hand appears round it. Doesn’t reveal all that much, since it’s encased in a woolly red glove.

    “Come in!”

    She comes in and my jaw drops, it isn’t Imelda, it’s bloody Linda Corcoran! “What are you doing here?” I gasp in undisguised horror.

    She goes very red. “I knew you’d say that!”

    “You were right, too.”

    She glares at me sulkily. There isn’t much to see, apart from the fake horn-rims that Rupy’s produced to aid my disguise as a sociologist, just plain glass lenses, the rims are real enough, plus and the curls flattened down and slicked back with half a jar of gel and held in one of those huge butterfly clips that are meant to hold a sort of French roll. Plus and my huge daggy black jumper.

    “You aren’t her, are you?” she says aggressively.

    “If you got this far, you must’ve read the sign on the door: ‘Dr L.R. Marshall. 414’. The 414’s the room, the rest’s me.”

    “Very funny!”

    “Why don’t you shut that door, there’s a perishing draught, and sit down and tell me why you’ve come.”—All this way in your school uniform, if you have grunged it up a bit with the red woolly gloves and a football scarf and four ear studs and three sets of small ear hoops.

    She does shut the door, and sits on the visitor’s chair, looking sulky. “It’s a curriculum day. –That’s what the stupid school calls it when there are no classes.”

    “Sounds more like a non-curriculum day.”

    “Don’t blame me if they’re illiterate!” she says fiercely.

    “I’m not.” I open the top right-hand desk drawer. Bummer, I’ve finished those biscuits. Uh—half a Mars Bar with teeth marks in it? Ooh, some likrish all-sorts, how long’ve they been in here? “You want some very old likrish all-sorts, or wouldja rather have half a Mars Bar with teeth marks in it?”

    She glares sulkily, this is a grown-up having a go, ya see. Oops, no, it isn’t! “Um, the all-sorts, please,” she says nicely, not pronouncing the word “liquorice” because she’s been brought up not to show other people’s ignorance up.

    I hand them over and take a sustaining bite of Mars Bar. “Thab’ the occasion, then, but wha’ the reazhon?”

    “I wanted to see your office,” she says, swallowing all-sort fiercely.

    “This is it. Boring, isn’t it? However, the intellectual work that goes on in it is quite exci—”

    “Stop taking the Mickey!” she shouts, bright red.

    “I might, Linda, if you’d start telling me the bloody truth. What is this, some sort of spite crusade to throw a scare into bloody Susan? What’s she done, ordered you to drop science at school or something?”

    “It’s not science, for God’s sake! A-Levels physics and chemistry!”

    “Oh,” I say humbly. “Sorry, I never took any science subjects at school.” –Though I done a bit of extra-curricular reading in basic sex and advanced sex and incidentally basic genetics since, folks.

    “That’s obvious! And no, she hasn’t. Just been totally bloody unhelpful and obstructive, as per usual. Can you imagine it? She enrolled me for some pathetic dancing class on the afternoon I’ve got Maths Club!”

    “Oh,” I say humbly. “I like dancing, actually. Specially if it’s with hetero blokes.”

    Linda’s gone rather red. “Yes, of course, I didn’t mean— Not that.”

    “No, well, all mothers do that sort of dim thing. Mine thought I wasn’t getting enough exercise in my last year at school, so she enrolled me for diving classes at the local pool, even though she knew I’ve always been terrified of heights. Well, it probably was deliberate on some deep level of the subconscious, but according to her, she never made the connection between diving and heights.” I shrug. “She was right, I wasn’t getting enough exercise. So then she enrolled me for aquacise, you probably don’t call it that here, it means waving your arms and legs about in the water and bobbing up and down and stuff to a ghetto-blaster. Jazzercize in the water, geddit? But most of the classes were during the day, for the mums and over-sixties, and the only one out of school hours was at seven o’clock at night, which meant it’d be pitch dark, this was during the winter term, ya see, so she ended up having to drive me there and collect me afterwards. On the night that she usually watched some bloody Pommy series on the box. She taped it, but of course it wasn’t the same.”

    After a minute Linda asks feebly: “How long did she stick it out?”

    “Two and a half weeks. She made Dad pick me up on the third night. He took me to McDonald’s to spite her.”

    She gulps.

    “So that was that.”

    “Yes, well, I’m not giving up Maths Club for stupid dancing classes.”

    “I wouldn’t,” I agree mildly. Then I just wait.

    Eventually she says, going red again: “Mummy’s got this crazy story that you’re—um—an actress. As well as being a sociologist. I told her, you’re a fellow at London University, you can’t possibly be an actress, but she said Lady Haworth told her that—that you were that stupid Lily Rose Rayne.”

    So much for Lady Mother being the soul of discretion. Remember that one? Yeah. If I tell Linda that it’s true then presumably it’ll be all over the Lower Remove, or whatever the fuck Pommy schools call their A-Levels forms these days. After a bit I say slowly: “Why were you and Susan arguing over it, Linda?”

    “I was just—just trying to persuade her that a girl could have a proper career if she does a decent degree!” the poor kid says.

    Omigod.

    “Yeah. Um, is she trying to stop you from going to university next year, Linda?”

    “Yes, and I’ve told her, Miss Charlton thinks I could get into Cambridge if I really work this year!”

    Jesus, she must be shit-hot at the maths and physics and stuff. “Really? Then I’d say it’s irrelevant what I’ve done or not done, Linda, and irrelevant what Susan thinks, too.”

    Evidently it’s not because even with a full scholarship, and she’s not sure she’ll get one of those, Cambridge is still very expensive. Ugh.

    “Yeah, well, logically my brilliant career is still irrelevant, Linda.”

    She bursts into explanation. It gets very involved, and it’s certainly illogical, but she seems to have convinced herself that if Mummy can be made to see I’m not a tarty telly actress then she’ll believe Linda’s maths and stuff can lead to a decent career. She won’t, mother-daughter relationships aren’t like that, but…

    “Yeah.” Resignedly I give the “Print” command on the word processing programme. I was just about to print out a draft anyway. “This is the draft of my chapter for a book one of my colleagues is doing on the dynamics of workplace groups.”

    “See! I told Mummy—”

    “No, hang on, Linda. Just read a bit of it.”

    She grabs it eagerly. The provisional chapter title is Cut, Thrust and Parry: Dynamics of a Television Series in Production. She blinks, but starts to read… Gradually her face falls. “But—I mean, there are no names, buh-but you are talking about The Captain’s Daughter, aren’t you?”

    “Yes. I’ve been undercover for the field work, see? Your mum’s right, I am Lily Rose Rayne.”

    After a minute she says limply: “You’re not really her, though.”

    “No, I really am L.R. Marshall. But I did take the rôle in the series and do all those stupid promos and, um, pose for certain pics which just might have been mentioned?”

    She’s very red. “Um, yes,” she croaks.

    “Yes. Listen, Linda,” I say without hope, “none of the TV people or the media know anything about me being a sociologist. We didn’t want it to come out, some of our field workers are still undercover,” I lie.

    “I won’t say a word!” she breathes with shining eyes.

    Yeah, right. Won’t mean to, more like. “No. Thanks,” I say without hope.

    “Could I—could I just show this first page to Mummy?”

    “No,” I say, snatching it back. “Sorry. You could if it was my book. But it’s not, it’s my colleague’s, and the whole thing’s confidential until he’s edited it and okayed it and we go to press. Um, well, if you tell her you’ve seen my office at the university I think she’ll be convinced I’m a bit more than a bimbo.”

    “Yes, and all the rest was just field work!” she agrees eagerly.

    Field work. Right. God, Brian Hendricks is gonna kill me, the third series isn’t due to go to air until early next year, and by the look on her face— Well, there’ll be a Best Friend, there always is, and that’ll be It. Three weeks’ grace at the outside? If we’re bloody lucky.

    I get up. “I'm starving, how about you?”

    “Absolutely! Could we go to the student cafeteria?” she pleads.

    Ugh, God. I give in, however, and after we’ve both been to the bog—she was obviously bursting, silly little idiot, why didn’t she say, though on second thoughts scrub that, I was even sillier at that age—we head for the caff and what passes for food therein. Not to say, what passes for coffee. Uh—no. Hardened though I am by eight years of full-time study getting my quals—no. I buy a Coke instead. Lunchtime’s over so the crowds have thinned, and it’s not a trendy place to be, so we’re not surrounded by trendies wagging their taxpayer-funded classes.

    “Linda, I need you to understand that from the television people’s point of view it’s very important”—she’s watching a pretty red-headed boy over the other side of the caff, oh, God.—“Linda! It’s very important for you not to tell anyone about me being Lily Rose, because if it comes out and the viewing public turns against the series, all the people at the TV studio could be in real strife, like, the bosses’d lose a lot of money, but more important, a lot of ordinary people would lose their jobs.”

    She won’t tell anyone! And, cheerfully, why should anyone turn against the series, it makes it more interesting! Oh, God. I try to tell her what the media’s attitude is gonna be and how the great viewing public will feel, thinking it’s been suckered and taken for a mug by an academic, but not one single, solitary syllable of it connects: she’s a nice girl from a nice background, there’s nothing in there amongst all the maths and physics and fighting-Mummy crap for it to connect to. Oh, Jesus!

    … I’ve confessed to Rupy, not that I really expected any help, more like sharing the misery. Well, actually I more or less hadda confess, I hadda bring Linda home, couldn’t get bloody Susan on the phone, and of course the kid hasn’t got the faintest when or if there might be a train in the direction of home. Linda’s assured him she won’t tell anyone, and isn’t it exciting! His face brightened marginally round about the “anyone” and fell like a stone at the “exciting.”

    So we collapse in front of the heater and have a couple of stiff gins and try to think what to do. …Uh, no. …Nothing. “I won’t tell anyone! I promise!”

    “Shut up, Linda,” we groan.

    “I won’t!” Very red and indignant.

    “No of course you won’t,” I lie, “but your mum might. We gotta have a contingency plan.”

    “Yes. And meantime, dear, could you possibly comb your hair out?” Rupy contributes.

    “Yeah, go on, use my room,” I say.

    “Not her! You!” He takes another look at her. “Well, her, too,” he says fairly.

    The blushing Linda retires to my bedroom.

    “How long is she here for, dear?” he asks delicately.

    “Until I figure out some way to get her home, Rupy. It’s all right, she hasn’t run away,”—he sags—“they’re having one of those classless days the kids all seem to have these days, but her mother’s not home.”

    “Where’s her fa-ther?” he mouths.

    “At sea, I sincerely hope.”

     He nods hard.

    “Well, think!” I urge.

    “I can’t,” he says sadly.

    “Me, neither. Well, I been thinking all afternoon and the answer’s a lemon.”

    “Yes. Um, could ring John?” he suggests delicately.

    I goggle at him. “What on earth for?”

    “Well, he may have some ideas. Well, he is”—if he dares to say anything like “an experienced man” I’ll crown him—“a senior captain, darling.”

    I don’t crown him, I merely say: “Yeah, he’d have lots of ideas about driving ships and blowing the enemy out of the water, but saving the show’s bacon is slightly different.”

    “Isn’t it war, though?” he says brilliantly, if sadly.

    “Er—yeah. Look, fundamentally he doesn’t care, he wants me to give it up, what do you imagine his advice’d be, if he could think of any?”—He winces.—“Yeah.”

    We lapse into gloom. After a bit he says dully: “What’s she doing in there?”

    “Trying all my makeup under the impression it’s telly actress makeup?” I hazard dully.

    “Oh, right.” He stares glumly into the heater. “You’d better confess to Brian.”

    “Before the S. hits the F., ya mean? Yeah.”

    We relapse into gloom. After a bit he says dully: “Could ask darling Miss H.’s advice?”

    “Yeah, but I think it’d amount to biting on the bullet and facing the music, she’s even more Navy than he is, ya know.”

    “Mm,” he says sadly: “Stiff upper lips, all that.”

    I’ve had enough practice at them, these last two and half months. “Exactly.” We relapse into gloom…

    Susan’s been frantic! She certainly hasn’t been frantic on the other end of this phone, we’ve rung her every twenty minutes or so since half past three. And what is Linda doing, with me?

    “I don’t know, Susan, she turned up at my office at the university round about lunchtime and interrupted me when I was in the middle of a chapter I’m contributing to a book one of my colleagues is writing.” This forces her to apologise for her offspring, hah, hah. Well, Jesus, the implication is that it’s all my fault, she’s not getting away with that even though I do know that that is precisely how it will go down in the Corcoran family annals—and in the Haworth Hall of Shame, too, you betcha.

    And Linda’s father will be furious! Gee, will he? I’d never of guessed. Yes, she can speak to her, actually. I hand the receiver to the culprit and stand well back. Linda, of course, is defiant instead of grovelling, silly little nit. Oh, well, wouldn’t we all of been, at that age?

    We end up having to keep the kid for the night, Susan won’t have her travelling across England on the train at this hour, and she doesn’t fancy driving all that way at this hour to collect her—too bad if we didn’t fancy having to keep her, eh?—and swearing on our lives to put her on the exact train as stated by Susan tomorrow morning. Rupy grabs the receiver and asks: “Where does it leave from?” just as I’m about to hang up. Then having to explain who he is, and, apparently, receive Susan’s graceful apologies for the whole thing. She’ll be on the blower to Lady Mother like a shot, telling her I’m shacked up with a Man.

    “You could tell your mum that Rupy’s gay, if ya like,” I say carelessly as he writes the name of the station down very large and rings Mike, “but actually John knows all about him, so whatever gossip her and Lady H. work up will be wasted breath.”

    “Yes, um, sorry!” the poor kid gasps.

    “That’s okay. And listen, if you need anything like tampons or pads or special toothpaste, speak up now, couldja? Before the corner shop closes and the muggers come out.”

    She’s gone scarlet and is giving Rupy an agonised look. “I’ve heard it all, dear,” he says vaguely over his shoulder in the intervals of thanking Mike fervently for being such a brick. (That’s not an insult, in the Pommy vernacular. They say it a lot in those books with titles like Linda of The Remove.)

    “So?”

    She does need tampons. We go into the bathroom and she inspects mine. No, she uses different ones. Right. We put our coats on and go down to Mr Machin’s. On the way I veto several suggestions about clubs and discos. No, no, no and no, I’m not into that crap. Tactfully not mentioning Rupy in the connection. Barry’s on duty and seems quite struck by Linda. Considerately I tell him what brand of tampons we’re looking for rather than make her say it. On second thoughts we also buy her a toothbrush and some toothpaste. Barry thinks we might need more bread for breakfast for tomorrow! So we might, and some more milk, good on ya, Barry. We buy it all and exit. I point out The Tabla, does she wanna have tea there? Sorry, dinner. She does, she’s over the moon. Righto, the Wus lose out, it’ll be The Tabla, not Chinese takeaways. We go back to the flat and collect Rupy, tolerantly listening to an encomium on the wonderfulness of Mike as we come back down in the lift. Yeah, I’d be wonderful, too, if I was driving a ruddy great limo that belonged to my bosses and that my bosses were paying for the petrol for. He was gonna collect us anyway, mind you, but much later in the morning and without side trips to stations, so I agree he’s wonderful.

    At The Tabla Linda wants all the hottest dishes on the menu but Mrs Singh in person bustles up and puts the kybosh on that. Never mind the menu, dear, she says in tones of complete scorn as Linda starts looking through it again. So we all end up having what Mrs Singh thinks we did oughta, dunno what they all are but they’re extra, and the pickle’s hot enough to assure any rogue schoolgirl that she’s having a sophisticated London evening out. I think it’s actually a pickle of chillis, in fact, ow, oof, help! Greg rushes over and warns us not to touch it: too late. Who’s he? Linda breathes as he goes off to his official tables again. Totally struck. Just as well Greg’s got sense, eh? Why did I think The Tabla’d be a nice, safe place to take her?

     … Considerably later. She’s in bed in Joanie’s erstwhile room with the computer. Rupy comes into my room in his pie-jams, looking glum. “Any bright thoughts, dear?” No. Him, neither. He drifts out, looking glum. And so to bed…

    Tomorrow. It hasn’t got better. Well, we got her on the train with a pile of mags and junk food. Still can’t think of any way to avert catastrophe and not have to confess to Brian.

    “Stiff upper lips?” concludes Rupy glumly.

     Right. Stiff upper lips.