Episode 12: California, Here I Come...

Episode 12: California, Here I Come…

    December. No, I haven’t worked up the guts to confess to Brian. Me and Rupy aren’t sleeping all that well. I’ve rung up Linda a few times and she’s sworn she hasn’t told a soul. No saying who bloody Susan Corcoran and Lady Mother will’ve been chatting to, however. We’ve almost finished filming the third series, after which, Sheila’s announced with grim glee, it’ll be time to renegotiate contracts with Brian. I haven’t worked up the guts to tell her I’m not gonna renegotiate nothing.

    Mark’s publishers are really pleased with the book and if certain persons that did their field work in Watford and Wales would pull their fingers out and finish their chapter drafts, it’d be just about ready to go. (See? I told you Mark had long since written the introduction and conclusion, didn’t I?)

    My nationalism article’s come out and been very well received. The university’s pleased: think they thought all they were gonna see for the fellowship was more wanking small group dynamics. The Prof. himself’s had a word with me about working it up into a book, he knows a press that’d be very pleased to— Oh, already got a publisher, eh? A very reputable press indeed, splendid, my dear, splendid! It’s a bit like talking to a combination of Admiral Hammersley and the Sir John Gielgud rôle in Chariots Of Fire, dunno if you remember him but it certainly struck iron into my soul, bugger all that slow-motion-on-beaches crap, I decided there and then that if that was what Oxford and Cambridge were I was never gonna have a bar of them. Like, he’s got all of Admiral Hammersley’s geniality but a lot more outright power, and all of the steel of the Sir J.G. rôle behind the smiles. Not as poncy and well-pressed as the Sir J.G. rôle, but in the 21st century what human beings are?

    He didn’t go so far as to offer me a researcher but when I said I could pay for a couple he was very happy to suggest a couple of very reliable names. Given that one of them did half the work on his own last book I snapped him up and told him if he really works on the background on media attitudes he can work up the chapter and have his name on it, and he got right down to it with his microfilm readers, good on him. Though he was a bit stunned when he found out which media I meant. Well, heck, what do most people read? News of the World and the women’s mags—right. He admitted it’d make a nice change from back numbers of The Times. I bet it will, yep! He may not be able to get hold of everything in microform but the British Library will be sure to have back numbers of everything, quote unquote. Hope he’s right: that conflicts with the rumours I’ve heard in my armchair at the end of the universe about that institution post-Thatcherism, it’s not the good old B.M. any more, ya know, but I just said great, let’s get cracking, the publishers wanna see something next June, get it out next September. I’ve told him he can use an OCR program and dump anything that looks relevant into a database, bugger correlating stuff by hand. He was thrilled, the Prof. never let him do anything smacking faintly of technology. And I’ve hired an assistant to run the actual OCR program for him, it’s boring and time-wasting sitting there waiting while the program reads M’s as W’s and anything smudged as squiggle. And given that the fellowship runs out next September I’d quite like to get the work finished.

    Prof.’s made noises about permanent tenure, or rather, a teaching fellowship that if you behave yourself for three years on, you get permanent tenure. Might be a goer—dunno. Think that means they get a full lecturer’s workload out of you for half the dough. I’ll look into it.

    In fact if it wasn’t for the Lily Rose crap about to land on me, I’d be quite happy. I’m seeing John soon, work’s really good, I’ve got an idea of what I want to do after the nationalism study, my results from that are starting to look as if they’ll work up really good…

    “That’s a wrap, boys and girls!” cries Paul, actually smiling for once. Whew. That’s It, then. Most of them are deciding happily they’ll rush off to happy hour at the wine bar down the road. Yeah, right… I drift off to my dressing-room and let Yvonne tenderly remove the Fifties tights with seams in them, that’s the last I’ll see of them, that’s for sure.

    “What’s the matter, Lily Rose?”

    “Nothing, really. I wouldn’t bother washing them.” Of course they have to be washed! Yeah, right…  “Effete,” I say sadly.

    “Pardon?”

    “I feel effete, it’s Adam McIntyre’s word for how you feel after the show. All sort of washed-out and limp.”

    Then of course I need a drink, that’ll cheer me up!—Yeah.—And Brian’s throwing that lovely big party for everyone at his house, this Saturday, that’ll make me feel better!

    Yeah, won’t it. I change and we go off to the pub. Oh, I feel really cheery, looking at all these shining morning, well, happy-hour, faces that aren’t gonna be hired for Series Four unless between now and approximately next Feb., say March at a pinch, Brian can come up with a replacement for Lily Rose that the Great British Public will go for. Bugger, why did I ever start the flaming thing, it isn’t even as if it was my own research, it was bloody Mark’s stuff!

    Brian’s party for the employees, combining Christmas and the end of the third series, kind of thing. Everybody’s here, Darling we must talk contracts with Sheila very soon; he’s got bloody Derry Dawlish along too: Just state your terms, Lily Rose, agrees Derry with a jolly laugh, Varley’s agreed to come on board for the film—has anyone told Derry the man can’t write dialogue?—and blah, blah. Would you believe there was a crowd of Press at the gate as we arrived? Timothy must’ve been told to spread the word. It’s freezing, so more or less to spite the world I was wearing Miss Hammersley’s full-length white fur cloak with the cape collar and the little tails, remember that? It went over really, really good with the photographers.

    Brian gave a startled laugh when I appeared in what I’ve got on underneath it, instead of welcoming me naycely to his home, so up his. It’s scarlet, artificial silk of some kind, ankle-length but split up to the knee on one side, narrow but not tight, with tiny shoe-string straps and a kind of softly draped bust, can’t describe it, it’s the way the material’s cut. Low neckline but not positively indecent, Yvonne’s, to name only one, is much worse. Fairly low back but not extreme. Very Today, in fact I bought it yesterday. Nothing Fifties about it: the waist just sort of sits at my waist, it’s not pulled in or like that. Well, if you saw it you’d admit it was totally Today. Not that scarlet’s a very popular colour at the moment, but that’s why I chose it. Rupy found the earrings at a flea market, half-inch wide strips, three strings of brilliants joined together, stepped. They just touch my shoulder. He wanted red shoes to match but I chose high-heeled black evening sandals. And I’ve had an inch chopped off the Shirley Temple cut and brushed it up from my forehead and behind my ears, but still bushing out, and at least it looks vaguely related to something that mighta lived in this millennium instead of the last. Varley was very annoyed, though mind you at the same time he got an instant hard-on, but so what? I just said: “It’s Christmas.” I’m wearing John’s Chanel Numéro Cinq but only Derry’s spotted that.

    Everybody’s terribly Up, what with the Christmas spirit and finishing the filming and the ratings for the second series being through the roof. Brian’s already planning The Captain’s Daughter The Christmas Special for next year. Paula’s planning to take her nice Jack to the fjords next summer. Funny choice, but they’re both beaming all over their faces, never seen her look so happy. Yvonne, Linda from Reception, and Karen, Brian’s secretary, are planning to join forces to go on a package to Florida, well, it’s a cliché, of course, Karen admits, giggling like anything, boy is she tiddlers, but she does want to see the Everglades and Disneyworld, and some of the girls from her sister Wendy’s work went this year, the hotel was lovely! No, well, not on the beach, but fully air-conditioned and wonderful service, you could order anything… Malcolm comes up and give me a kiss, oh, dear. Him and Paul are off to the snow in the New Year, the Austrian alps. Yeah, I know. Hope you have a lovely time. And next summer, if he can get the old workaholic to take a break, he rather thinks they might plan for Réunion! Uh—oh, in the Caribbean, is that? No, no, in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa, near Madagascar! Uh—oh. Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of it, it’s French, isn’t it, they say it’s really extra. Beaming smiles all round…

    Michael’s found the cottage, he corners me with a glass of champagne and tells me all about it. Its price was a bit more than he’d budgeted for (oh, God), but with all these personal appearances, and he’s doing those ads for that really nice line of men’s toiletries, and then, jolly laugh, if they don’t need him professionally, he’ll be very well placed to do bed and breakfast every other year, should the fancy take him! I look blank so he explains in words of one syllable that it’s in the village where they have the Mountjoy Midsummer Festival. Well, on the outskirts, but in quite good repair… Oh, God.

    “Why don’t I just cut my throat now?” I say grimly in Rupy’s ear.

    “As opposed to when it hits The Sun? Yes, why don’t you, dear?” he agrees sourly. He hasn’t managed to find a flat he likes and can afford. Well, something like bloody Euan’s glossy bachelor pad is what he’d like. But the banks don’t lend that sort of dough to forty-year-old gays that have only ever had supporting rôles. I’ve suggested he takes over Joanie’s lease but he doesn’t want a lease!

    “Pour me a gin,” I say with a sigh.

    He pours gin into my champagne flute and I take a good gulp of it.

    “And,” I say firmly, “I’ve got you a ticket, you’re coming to California with us.” –He refused, before, he didn’t believe a single, solitary syllable of all my flimflam about special offers; unlike Bridget; he does know me quite well. Added to which he’s nearly twice her age, that helps.

    “You mean he’s paying for it,” he says in a strangled voice. “Delish though he is to the distaff side, dear, one doesn’t wish to be beholden— ”

    “No,” I say firmly, squeezing his arm. “It’s a Christmas present from me, ya drongo!”

    “Really?” he quavers, turning very red.

    “Yes.”

    “Ta,” he says numbly.

    “Give me a big hug, ya nong.”

    We have a big hug. “Could have a headache and go home and watch videos?” I suggest hopefully.

    “I was going to have a headache. No, well, you could have the flowers, dear.” (Don’t ask me where he got that one from, but he reckons it’s genuine Edwardian for your period.)

    “Righto. Come on.” We go and excuse ourselves to Brian and Penny, thanking them very much for the party, but we’d be better off lying down, really. Rupy’s going to take some Panadol and make sure I have a hottie on my tummy, he explains, gilding the lily.

    And we escape to grainy disaster movies, a nice pot of weak tea, and a box of strange Indian sweets Mrs Singh sent up the other day.

    “I cannot stand Leonardo d— ”

    “No, all right. I’ve seen it three times, anyway. This one? Charlton Heston,” he says kindly.

    “But you hate him, Rupy, he’s so masculine!” –Not mentioning I’ve seen it five times.

    “I can support him… No, wait! This one! It’s much better, dear, it’s the one where the ballroom’s upside down and it fills with water, and the fat lady swims!”

    We settle for the one where the fat lady swims. And then, as a special favour, on account of the plane ticket, bits of the Charlton Heston one fast-forwarded past any actual plot and concentrating on Chuck. Wish they’d of let him take his clothes off.

    “Pierce Brosnan, who chose this?” I then announce, picking up another one.

    “Yes, but it’s got a volcano!” he urges.

    Is that phallic or— Never mind, we watch it. Pierce Brosnan’s quite good, playing his actual age for once and not all smoothly smothered in Max Factor, he actually seems relaxed.

    “Not again,” he groans as I hopefully pick up Death Train. “It’s not even a disaster movie, nothing gets blown up!”

    “I thought you liked Pierce Brosnan?”

    “Hardly fanatical, dear. Anyway, have you looked at the time?”

    Uh—oh. “Aw,” I whinge, “well, couldn’ we just…”

    Groaning, he concedes that we can just watch the bits of Death Train with Patrick Stewart in them in a coat and tie, or, better, shirtsleeves—I’m up inserting it before the words have passed his lips—because he looks quite like John, when he’s in modern clothes!

    “Is he paying for it?” he says, as I turn it off without waiting for the skinny sharp-shooter lady and Pierce to deactivate the last atomic bomb and stroll off into the mist.

    “Eh?”

    “My ticket,” he says glumly.

    “No!” I go and get it, it’s in an envelope with a red bow on in. “Merry Christmas,” I say firmly.

    “Ta ever so, dear!”

    “Better?”

    “Ever so betterer. And who knows? One’s contacts over there may find one work!”

    Hope springs eternal in the forty-year-old gay breast, apparently. Just as well one of us can remain optimistic, eh?

    There’s time for one last weekend down at the cottage before we have to do Della’s Christmas show and take off for the States. Sheila and Brian have agreed that early January will be time enough to sign contracts. Sheila seems to think I’m headed for the Collections in Paris in early January, what planet is she from? Planet Show Biz, right. Bridget’s serious play’s finished but she can’t come down to the cottage, she has to go up to Manchester and spend a bit of time with her parents, since she won’t be home for Christmas. However, Barbara’s free, so Rupy and me pile into her little car and go. I made Rupy go to bed early last night so we do take off in reasonable time and we get there around lunchtime.

    Tim’s ecstatic, leap, leap, lick, lick, pant, pant, pant, wag, wag, wag. Velda’s got a funny look on her face, though.

    “Was he good?” I say, hugging him.

    “Yes, of course!”

    “Yeah, ’course ya were, eh? Good boy! Good boy! Yeah, love ya too!” I say, hugging him a bit more. “So what’s up?”

    Being in the illustration biz, Velda gets a lot of the mags, the more so as her sister’s even more in the biz, she’s a commercial artist with a big advertising agency. “Um, well, come and sit down,” she says, producing a pile of mags, “and have a cup of coffee. It’s nothing much, really.”

    “Is Kristel all right?”—That’s her sister.—“She hasn’t lost her job, has she? Or mucked up a big client’s campaign?” No, of course not, she’s fine, and see the lettering on that back cover, that’s a brand new ad they’ve dreamt up for that perfume house, that’s hers! Just looks like splashy uncoordinated Nineties crap to me, but I know that’s very In, so I obligingly admire it. Rupy takes it off me and also admires it. Barbara also admires it even though this perfume is, according to the word in PR circles, attempting to give “Lily Rose” a run for its money: gone the other way, slightly punk, witchy look, is that In any more? Well, whatever turns you on, I guess.

    “So what is it?” I ask, sitting down on the sofa, as she goes over to the kitchen door.

    “Well, just a silly photo in one of the gossip columns. Um, the American one, Rosie,” she says, vanishing.

    Rupy and Barbara sit down on either side of me and Tim comes up very close to my legs and we look through the mags…

    Washington high jinks, right. Captain John Haworth of the British Royal Navy in fucking dress uniform with his arm round a puce and magenta cow, very close together: right. Laughing and holding champagne coupes in their free hands, if ya want the full gruesome details.

    “Posed for the camera, dear,” says Rupy immediately.

    “Bullshit.”

    “It is sort of public. Well, a reception,” offers Barbara. “Just PR.”

    “Bullshit, Barbara.”

    Velda comes back with mugs of coffee on a tray looking cautious. “Um, it’s something and nothing, Rosie. He used to have to do that sort of thing when he was on Dauntless, too.”

    “This puce and magenta hag is not Princess Anne, however!”

    Barbara reads out dubiously: “Mrs Wanda Makepeace Hooten.”

    “I’ll give her Makepeace!”

    Velda begins: “I’m sure there’s nothing in it, but I just thought you’d better—”

    “And him!”

    “ –know,” she finishes sadly.

    Rupy’s turned over, possibly in an effort to distract us. He gulps.

    “WHAT?” I bellow. There’s another pic, this time in broad daylight, they’re riding horses with leafless trees in the background, it’s the same puce and magenta lady and just to reinforce it the accompanying snippet explains that Gordon and Wanda Hooten were entertaining at their country house in Maryland after the round of successful talks at blah, blah, evidently Hooten is a former Ambassador to Great Britain and he makes rocket components, how cosy.

    I breathe heavily. “I never even knew he could ride a horse!”

    “She has got a husband,” says Velda feebly.

    “Velda, Wallis Simpson had a husband! Camilla P.-B.’s got a husband! Since when does that stop the puce and magenta sort?”

    Rupy wouldn’t say Camilla P.-B. was puce and magenta. More like the horse, actually. Velda chokes, she doesn’t know him as well as we do.

    “She’s got no dress-sense, Rupy, no, but in essence she is puce and magenta!”

    “All right. No need to shout,” he says glumly.

    “Wuff!”

    “Nor you,” he says sadly, so Tim licks his hand instead. “He didn’t breathe a word, we gather?” he says sadly.

    “Gee, whadda you think?”

    “He probably didn’t think it was important, Lily Rose, I mean Rosie!” says Barbara urgently. I’ve asked her to drop the Lily Rose bit, she remembers about a quarter of the time.

    “No, exactly,” Velda agrees anxiously. “Like I say, he had to do this sort of social rubbish a lot when he was on Dauntless. But I just thought you ought to be prepared in case anyone mentions it to you.”

    “Yeah, I appreciate it, Velda,” I say glumly. “I’d hate to have the Press catch me out, I’d look a total prat if I hadda say I never heard of her.”

    They all nod anxiously in agreement, and we drink our coffee and decline Velda’s kind offer of lunch, and gather up Tim, and go down to the cottage.

    Why couldn’t he of told me? I told him about the episode in the third series that they got Euan in for, the guy slated to do it broke his leg and Euan’s agent leapt at it, that second Hollywood film he was up for never came off after all. And Posthumus to great critical acclaim at Stratford is one thing, even if slightly overshadowed by McIntyre’s Cymbeline that the critics raved over, but it’s not gonna pay for shiny New Age flats in town forever, is it? Of course our PR types made hay over it, especially since it was about the same time that Euan and Kiki Brathwaite busted up. The word being that she dumped him for a Stratford director, that rumour that they’re all gay can’t be true after all. This particular director has just signed contracts for a whole new set of telly Shakespeare, there was a huge splash about it in the Sunday Supps, but that, of course, is pure coincidence. Anyway, as I was saying, our PR types, with the very eager cooperation of Euan’s agent, made hay over it: Press invites all round, their best mates actually allowed to come on set during Paul’s sacred shoot, he was ropeable; and the tabloids were filled with silly headlines like LILY ROSE AND EUAN AGAIN? or CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER’S CHOICE IS EUAN or KEEL HAUL FOR LILY ROSE? That last one doesn’t really make sense if you analyse it but it looked good. So did the pic of me in pink underwired Fifties bathers draped all over Euan's chest, which was naked except for one small gold medal on a smallish gold chain.

    John rings me up in the afternoon. “Rosie, darling, how are you?”

    “Who is Mrs Wanda Makepeace Hooty-whatsit?”

    “What? Wanda Hooten? Darling, what are you—”

    “And why didn’t you TELL me about her?” I shout.

    “Tell you what? There’s nothing to tell, Rosie, what are you on about now?”

    “Don’t you ‘on about now’ ME, John Haworth!” I bellow. “Your pic was slathered all over an American mag draped on her, and you never even told me you could ride a horse!”

    “Rosie, you’re being ridiculous. Gordon and Wanda are people in the components industry, and she’s quite a prominent Washington hostess. I don’t know what sort of stupid publicity shot you might have seen, but I barely know the woman.”

    “Then why were you out riding horses on her fucking country ESTATE?”

    “Because they were there?”

    “That is NOT FUNNY!”

    “Rosie, socialising is part of this job, I thought you knew that.”

    “Not socialising with puce and magenta cows, and I rung you up and warned you about those stupid shots of me and Euan, why couldn’t you of told me?” –By this time poor Barbara and Rupy have quietly melted away like the dew, and who can blame them?

    “I didn’t tell you because I had no idea any shots of me were about to be published in any silly magazine you might see.”

    “Did you HEAR yourself?” I shout.

    “I— Oh. I’m sorry; that didn’t come out the way I meant it to.”

    “No, right!”

    “The thing was so entirely trivial that I never considered for one moment that you’d be upset over it, whatever silly photos you might happen to see.”

    “What thing?” I demand fiercely.

    “What?” he says feebly.

    “What thing was so entirely trivial?”

    “Nothing! Rosie, you’re reading far too much into this! I barely know the woman, I hadn’t even met her three months since!”

    Not like me and Euan, right. I geddit, ya don’t have to paint a picture. I breathe heavily but finally admit: “All right, it was trivial. But next time they take shots of you entwined with a puce and magenta cow drinking champagne, could you kindly let me know?”

    “Er—yes.”

    “If you notice, of course,” I add coldly.

    “Well, exactly! It’s the stupid Washington scene.”

    Yes, and you’re the greatest dish to have hit it since Abe Lincoln was a boy in nappies! “Yeah, right. And the stupid Washington puce and magenta cows; can’t you see they’re just waiting for a chance to sink those puce and magenta claws into you?”

    “You flatter me,” he says with a laugh in his voice, the wanker.

    “John, don’t you know you’re the greatest dish walking? Compare yourself with all those fat old men in that mag, whaddaya think those cows see in you? Look, I’m gonna ring off, because I’m so pissed off I can hardly speak!”

    “It doesn’t sound like it from this—”

    I hang up with a crash.

    Two minutes later he rings me back. “What?” I shout in the receiver, too bad if it wasn’t him.

    “The greatest dish walking?” he says with a laugh in his voice. “You flatter m— Now, Rosie, darling, don’t bawl.”

    “Those puce—and magenta—cows—got—hooks—in—you!” I bawl, transatlantic.

    “Pooh, they’re hags, every last one. Tell me again about that lovely new red dress you bought, sweetheart.”

    “No,” I say soggily, blowing my nose.

    “Better?”

    “No. That place is filled with predatory women, John.”

    “All after me, apparently!” he says with a laugh in his voice.

    “YES!”

    “Well, you’ll be able to rescue me very, very soon,” he says soothingly.

    “It’s not funny,” I say soggily, blowing my nose again.

    “No, but I have to admit it’s damned flattering!”

    “Bullshit.”

    “It’s that, all right!”

    I give up, why can’t he see it, the idiot? “Anyway, you can put them on notice. And listen.” I look round cautiously but Barbara and Rupy haven’t mysteriously reappeared in the lounge-room, in fact I can see them through the window over the desk, down on the beach throwing sticks for Tim. “The third series is in the can, so there won’t be any more stupid publicity shots of me posing like a bimbo, and if the Navy thinks I’m worse for your career than a married puce and magenta Washington hag then up its. The flaming Washington paparazzi can take shots of you with me in future.”

    “Good!” he says with a laugh.

    “It better be.”

    “Darling, it will—it is!”

    Yeah, right. But I’m slightly mollified, even though you’ll notice he isn’t swearing undying devotion transatlantic or laying his heart, his cottage, and his ruddy Royal Naval dress uniform at my tiny feet. “Yeah.”

    “Better?’

    “As better as I can be on the other side of the world from you, John!”

    He’s really pleased, the nong. “Mm, I know,” he says softly.

    “Shut up, or I’ll bawl again.”

    “Don’t do that, darling, we will see each other very soon. Um, there was something I was going to mention.”

    I get a sick feeling. “Yeah?”

    “Er, well, Corky rang me with some nonsense about you and Linda.”

    “What? You don’t mean her coming up to town to see my office? That was weeks ago.”

    “Mm, well, he’s been at sea.”—Been meditating his tactics, more like, but I don’t say it.—“What on earth did happen?”

    “John, I told you! The kid turned up at the university, it was one of those stupid unscheduled days the schools all have, she didn’t have any classes and evidently Susan was too busy having her nails done to realise she was catching a train to London.”

    “Er—yes.”

    “You know what they’re like at that age. Oh—no, you probably don’t, you never had any daughters.”—Folks, I’m not quite sure whether I’m saying this with malice aforethought, because I would quite like him to get the idea it isn’t too late and I could produce a couple of pretty little daughters for him to spoil. Or plain ones if they get his nose, or, God forbid, Grandpa Marshall’s nose, it’s in my genes somewhere, ya know.—“Well, I know Matt went through a difficult time, but there was a good reason for that, poor boy. But girls are much worse, it’s more or less continuous from the time they hit puberty. Really silly. Defiant, sulky, can’t be told, you name it.”

    “I’m sure you weren’t like that!”

    I more or less still am. Well, defiant, you betcha. Except that now I’ve got a bit more of an idea of what makes other people tick and a bit more—slightly more—idea of not sticking my neck out in order to get my bonce whacked off. Most of the time.

    “Yes, of course I was, John, but unlike some I had a really sensible Dad and a pretty sensible Mum that didn’t take any of my shenanigans entirely seriously.”—If she did try to make me take stupid diving lessons.—“What I’m trying to say is, you won’t be able to make sense of this on any sort of cognitive level, because there’s no analysable reasoning of any sort behind it. Okay?”

    “Okay,” he says, you can hear he’s smiling.

    “Yeah. Well, her and Susan had a barney, one of a continuing saga that’s been going on so long it’s more or less daily life in the Corcoran house, about whether a girl could or should have a serious career after doing a decent degree, and Linda dragged me in as new evidence of a solid career. So Susan did her nut about posing for rude pics half out of bikini tops and that tasteless television series and like that. Like, proving that I was a tart, even if I was a sociologist.”

    “But she— I wasn’t aware that she knew you were a sociologist.”

    “What, Susan? Well, Nigel knows. But if that wasn’t enough, according to Linda your Mother rang her up and told her the lot.”

    There’s a short silence transatlantic.

    “Mother did? But—” After a moment he says stiffly: “I’m sorry, Rosie, I thought I’d sworn her to secrecy.”

    “Yes, but people like me don’t matter to ladies like her in the first instance; and in the second instance she wouldn’t count telling another Navy lady as breaking her word. Don’t ask me how I’d know, I just do.”

    “Mm,” he says uncomfortably.

    “Anyway, that was it, ya see. Linda came racing up to London the first chance she got—she’s a good girl, really, she waited for an a unscheduled day instead of just taking off on a school day—to prove to herself and her mum that I was L.R. Marshall, Ph.D., sociologist, and not Lily Rose Rayne, tarty actress.”

    “I see.” Then there’s a pause. “No, but why? What would that prove, for God’s sake?”

    “John, you’re trying to rationalise it: don’t,” I warn.

    “Er—oh. I suppose I understand.”

    “Yeah. So what did Nigel say?”

    “Um… Well, he seemed to think you’d encouraged her, darling. I did tell him that you hadn’t heard from her since Spain, and that her taking off for London without notice could hardly be your fault. But now she seems determined to—um—strike out on her own after A-Levels. Get some silly waitressing job or something.”

    “If ya mean, stand on her own two feet, in the first instance back when we were in Spain I did tell her that I worked to get myself through my quals, yeah, and in the second instance that’s the last time I so much as mentioned it, and in the third instance, who ya gonna believe, me or him?” Bugger, I didn’t mean to say that.

    “Don’t be silly, darling, it’s not like that. Corky just had hold of the wrong end of the stick, that’s all.”

    Yeah, right. All I say is: “Yeah, he probably did. Well, kids can be very annoying at that age, and the last me and Rupy saw of her, she wasn’t prepared to offer her mum so much as an apology for throwing a scare into her. –Mind you, Susan wasn’t in, most of the day: me or Rupy rang her continuously from half past three and it was ages before we got her.”

    “Er—no. Um, I gather that Rupy’s partly the, um, sticking point with Corky, darling.”

    “What? We never done anything! I mean, we never got dressed up or anything, just took her out for a nice Indian meal at The Tabla!”

    “Mm. Fur coats and earrings and—er—a sophisticated lifestyle that Linda’s too young to understand got mentioned.”

    “That brown coat of Miss Hammersley’s. Yeah, he did wear it. And he always wears at least one earring, unless he’s got a part that doesn’t call for them. Does Corky imagine Linda doesn’t know about gays, or what?”

    “I don’t know,” he admits with a sigh.

    “Well, she does. Heck, he never even drank too much, we had nimboo pani with the meal!”

    “I’m sure. I think it’s just that Corky isn’t coping too well with the fact that Linda’s growing up,” he admits with a sigh.

    Gee, I’m glad it was you that pointed that out, John, because for a while, there, I was afraid it was gonna have to be Villainess Me that was gonna have to bring it up.

    “Yeah, that’ll be it. Um, well, I have spoken to her once or twice on the phone since, does he think I’m gonna lead her astray, is that it?”

    “Mm,” he says uncomfortably. “Think so, darling.”

    “Well, I’m not: in the first place she ruined an afternoon’s work, in the second place she ruined our evening, and in the third place, the whole affluent-class, at-loggerheads-with-Mummy-and-Daddy thing because we don’t know how flaming lucky we are bores me rigid. Bright though in this instance she is.”

    “Mm.”

    Bugger, I didn’t mean to say any of that. “You do know her teachers think she can get a scholarship to Cambridge? Like, Cambridge University?” I say nastily.

    “Don’t say that, sweetheart, people don’t think it’s funny,” he says with a sigh. “No, I didn’t know, actually, and I can’t imagine what Susan’s got against it.”

    “I think all she’s got against it is that Linda’s cutting the umbilical cord, in the first place, and in the second place, that she isn’t turning out to be a little Susan-clone, and ditto for Corky. Added to which she’s his sweet little virginal daughter and any minute now a big Black buck is gwine come along an’—”

    “Really, Rosie!” he says with a protesting laugh.

    “Well, am I right or am I right?”

    “You are right, of course. Though the racist element seems somewhat unjustified.”

    “It’s on that level of horror: the plantation owner’s reaction to—”

    “Yes, I did get that. Just don’t say anything of the sort over here, please.”

    “Yas, Massa, no, Massa.”

    “Stop it,” he says weakly.

    I’ve stopped. He reminds me again that he’ll see me very soon and asks me again if I feel better, now. Not all that much, I’m waiting for him to ask me if I’ve told Brian and Sheila I’m not doing any more Captain’s Daughter shit, but he doesn’t and we say bye-bye. Was that because it’s so unimportant to him that it’s slipped his mind entirely, or because anything to do with my work’s totally unimportant to him, or because he thinks I must’ve already done it, any honourable person would, or… I am getting paranoid. No, got.

    I go down the beach. Barbara just eyes me warily. Rupy asks frankly if it’s all right, now. I concede Mrs Wanda Puce and Magenta doesn’t seem to mean anything to him and it was all socialising. Tim’s got more sense than the both of them, he brings me a stick and allows me to hurl it...

    When Barbara’s run off, giggling, to encourage Tim to bring back a stick he’s apparently decided he’s entitled to keep, Rupy says: “Did you tell him that you still haven’t spoken to Brian about giving the job up?”

    “No.”

    “Well, did he ask?”

    “NO!”

    He thinks about it. “Probably leaving it up to your conscience, dear, not wishing to be seen to prompt. Don’t all the best leaders of men take that tack?”

    “According to certain theorists, yes. But I’m not a man, possibly he’s overlooking that.”

    He cringes.

    “Sorry. Maybe I should just get it over with.”

    He nods, and I cringe.

    After a bit he says glumly: “You know, he could do it, Rosie, dear.”

    “Y— Uh, ya mean tell Brian for me?”—He nods hopefully.—“Rupy, you moron, he’d despise me for ever and a day afterwards!”

    “But, um, weak-little-woman syndrome?” he bleats.

    “No,” I say grimly. “And if I do it before Christmas it’ll ruin Sheila’s and Brian and Penny’s Christmases.”

    He sighs, gives in, and concedes that I’ve got a point. And we drop the subject for the rest of the weekend.

    Della’s Christmas show. She’s had to arrange two performances, the first was sold out almost immediately, somehow the word got around that Lily Rose Rayne and Rupert Maynarde were in it. It could have had something to do with the giant posters she’s had plastered all round the district for the past month, yeah. Plus and, Euan Keel. Possibly not a draw to the locals, no, but certainly to all the super-pseuds that otherwise wouldn’t dream of dignifying an amateur show with their presences unless they knew for certain Derry Dawlish was gonna be there.

    Don’t look at me, I never let on to Euan, think he got it out of D.D., actually. He turned up at the flat looking all keen and practically went on his bended knees but as he can’t tap we brutally refused. Then his agent got on to Brian, and Brian put the hard word on us and given the state of our consciences, especially mine, we gave in and said he could be the main male supporting (non-dancing) guy in Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend. He was pleased, but tried to persuade us to let him in on Steam Heat. No! That’s choreographed for three, me and Rupy and Gray are It! More persuasion from Brian but I pointed out that Euan’s dancing’s not good enough and the number would be a disaster, so he stopped. But then unfortunately one of the soloists in the big fake-skating number, it’s all terrifically Christmassy and this is one of the centrepieces, sprained her ankle really badly. So as Della was desperate to fill the slot with something that wasn’t changing for the next number or already in this one, she said me and Euan could have it. I can’t skate, I always tended to fall off roller skates, but that didn’t count, as it isn’t real skating, just gliding across the floor. They made Euan provide his own costume, but unfortunately that was no prob’ to someone in the Business. Dark green stretch trou’, dark green jacket like a ruddy pageboy’s, he looks like Buttons in it. And a little cap shaped like a sailor’s hat but dark green with a white pom-pom on it.

    Since I was a last-minute substitute there wasn’t a costume for me, either, the girl that sprained her ankle was gonna do her solo in a pale yellow skating dress with little twinkly stars all over it, a good three sizes too small for me. So for a moment hope flickered and I thought maybe I wouldn’t have to do it after all. But lo! Mrs Morrissey came to the rescue, she’s shit-hot at the sewing, good as Maybelle, and after going through my entire wardrobe and Miss Hammersley’s old things with an eagle eye, she grabbed up a huge scarlet full-skirted velvet thing that had been Mummy’s and had the moth in it, Miss Hammersley was most dismayed, how did that happen, plus a little white fur cape that was Miss Hammersley’s own at about the time that Mummy was sporting the full-length white job with the tails (shit, ya didn’t think Mummy would’ve let her have anything that fab, didja?), and magicked them into this absolutely great Victorian-inspired costume. Very tight bust, long sleeves, tiny white fur trim at the neck and cuffs, very full skirt but to only mid-calf, and, this is the really magic touch, a huge froth of stiff white net petticoat that makes the skirt stick right out, it’s ace. Plus and the rest of the fur used as a little muff and a trim on the scarlet velvet Victorian bonnet. Admitting proudly that she used a sunbonnet pattern she had when their Maureen was a kiddy, it was just the thing! I’m not much of a glider, but the dance incorporates quite a bit of sticking one leg right out and showing the non-Victorian sheer black tights and the non-Victorian frilly white knickers that belong to the Shirley Temple outfit and certainly the audience for the first show didn’t seem to object.

    Most of the locals came to the first show, because of course all the pupils were selling the tickets, their families and neighbours got first choice, so this evening’s house is packed with super-pseuds. They’re gonna love the sugar-plum fairies, not one of them a day over nine, all of them wobbly and spindly-legged and convinced they’re God’s gift to the ballet world. Likewise adore the “Christmas Fare”, in which the grown-ups from the tap classes are Christmas crackers in red or green fringed tubes and huge bursts of gold wrapping-paper on the tum, doing a no-hands dance that’s a dead ringer for that fake-Irish stamping crap that took the world by storm in the Nineties. And the kids are mince pies, round costumes with scallops at the edge above spindly red tights and grinning little faces poking up above them, or lumpy chipolatas, fawn stretch material with lots of padding, the mums that had to make them all complained like billyo about them, or chestnuts, those are the really little ones, a round window for their faces and topped by a cute little quiff, evidently those weren’t precisely a breeze to make, either. And lots of likrish all-sorts because Gray ran out of ideas for more Christmas goodies costumes, they look really ace, striped boxes with legs and heads. Two hopeless dancers are spoonfuls of mash that don’t have to dance—just mounded white Dacron with windows for their faces, actually the effect’s not bad. And Arthur Morrissey’s the Christmas pud! He was thrilled, he’s the centrepiece of the whole thing. The non-moving centrepiece, but nevertheless he can be seen to beam through his window throughout.

    Rupy and me are Christmas crackers, they needed all of the tappers to be in it for the effect. I’m a green one and he’s a red one. As we rotate, stamping, doing our best to follow orders and keep in line, it’s bloody hard when you’ve got no peripheral vision, I get a really good view of Derry Dawlish and his contingent, in the second row (the front row’s full of ballet mums, as usual). Crikey, one of the hangers-on is writing on a clipboard. What possible inspiration could even D.D. draw from a drecky Christmas goodies act? The rest of the super-pseuds look numbed, I’m not surprised, except for Georgy Harris, she’s had her baby, a boy, Christopher after Adam’s dad, she’s beaming at the little chestnuts and mince pies. On her Derry-less side, Adam’s looking numbed. Next to him, Euan’s looking numbed. –He insisted on paying for a seat, and as our numbers aren’t until after the interval, probably that’s just as well, God knows no-one wants him cluttering up the dressing-rooms, it’s chaos back there.

    As we finally totter off, panting, and the curtain closes to numbed applause, Rupy totters up to me and gasps: “Could you see the Henny Penny contingent?”

    “No, but I could see D.D.’s lot: one of the slaves is taking notes.”

    “Darling, that’s what I was going to say! One of Brian’s slaves is taking notes!”

    We totter to a position that places our faces diametrically opposite each other and goggle at each other. “Derry always did claim to want to base the You-Know-What on a Production,” he finally produces.

    I can’t nod, it’s impossible to nod when enclosed in a giant tube, so I just whisper: “Yeah.”

    “He can’t be serious,” he whispers.

    Possibly he can. He’s gonna be serious without benefit of me, however! I don’t say it, just totter round in a tiny circle so that my face is now facing the same way as Rupy’s is and say: “Can you get me out of this thing?”

    “No, I’m a prisoner, too!” he wails.

    We break down and have helpless hysterics, and that settles the tubes’ hash once and for all. Just as well there isn’t gonna be a third performance.

    Most of the acts are received with more numbed applause, but Steam Heat goes over really, really well and Della pushes us on again for an encore. Some of them are yelling: “Lollipop! Hey, Lily Rose! Lollipop! Show us your knickers!” but we ignore that and do a reprise of Steam Heat. As we finally come off after loads more bows and cheers and huge bunches of red roses for all of us from D.D., Gray gasps: “Did you notice? One of Derry Dawlish’s assistants was taking notes!”

    “Slaves, dear,” says Rupy sternly. “Well, yes. Looking for ideas, we think, Gray, dear, rather than spotting.”

    “But they brought a photographer!” he hisses.

    Did they? We did notice some popping and flashing, off to the sides, come to think of it. Rupy thinks that might have been to catch the ambience, dear. But if it was down to him, Gray would not only lead the chorus, the Steam Heat number would feature largely in the epic. Me, too, but it’s not. Gray thinks hopefully that I might have some influence. (Not next year, I won’t.) And if our Sisters number goes over really well—? On the whole I don’t think D.D. will want to be accused of plagiarising Priscilla Overdone Campy Queen of the Campy Desert, because campy is what the Sisters number is. But I don’t say it and we all go off to change. Uh—no, on second thoughts, to wait until the dressing-room’s cleared of hysterical sugar plums and their even more hysterical mums and then change. There they go: Da-da-da, dah-dah, diddle-dah—

    The world doesn’t come to an end before our Sisters slot rolls round so we have to go on and do it. It’s from White Christmas. Mum’s got a video of it, she used to inflict it regularly on us and the cousins because we all used to whinge that it was too hot and we were too full to go and play cricket on the back lawn after Christmas dinner. Like, the adults’d sit in the lounge-room with the good TV and glasses of liqueurs, falling asleep in their armchairs, and we’d sit in the spare room with the old TV that was a bit speckly, and watch it. The Sisters number was a feature of it, Rosemary Clooney and the other smaller blonde lady wore these great blue dresses, all sparkly, with gigantic blue feather fans. At one point the guys also got in on the act with the feather fans but none of us kids thought they were funny, not even the boys. We used to wait for the big Bing Crosby number and then Kenny’d get up and do his groaner act. (Like a crooner only groaning, geddit? It was quite clever, actually.) Gee, ya still don’t remember it? Lucky you. “Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters”? No? It ends: “And Lord help the sister, that comes between me and my Man!” Totally Fifties ethos, ya see, nothing matters more than snaring a bloke (marriage, of course), up to and including honour and actual blood relations.

    Anyway, Gray wears a Rosemary Clooney wig and I just wear my own yellow curls and we’ve got blue sparkly dresses, dunno if they’re exactly like in the movie, ours have got very tight, boned bodices covered in blue sequins, shoe-string straps that don’t actually hold them up, and very full princess-length skirts, layers of different shades of blue nylon net. High-heeled blue shoes that I was gonna be made to glue the blue sequins on by hand, cack-handed though I am, but fortunately Imelda Singh came over that night and took over, she made a really neat job of it. We sing the song absolutely straight, except that of course Gray’s singing falsetto, and it’s only after the final “Man!”, very loud and strike an attitude, that he takes the wig off. Tumultuous applause and laughter, and D.D. stands up and claps and beams at him. Stupid prick, can’t he see that that’s only raising false hopes?

    After that it’s the interval, but five thousand super-pseuds don’t come round to the dressing rooms, because Della’s got a couple of dads guarding the exits. Bribed with bottles of whisky that she made me pay for. However, Gray’s desperate to meet Derry in person so even though I’m almost sure he met him in person the night of the plastering-with-the-foaming-substance and getting-into-the-fountain at the Boddiford Hall Park Royal, we go out to the front of house. The members of the entourage are actually looking at Adam’s pics of Baby Christopher, not spotting or noting or snapping. However, Derry reckons he’s thrilled to meet Gray and asks him all sorts of questions about this theatre, and Della’s Dance Studio, and whether it would be possible to see some of the classes (Yes, being the answer, funnily enough), and about his professional experience, encouraging him again, the stupid twat. I manage to ask Georgy how she is? She’s really fine, and so is Baby. She invites me warmly to come down to their house in the country after I’ve got back from the States. I’d really like to see Baby Christopher and I wouldn’t mind seeing their neighbours, Tom and Nancy Benson, again, either, but I’ve got a feeling I’m gonna be persona non grata with the entire British theatrical scene in the New Year, so I just say I’d love to and can I let her know, I’m not sure what my schedule is.

    Given that the second half of the show features, amongst other glorious episodes, three Little Tin Soldiers forgetting their routine and falling over each other, and Vanessa’s head-dress falling off in the middle of her “Snow Queen” tap number, we did warn her it wasn’t too secure but she got very cross and said we were all jealous—she still hasn’t had the op and she’s a mass of nerves, waiting for it—and Andy’s tape refusing to start for his bump-and-grind number and Heather having to thump it out on the piano instead, it gets the sort of reception you might imagine, especially as the theatre, as I think I might have mentioned, hasn’t got a bar. The Henny Penny numbers have thinned: Timothy, Barbara’s boss in PR, has gone, so has his 2-I.C., the up-himself Gavin Kensington, and after Vanessa’s fiasco Linda from Reception and her mum creep out, we’ve already had the full story of Linda’s mum’s disapproval of cross-dressing, up to and including macho sailors putting on tutus and showing off their hairy legs in The Captain’s Daughter, so it was a wonder she stuck it out past the Sisters number. Miss Hammersley and Miss Winslow are sitting together, with Mrs Singh, Tiffany and Imelda, and with Bridget guarding them just in case anything from Double Dee Productions takes it into its head they’re Characters, and even they have to clap very valiantly indeed after the “Snowflakes” number in which the huge cardboard ones descending from above jam, what time the amateur effects persons in charge of them can be heard hissing angrily at each other, and the human ones (a) trip over the huge cardboard ones on the floor, some of us told Gray they were a mistake with rank amateurs, (b) lock snowflake prongs—fleetingly, unlike the playing-cards from last year but unfortunately repeatedly, and (c) stand there like nanas when their tape jams in the middle of their finale. Oh, dear.

    It’s over at last and we change out of our costumes and emerge gingerly to find Brian, Derry and a crowd of hangers-on waiting for us, plus a crowd of Press, flashbulbs popping off madly. No, we’re not even staying for one drink, Derry, glad you liked the show— No, we’ll see you in the New Year, Brian, glad you liked the show— ’Bye, everyone! Thanks for coming! And Rupy and Bridget and me bundle into our taxi, and we’re off! Straight home to get a few hours’ shut-eye, because it’s tomorrow we leave! California, here we come!

    California, here we come, only first we gotta go through Customs and transfer for the leg from New York to Washington, fortunately Bridget doesn’t ask why that doesn’t count as a stopover on our special tickets. Rupy’s so out of it after the flight across the Atlantic on three hours’ sleep that he passes out the minute his head hits the fake antimacassar on his headrest. Bridget valiantly tries to stay awake but passes out before the thing’s straightened out. I’m too excited to sleep, so I’ll just have a glass of orange juice and a purely medicinal brandy—

    Bummer, we’re here and I missed the view of Washington D.C.—uh, in a fog, or possibly smog, or is it just rain, cripes, did we land in that?

    “Customs,” says Rupy groggily. “Where’s my passport?” But appearances to the contrary we haven’t flown straight on to Iceland, we’re still in the same country this thing took off from, so if we just follow all the other sheep through here we won’t even have to claim our baggage first, we’ll probably find—

    “Darling! Don’t bawl!” he says with a stunned laugh as I hurl myself at him and bawl all over him. He smells wonderful, I’d almost forgotten his smell, oh, John!

    Terence and Rupy are trying to tell him I was perfectly all right on the flight and they can’t understand why I’m crying.

    “Ndongs,” I say soggily, accepting John’s pristine handkerchief. “Where’s your udiforb?”

    “Blow your nose. The uniform’s hanging in my wardrobe: I’m on holiday. Don’t you love me without it?” he says slyly.

    “Cretid,” I say soggily, blowing my nose. “Where’s Matt?”

    “Here!” says John with a laugh, as Terence finishes wringing the hand of a tall, handsome, brown-haired young man in jeans and a big parka—windcheater, better start thinking of them as, or no-one’ll understand me.

    “Hullo, Matt,” I say dazedly. “You’re taller than in your photo.”

    John puts an arm round my waist. “This idiotic object is Rosie, Matt, as I think you might have guessed, and I think the photo she’s referring to is the one on my desk at the cottage.”

    “Hi, Rosie,” says Matt, grinning like anything and wringing my hand. “Glad to meet you. I guess I have grown some, since I was four.”

    “Um, yes. Hi, Matt.” I’m very confused, he’s got a discernible American accent. “Not that photo, the one with the academic gown that he keeps on his dressing-table.”

    “Does he?” says Matt with an awkward but pleased laugh.

    “Given that the only other thing in that photo is a curtain, Rosie, I don’t see how you could get any impression of his height, right or wrong!” says John, chuckling, and giving me a bit of a hug.

    “It musta been a tall curtain,” I say confusedly as John then shakes hands with Bridget and Rupy and firmly introduces them to Matt, clearly someone needed to take charge of this Group and Terence was just standing there grinning. And I was just standing here. Well, leaning against John, actually, a bit like Tim does.

    I’d’ve walked right off to the car but fortunately other people are capable of remembering we’ve got baggage to collect and we do, and somehow we’re in the car and moving and people are chatting and probably that’s Washington, D.C., out there but it’s all a blur…

    This is a hotel, it’s pretty blurred, too. I thought Matt’d be staying in John’s flat? He and Terence are sharing a room at the hotel, since Terence decided not to bring anyone, and John did tell me the flat was very small, and the hotel’s just down the road, darling, he’s explained that. Has he? Look: Rupy and Bridget have got rooms next to each other, see, there’s a connecting door, they can unlock it if they want to. Yes, you oughta, Bridget, because otherwise a person can be lonely in a great big hotel room. –I thought Bridget would be staying with us, in the flat? Darling, it’s only got one bedroom, he’s explained that! Bridget assures me she’ll be fine. Rupy assures her she only has to ring Room Service to get anything, this is America. But she might not want anything, she might want not to be alone in a great big hotel bedr— John drags me off.

    Whose car is this? Rosie, he’s explained all that, and Jerry’s driving us today as a favour. Jerry grins at me in the rear-view mirror. But does the Royal Navy pay his salary, or— Oh. “She likes to know,” he explains to Jerry. Sure, his Ellen is just the same, drive ya crazy, huh? Yes, very amusing, it’s so nice to know he’s had no difficulty establishing a male peer group over here. …It’s taking ages! I thought he said it was just down the road? It’s the traffic, darling. And, dare he ask it, what did I have to drink on the plane?

    “Orange juice and brandy.”

    He winces.

    “’S not that. Je’ lag,” I say, yawning.

    “Mm. Now, Rosie, sweetheart, this isn’t a criticism, but did you drink the brandy on top of any travel sickness medication?”

    “‘Medication’? Boy, have they got you indoctrinated!”

    “Jerry and I will overlook that, won’t we, Jerry?”

    “Sure will!” says Jerry cheerfully but foggily. Why should he be aware that his vernacular is not necessarily that of the rest of the English-speaking world, ya Pommy nit?

    “Stop scowling, darling. Did you take any medication?”

    Scowling horribly, I retort: “Only one. Um, hang on, no, that was before. I thought the drive to the airport might be bumpy.” He doesn’t say anything so I’m forced to admit: “And I took one on the plane. It got a bit bumpy—um—not that long before we landed.”

    “Gee, brandy on top of two motion sickness pills in how many hours?”

    Thanks, Jerry. “Does the American Navy pay you to—”

    “That’ll do,” says John quickly, squeezing my hand.

    “Well, heck, I—”

    “Mm. Ssh.”

    “You gonna ask her how much brandy, Captain?” says Jerry with a laugh in his voice.

    “Do I dare?”

    “Look, you pair of wanking male-peer-group morons—”

    “See? Five bucks,” says John unemotionally to his American Navy driver.

    “Jerry, don’t you give him any money, he’s deliberately provoking me!”

    “Yeah, I got that, Rosie! Thing is, I guess it’s what you Limeys call a debt of honour.”

    “Very funny.”

    “She’s an Australian citizen,” John explains, poker-face.

    “Shut up,” I growl, hunching into Miss Hammersley’s brown fur coat, me and Rupy had a fight over who was gonna wear it which I won, largely by pointing out that these days if you wear real fur most countries grill you for hours about bringing in proscribed imports.

    John squeezes my hand again and says: “Seriously, how much brandy?”

    “Only one of those little bottles between there and—” Sudden yawn. “’Scuse me. Here.”

    “There?” he asks unemotionally.

    “New York.”—In the front, Jerry gulps, hah, bloody hah.—“Aren’t we there yet?”

    “No, we have to go round the block, one-way streets. Presumably this was on top of fizz or some such over the Atlantic? Or was it so bumpy you didn’t feel like alcohol?”

    “No, that was later. Um, we did have some fizz at lunchtime… Um, I was asleep part of the time. Last night was the Christmas show, we didn’t get much sleep, we hadda get up so early to catch the plane. I mean, if it is still today.”

    “Yes, you’ve explained that, Rosie.”

    “Have I?” I can’t stop yawning.

    Finally we arrive, it’s a big old-fashioned block, if I say anything he’ll claim he’s told me, he hasn’t, men can’t describe anything; we say bye-bye and thank you to Jerry and I remind him that he doesn’t really owe John the five bucks and we go up in the elevator. I only brought the one suitcase and my laptop bag, which hasn’t got the laptop in it, only make-up and two spare pairs of underpants in case the airline loses the luggage, even though this is Aunty Kate’s tip I’ll concede it’s a good one, and the grey fuzzy jumper that I let Raewyn and Sally dye black as a Christmas present unaware that Sally was then gonna put rows of little twinkly silver metal stars round the neck, it does look ace, but it’s practically a cocktail jumper, what am I gonna wear a cocktail jumper to? Or wear an après-ski jumper to, thanks, Rupy. And a Dick Francis for me even though I know it’s a mistake reading them on a plane with travel sickness pills inside me, I always feel I’m understanding the plot at the time but then I can never remember a thing about it afterwards, and an E.F. Benson for Rupy just in case he mighta needed something to read. And a collapsed collapsible umbrella.

    Yikes. The flat’s all brown!

    “What’s up?” he says with a funny look on his face.

    “Nothing. It’s all brown,” I say dopily. “Right up to the ceiling.”

    “Er—yes. Panelling. I’m sure I told you that, darling. My kind hosts seem to think it looks very British and I’ll be right at home in it.”

    “Hosts? I thought the Royal Navy was paying for the flat?” I say, yawning horribly.

    “Rosie, darling, I think you’d better go straight to bed and sleep it off.”

    “Yeah, um, sorry. Um, the thing is, travel sickness pills always make me feel numb. Um, to be strictly clinical, they lower my libido. Um, or remove it, or something. What I mean is, we could do it,”—overtaken by a yawn—“’scuse me—but I wouldn’t feel a thing.”

    “No. Come here.”

    I stagger towards him and he hugs me fiercely, brown fur coat and all. Then he kisses me fiercely. “Um, sorry,” I say groggily.

    “My God, you didn’t feel a thing, did you?” he says in horror.

    “No, but I don’t mind if you wanna do it.”

    “Come on,” he says resignedly, propelling me bodily in what’s presumably the direction of the bedroom.

    Ooh, not brown, thank God! Nice pattern of little blue flowers all over the… “Jus’ take off…”

    Jesus, I musta gone out like a light, Jesus, I’ve still got my underclothes on, what’s the time? Jesus. Um, no, hang on, if his bedside clock says— And my watch says— Uh, which way does the time difference go? And did I reset my watch as we were coming in to New York or not? Because I do remember it got bumpy, and I took another pill, but am I just imagining that I re-set my watch? And is Washington in the same time zone as Sydney, I mean New York, or not?

    I sit up groggily, boy do I feel numb. So whatever the time is, the pills haven’t worn off. I still feel numb after I’ve found the bathroom, it’s all pale yellow, even the ceiling, and it has got a pale yellow nylon carpet and two handbasins, he wasn’t pulling my leg. And it is centrally heated, yep. I don’t think it’s inducing the numbness, though, because I feel awfully, awfully thirsty, like remember when I first woke up in Joanie’s flat? Like then. And like I used to feel when I landed at Adelaide on visits to Aunty Kate at Christmas.

    I stagger back into the bedroom and he comes in, grinning. “Hullo. Feeling better?”

    “No,” I admit glumly. “I’m awfully thirsty. How long have I been asleep for?”

    He tells me, and tells me the time. In that case my watch is wrong. I re-set it, while he comes up very, very close. “Haven’t you got a kiss for me?”

    “Yeah. But I still feel—” He kisses me fiercely. Poor bloke, I reflect detachedly. “Numb. Detached,” I explain.

    “Mm. Do you think you could connect if we—er?” He raises his eyebrows and looks at the bed.

    “No, but I don’t mind if you wanna—”

    He pulls me against him. “I do want to, very much.”

    I can feel he does, but I’m still totally, totally detached. “Yeah. Well, go on, then.”

    He bites his lip. “No. Not with you in this state, for God’s sake! It’d feel unnatural!”

    “I woulda thought,” I say detachedly, “that it’d be unnatural not to want to.”

    “Look, I want to, that’s not the point! Um, how numb are you?”

    Usually they think, see, that once the magic prick gets in there, you’re gonna be un-numb. But the drug companies have produced, in the common or garden travel sickness pill, the greatest libido-inhibitor since Adam lost a rib. Magic pricks don’t have any effect whatsoever.

    “Really numb. The magic prick’s not gonna have any effect.”

    He’s gone very, very red. “What did you say?”

    “Uh—dunno. I said you could do it,” I offer groggily.

    “I think the phrase was ‘the magic prick’?”

    Was it? “Uh—yeah, I was thinking that. Did I say that? See, that’s what you jokers always think. That it’s gonna have a magic un-numbing effect. But the drug companies are smarter than you jokers, they’re on top of that one, you betcha.”

    “Rosie, numb or not, please don’t refer to me as you jokers.”

    “Okay. Blokes?” I say groggily.

    “No. Just put some clothes on and come and have some dinner.”

    “I’m awfully thirsty. –I've got some clothes on.” I note, squinting down at myself.

    “Yes. Undergarments. Put something on over them.”

    “Okay. Are you quite sure ya don’t wanna—”

    “No!”  He stalks out. Hard-on and all.

    Oops, I reflect detachedly. I get the fuzzy jumper out of my laptop case and put it on. Ugh, it’s too scratchy! I take it off again and sit down on the edge of the bed.

    He comes in. “I’m doing some steaks. Drink this.” He hands me a big glass of orange juice. “Do travel sickness pills always have this effect or is it the combination of them and alcohol?”

    “It’s the pills. When I used to fly over to Adelaide to stay with Aunty Kate when I was a teenager they had the same effect, without alcohol.”

    “And how long does it last?”

    “Overnight. Well, if I’ve had a nap and woken up, um, maybe five hours, so long as I drink lots and lots of fluid. –Well, what didja want me to say?”

    He sighs. “What’s wrong with that jumper?”

    “Eh? Oh. It’s too scratchy. I gotta wear something under it.”

    “Wear a dressing-gown instead,” he says tiredly.

    “I never brung one.”

    He runs his hand over his head, but goes over to the wardrobe and produces his. “Wear this. Don’t tell me it’s far too big or— Just wear it.” He goes out again. Don’t think he was very happy or very pleased, but I’m too detached to actually care. I put the dressing-gown on. I never knew his arms were this long, it just shows, Man is closely related to the great apes. Whereas Woman, but we always knew this, is not, I reflect. I wrap it round me and tie its belt tightly and give up trying to stop the ruddy sleeves slithering down and gather up yards of skirt, and go out. Ugh, God, it’s all brown!

    “What in God’s name’s the matter?” he sighs, coming in through another door.

    “It’s all brown! It’s awful!”

    “Rosie, you said that when you got here— Forget it. There’s the dining table, please don't mention how brown it is, just sit there like a good girl and— Where’s your glass?”

    “Dunno.” I look round vaguely.

    Breathing heavily, he goes into the bedroom and brings it back. Someone’s drunk about a quarter of it. “I thought you said you were thirsty?”

    Did I? “Yeah, I’m awfully thirsty. Aunty Kate reckons that you need to flush the drug out of your system.”

    “Does she? Then kindly finish that and I’ll get you another one.”

    I start drinking and then I realise why I didn’t finish it before. “It’s very cold.”

    “I was under the impression that Australians prefer their drinks almost frozen. In fact, I was under the impression that in the matter of refrigerated foods and beverages, you were indistinguishable from the Americans.”

    “It isn’t my fault that I’ve gone all numb. Ya wanna sue anybody, sue Roche or like them,” I say detachedly.

    Breathing hard with his lips very tightly together, he takes the glass and goes out. “I’ve added some hot water,” he says grimly, bringing it back. “Drink it.”

    I drink it. He grabs the glass and goes out. Two seconds and he’s back with it refilled. “Orange juice and hot water. Dri—” I’ve drunk it. “Er, warm Coke?” he offers feebly, picking the glass up.

    “I think that might be too much caffeine,” I admit cautiously.

    “Mm. De-iced iced water?” he says, biting his lip.

    “Yeah. Thanks. Um, if I say I’m sorry I won’t mean it, I’m too numb to feel anything, it’s emotional as well as physical, see? At the moment you aren’t really you, ya see.”

    “Some jokers,” he says pointedly, “would be bitterly offended by that.”

    “I woulda said,” I say detachedly, “that you’re by far too intelligent to believe that I’m really me at this moment. But take offence, by all means.”

    Funnily enough he just shudders slightly and goes out.

    A bit later. I’ve eaten a huge steak, and some broccoli that I think was frozen, and some mash that he assured me was Instant but that I couldn’t react to, one way or another, though perceiving quite clearly as I sat there not reacting that the poor sap was feeling hurt while telling himself that he shouldn’t be, and some American cheesecake with blueberries, didn’t taste of anything, much. And had a huge glass of de-iced water and had to go to the bog in the middle of dinner to get rid of some of the fluid. And I’m still numb. It’s pretty late, actually when he said it was dinnertime he was being kind, it was way past dinnertime even for Washington High Society. I just sit and let him take the dishes out to the kitchen. He comes back with a glass of orange juice, warning me that it’s the last of it. “It’s not gonna be an instant cure,” I warn detachedly, drinking it.

    “No,” he concedes with a sigh, poor sap. So we go to bed. Funnily enough I curl up on my side turned away from him and close my eyes.

    “Rosie, couldn’t you even pretend to cuddle up?” the poor sap says feebly.

    “It isn’t me,” I point out detachedly.

    “No, very well. Goodnight,” he says grimly, getting out of bed. “Go to sleep.”

    I musta gone to sleep because it’s morning, well, daylight, gee, this is a pretty wallpaper, I think it must be John’s flat, or is it a hotel? Poncy, anyway. I open a door. No, wardrobe. Try another. Jesus, the bathroom’s got yellow nylon carpet! Can’t be a hotel, not even an American hotel could be that potty. Uh—surely? And two handbasins! Um, his and hers? Gotta be. After I’ve had a pee I use both of them just to spite all of America.

    There’s a large navy-blue silk dressing-gown on the end of the bed so I put it on in case I’m wrong and this is a hotel and that door leads into the corridor— Christ, brown panelling up to the ceiling!

    “Hullo,” says John in a very cautious voice, sitting up on the brown leather sofa and blinking at me. In his pyjamas? What’s he doing on the sofa in his pyjamas? In fact, what’s he doing in pyjamas?

    “Whaddaya doing on the sofa?”

    “Never mind. How do you feel?” he says in a very cautious voice.

    “Good. Are you all right, though?”

    “Mm,” he says, untangling himself from his blankets.

    “Then why are you on the sofa?”

    “Rosie, you were so zonked out on anti-motion sickness medication last night that you resembled a walking zombie.”

    “Zombies do walk.”

    “Shut up! –I couldn’t stand it, so I slept on the sofa.”

    “In all this brown? I’d rather of slept next to a zombie, personally. Why didn’t you warn me it was all brown?”

    “I did!”

    I look at him cautiously. “What day is it?”

    “Tomorrow,” he says heavily. “Don’t you remember anything from yesterday?”

    “Um… I remember meeting Matt. Was that at the airport? Yes, I thought it was.”

    “And?”

    “Um, I sort of remember eating a huge steak and drinking lots of orange juice.”

    “Yes,” he says tiredly: “yes.”

    “Um, I think I sort of remember you objecting to being called a joker, and, um, were we in a car?”

    “Something like that. Forget it,” he sighs.

    “If I was all numb it was the pills,” I say cautiously.

    “Yes!”

    “Um, did we do it or not?”

    “NO! Christ, can’t you even remember—” He takes a deep breath and walks up and down a bit while I just stand here like a nong in this huge dressing-gown that I can’t make the sleeves of stay up.

    “Um, I’m glad I didn’t miss anything!” I say with a stupid laugh.

    He just walks up and down, breathing hard.

    “I’m sorry, I always do things all wrong,” I admit miserably.

    He stops walking. “What? What things?”

    “Romantic things. I kept imagining how romantic it was gonna be… But I can never do things right. When Mum and Dad had their silver wedding anniversary me and Kenny decided to take them out to a really fancy restaurant, so I made the booking and we all got gussied up, and Kenny bought Mum an orchid, she was really thrilled, and we got a taxi and everything, only when we got there it was the wrong place. What I mean, it was the right place, only I’d made the booking with another place by mistake. We looked in the phone book but we couldn’t even find it. Kenny was ropeable. And it was a Friday, all the restaurants in town were full. So we ended up having to go to a pizza place down the road from Mum and Dad’s, and we had to wait ages and ages and ages to get served, and then they brought all our dinners except Mum’s, and finally Kenny hadda go and re-order. It was a total disaster. And it was meant to be a romantic evening. We were gonna order liqueurs after the meal and then me and Kenny were gonna leave them to themselves, see?”

    “Mm. No-one’s ever told this Kenny that that’s the risk one runs, if one delegates?”

    “Um, no. He’s my younger brother. I suppose he thought I’d do it right,” I say miserably.

    He comes up very close. “I kept imagining how romantic it was going to be, too, Rosie. I’m sorry to be such a macho moron, darling.”

    Ugh, did I call him that while I was numb? “Um, are ya? I mean, you’re not.”

    “Yes, I am: blaming you instead of the damned drug companies.”

    “Ye-ah... Well, I should of warned you that they have that effect on me, but I suppose I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to take any or that they wouldn’t do it, this time.”

    “Mm,” he says, hugging me very tight. “Not numb at all, now, darling?’

    Actually I am a bit, but I’ve got over the stage of being so numb that I don’t care what I admit to. “Um, a lot better.”

    He holds me away from him by the upper-arms, very probably they’re gonna be black and blue tomorrow—talk about not knowing your own strength, while we’re on the subject of macho morons, but. “The truth would be nice, Rosie, but not if you’re still too numb to recognise it, of course.”

    “No, when I’m really numb I tell the absolute truth because I’m too numb to care about the effect it might have.”

    “I’ll remember that,” he says on a dry note. “Well?”

    “Um, I am a lot better but I’m just a bit numb, still.”

    “Mm.” He kisses me very gently. Oh, dear, I can feel him starting to tremble. “Any physiological symptoms?” he murmurs.

    No: yikes.  “Um—well, not yet.”

    He lets go of me. “Jesus, how long does it go on for?”

    Poor joker. “Um, dunno, usually it wears off like, um, by next morning. Well, I never crossed the Atlantic in a huge great plane on top of three hours’ sleep and three travel-sickness pills and all that brandy and gin and champagne, before!” I blurt desperately, starting to feel something. I’m not too sure yet what it is, but the word “panic” comes to mind.

    “Three pills?” he gasps. “Rosie, yesterday it was two! Let me get this clear. You said you’d taken one when you set out for Heathrow, and one on the plane when it started to get bumpy. I got the impression that was after lunch, so, as you were coming in to New York?”

    Was that a question? “Um, ye-ah… It seems an awful long time ago, now, John. I definitely took one with the coffee we had in the lounge place.”

    “At Heathrow?”

    I look at him helplessly. English people always say that, but heck, I don’t distinguish between airports. “At the airport. Like, this nice lady said if we went in there no-one would bother us. Like when we got the plane coming home from Spain!” I remind him, beaming.

    “Yes. Darling, you’re not confusing the two, are you?”

    “Did I take a pill that time?”

    He clears his throat. “Not that I recall, sweetheart, because you’d taken one at the prospect of my driving on the Spanish roads.”

    “Yes. Well, this was different.” He’s looking at me expectantly. “Because there were quite a few people and they were drinking coffee. Bridget said the weather forecast hadn’t sounded all that hopeful, so I took another pill just to be on the safe side: well, it says to take another one if you start to feel queasy, so I thought if I took one just before I was gonna feel—”

    “Yes. And another on the plane, right?”

    “Yes. That was hours later.”

    “Mm. Forgive me, but gin wasn’t actually mentioned yesterday.”

    “I definitely had a gin.” He’s looking at me expectantly, so I maunder through it, as it does seem relatively clear. Well, like it happened to someone else several lives back, y’know? But relatively. “What’s up?”

    He sighs. “You were travelling with three adult people, all of whom had presumably seen you take the other two pills, and none of them thought to say anything?”

    “They couldn’t of said anything, John, they were asleep by then.”

    He gulps. But rallies to say: “But no-one thought to take the damned things off you?”

    “I suppose they thought they weren’t my keeper,” I say vaguely.

    “Shut up!” he says fiercely, swooping on me and hugging me fiercely. “Where the Hell are they?” he says grimly into my neck.

    “Who?”

    “Not who: what. The bloody pills. What’s left of them.”

    “In my makeup purse, I think it’s still in my laptop bag.”

    He propels me into the bedroom and forces me to sit on the bed while he finds it. “John, what if you can only get them on prescription in America?” I wail as his fell intent becomes clear and he marches into the bathroom with them. For answer the poncy pale yellow loo flushes. He comes back.

    “If necessary we will get them on prescription,” he says grimly.

    “I get sick on anything that moves,” I warn.

    “Yes,” he says heavily, coming to sit beside me on the bed.

    “I even been sick on a merry-go-round,” I warn glumly.

    “Christ,” he mutters.

    “I told you I can’t do anything properly,” I say glumly.

    He puts his arm round me and leans his cheek on my head. “Do you think we might go to bed, properly or not?”

    “Mm.” A tear slips down my cheek and I wipe it away quickly.

    “Don’t cry, my darling,” he says, gnawing on his lip and pulling me tightly against him.

    “It’s probably a good sign: maybe I’m coming un-numb,” I admit, sniffling into his pyjama-ed shoulder.

    “Yes, well, you bawled all over me at the airport, some of us thought that was a good sign.”

    Cripes, did I? Uh—ooh, yeah, so I did. “I’m nervous as well, that isn’t helping,” I admit.

    “Are you?” he says feebly. “So am I. Shall we go to bed and get it over with?”

    “Ye-ah. Um, I might still be too numb to react. What mean is, if I don’t, it won’t be you, it’ll be—”

    He pushes me back onto the bed and rolls on top of me and squashes the breath out of me so I don’t get to finish the sentence. Whatever it was gonna be.

    When he stops kissing me and I can almost breathe I realise he’s shaking all over. All I can think of is he’s like a cold, wet, lost dog that’s hoping it’s found a home. So I hug the cold, wet, lost dog very tight and say in his ear: “I know you’ve been holding back. It’s all right, you don’t have to make it fancy.”

    “I don’t think I can!” he admits on laugh that’s half a sob.

   After that my knickers are on the floor though I couldn’t tell you how they got there and he’s in me, his arms are shaking like anything. He kisses me very wetly but then says very, very faintly: “Can’t—hold—back—”

    “No,” I say on a wail, putting my legs right up: “I don’t want you to; go on, John!”

    And he’s thrusting like fury, and I’m pushing myself at him like fury and two seconds or, like, an eternity later we’re both coming like mad.

    About an eternity after that I’m capable of saying feebly: “It was just like that first time.”

    “Mm,” he says into my shoulder.

    This time only half an eternity passes before he manages to look up, his eyes are wet, I think that’s like that first time, too, though I’m too shattered to remember anything very clearly. He kisses me very gently and says in a muffled voice: “’M I too heavy?”

    I only manage to grunt in reply.

    I can feel him trying to gather his strength and just as I’m deciding I’m gonna have to admit I can’t breathe he rolls off me and pulls me against him. Then we just lie here, for ages and ages and ages…

    Eventually he admits: “I meant it to be… I don’t know, darling. Impressively athletic, cum romantic? Well, half an hour’s expert foreplay was definitely in the plan. I meant you to be… sated? Dazzled? Overcome?” He sighs. “All of those.”

    “I was. It was just very quick.”

    “Yes,” he says, grimacing horribly.

    Groggily I find his hand and squeeze it. “No, ya nana. That wasn’t a criticism. What I meant was, all those were in it, what you said: dazzled and overcome and sated… All in one ball.”

    There’s a little silence.

    “What?” he says faintly.

    Somehow or other my throat’s closed up, which is ridiculous, usually I'm totally relaxed, after, and feel I can say anything, but not this time. Maybe because it matters too much to me? Maybe because I’m hoping it matters to him? “You know,” I croak: “‘roll all our strength and all our sweetness, up into one ball.’” I think I mighta misquoted it a bit.

    His hand tightens on mine, ouch, ow! But I manage not to gasp. “Marvell?” he says unsteadily.

    I can’t remember. “Um, I think so.”

    There’s another little silence.

    “Yes,” he says hoarsely. “I felt, that, too, Rosie. –Oh, shit!” he says loudly, rolling over and burying his face in my tits. “Hold me tight, Rosie darling!”

    Jesus, he’s bawling, Jesus, aren’t men peculiar? Well, the nice ones, anyway. I don’t say anything, I don’t know what to say, I feel utterly overcome. I mean, he’s really bawling, hot, wet tears are leaking down my chest. I just hold him very, very tight, while he bawls all over me, and gradually calms down. After a long, long time he says shakily: “At one time, it was when negotiations weren’t going all that well, and you seemed very off-hand on the phone, and the weather here was putrid… Well, I had a feeling I was never going to hear you call me a nong or a nana again. Silly, I know. But you hadn’t been able to manage that weekend I’d planned, and… The Washington scene seemed so dreary and pointless, and I—” He breaks off, and sighs.

    And you were surrounded by puce and magenta cows all making puce and magenta passes, yeah. Funnily enough the thought doesn’t hurt all that much any more, though. “Yeah. I’m sorry you were miserable, John,” I venture.

    “Mm,” he says, holding me very, very tight.

    “Um, I’m not all that good on the phone. I’m not all that good at saying what I feel at any time, and especially not into a machine when I can’t see the person at the other end.”

    After a moment he looks up and gives me a doubtful smile. “You did say something of the sort at one stage, darling, but I didn’t pay it much heed. Well, you seem so competent with your blessed tape recorder and so forth.”

    “I’m competent at managing it so that other people talk into it, that’s all. I only talk to them, you see, or if I talk to it, it’s only notes.”

    “‘Royal Navy. Captain. Age 50’!” he remembers with a smothered laugh.

    “Yeah, that’s right.”

    He raises himself on an elbow and peers at my face. “So—so all that, um, off-hand chat, trans-Atlantic, was—uh—was—”

   “It wasn’t what I was feeling, that’s for sure. Except when I lost my cool and bawled you out about the puce and magenta cows,” I admit.

    “Yes,” he says, pulling me very gently against him and kissing my hair gently. “I see. I was taking it at face value, I suppose, Rosie. I’m a fool.”

    “No, it’s a male thing. Men almost always take things a woman says at face value.”

    “Do we?” he says doubtfully.

    “Yes.”

    He thinks it over. “I suppose I did, in this instance. But—uh— Well, all I can say is, you seemed genuinely off-hand, and I couldn’t seem to—to connect with you.”

    “I know. Like I said, I can never do things right, specially not when they’re supposed to be romantic. But you seemed pretty off-hand and business-like, too, actually.”

    “I did?” he says with a startled laugh, looking at me protestingly.

    What a total nong, he can’t even see it, can he? And yet he’s accusing me of it! “Yeah. Well, it is hard to connect over the ruddy phone, especially if you don’t… um, don’t know the person very well, um, haven’t been in a relationship with them very long.”

    “Of course,” he says with a sigh, kissing the tip of my nose. “Of course.”

    “I was actually,” I admit grimly, “seethingly jealous and lonely all the time, John.”

    “Mm,” he says, hugging me and snuggling up. “So was I, darling. Shall we pop into this nice big bed?”

    I’m not gonna argue, am I? So we kind of roll ourselves over and roll back the bedspread that matches the flowery wallpaper, I didn’t think the Yanks went in for your Laura Ashley touch but obviously I was wrong, and roll back the duvet and the two American blankets that are fluffy as bejasus and light as air to handle, and the pale blue American sheet, and roll on top of the other pale blue American sheet and pull all the stuff up over us and cuddle up again…

    “What was that?” I gasp.

    He’s sitting up, blinking.  “The doorbell. What’s the ti— God. You’d better get up, darling, it’ll be Matt and the others.”

    Struggle to a sitting position. Why on earth am I in my black lacy slip and bra— Oh. Right. Never got around to— Right. “We’re not going to California today, are we?” I croak.

    He’s out of bed, putting on the giant dressing-gown, funnily enough it fits him. “No, no, darling, we went over all that in the car coming from the airp— Oh.” He stops, and grins, as the doorbell peals again. “I suppose you don’t remember.”

    “No.”

    “We’re going to have a white Christmas here and then, if the damned airport isn’t snowed in, we’re going over to California with Matt.”

    “Does he want to have a white—”

    “Yes!” he says with a laugh, going over to the door. “I bore all your strictures firmly in mind, and asked him what he wanted, rather than merely issuing my orders!” He winks, and goes out.

    Oh. Didja? Good on ya. …Didja really? Gee, that’s an even better sign than putting it in there and shaking like a leaf and going off like a rocket and bawling all over me. Well, almost!

    “Get up!”  he shouts from the lounge-room. “Have a SHOWER!”

    “JAWOHL, MEIN KAPITAN!” I bellow, getting out of bed.

    I go into the pale yellow nylon-carpeted fright and turn the shower on, naturally it immediately adjusts to exactly the right pressure and temperature, and remove my black slip and bra and get under it and start soaping myself with a pale yellow lemon-shaped soap that doesn’t smell of lemon, it smells of lily of the valley, isn’t America wonderful? After a while I’m humming. California, here I come…

    “Rosie!”

    “What?” I screech.

    “‘’Ow much longer you gonna be in that barfroom?’”he cries in the accents of Peter Sellers. I’ve long since discovered he’s got the same ancient recording of that as Dad has, only unlike Dad, he’s transferred his efficiently to tape.

    “I’ll be right out!” –Open up those golden gates; California, here I come!