Episode 17: The End Of The Beginning

Episode 17: The End Of The Beginning

    Every time we open a newspaper there’s another daft article about Lily Rose, usually complete with pic, appropriate to the storyline or not. One rag dredged up the shot of me and John with the caption WHERE’S HER CAPTAIN? But I suppose it could have been worse. Well, a pic of me and Doris coming out of the doc’s with the caption IS IT HER CAPTAIN’S? would have been a lot worse, yeah.

    Henny Penny have by now set up fifteen, count them, fifteen, approved interviews to which I have had to go, it being in that piece of paper of Damian’s I signed. Each one more fatuous than the last, especially the ones where it was ordained I should wear the university lecturer look—not my gear, provided by Wardrobe. Not with the curls gelled back, that might give the GBP the idea I’d been sneering at them all along. The feature of the outfit was a very well cut black blazer that’s miles nicer than anything I own but unfortunately had to be Signed For. With brand-new designer jeans that Ruth in person altered to fit me—fitted round the bum and thighs, miles too big in the waist, miles too long in the leg, you goddit—plus and a Cashmere, read my lips, Cashmere sweater that would have cost a month’s fellowship money, in a restrained pale primrose shade. Very, very well polished brown ankle-boots, slightly broguey in style, a well polished brown briefcase to match, and the brown horn-rims. (“Aren’t these ours?” Could be: who knows? I lied…) The whole finished off by small pearls in the ears. Not very, very small Nineties style, no. Big enough to be noticed but not big enough to be vulgar. Ya got that, too, huh? Yeah. I was very well briefed but in any case Barbara was padlocked to my wrist to make sure I kept to the script.

    Prof. was starting to get rather annoyed, the paparazzi have been haunting the uni, though of course he himself is okay, he’s well protected by his secretary, the door that has his name on it actually leads to her office. Only the cognoscenti know that the door further along the corridor which hasn’t got a label on it is the one that leads directly to his actual sanctum. But the rest of the staff have been pestered. So he greeted my suggestion that it might be better if I worked down at the cottage until I’d got the nationalism study finished with considerable relief. So did Mark, he hasn’t got a secretary to protect him, and one or two of the brighter reporters have latched on to the fact that the Mark V. Rutherford blazoned all over The Observer as the author of the book is actually the Dr M.V. Rutherford of the door so labelled. –The V. stands for Vernon but some of the particularly brilliant students refer to him as “Mark Five.” Geddit? Oh, back then, didja? Yeah.

    Brian was quite pleased to hear I wanted to go down to the cottage, at least it’ll keep me out of harm’s way. I had to confess to him I was preggy, they’d scheduled several early-morning interviews but there was no way—no way! He was very annoyed at first and shouted at me but then he calmed down and said as I wasn’t going to be in any of the exterior shots it wouldn’t really matter and they’d move up the filming of my bits and I’d have to marry Maynarde.

    “Eh?” I croaked.

    “Not in real life, you idiot! In the show! Varley’s already suggested it.”

    “But Commander’s just a friend, really. Definitely in the older-man category, too.”

    “The idea is he’s been secretly pining for her all this time but he’s been hanging back because he thinks he’s too old for her. –Thank God we didn’t let Maynarde camp it up,” he mutters to himself.

    “Um—yeah. Well, that’d work out quite well.” He was looking very tired and drained, poor Brian, so I added: “I'm really very sorry about it all, Brian.”

    “Yeah. Uh—whose is it?” he asked with an effort. “Not Keel’s?” –Brightening fractionally.

    “No, I haven’t even seen him for ages, apart from Parkinson.”

    “Thought he was in that Christmas show of yours?”

    “What? Oh, Della’s Christmas show.”—Seems like several lifetimes ago.—“Um, yeah, he was. But it’s not his.” After a bit it dawned he was waiting so I added: “It’s John’s.”

    “Oh? Do I know him?”

    By this time I was very red. “Um, no. Um, Captain Haworth,” I croaked. “From Dauntless, that we did the filming on at Portsmouth.”—Brian’s jaw by now had dropped ten feet.—“It was him I went so see in America. He’s on secondment over there.”

    “To what?”

    “Um, it’s very hush-hush, it’s something to do with defence.”

    “Figures,” he said in a vague voice, rubbing his jaw. “It’s not bad…”

     “Look, Brian, his family are high-up Navy people and the reason he got sent off to the States in the first place was that the Lily Rose image was on course to ruin his career and put the Navy in a bad light.”

    “But that was when they didn’t know you were a serious scholar! –How high up?”

    “His father’s a retired Admiral, Admiral Sir Bernard Haworth, and his mother’s father was First Sea Lord in his day, admittedly not yesterday. But in Navy circles, that sort of thing counts. He doesn’t want the publicity and he certainly doesn’t need it. And for God’s sake don’t say anything about the baby to anyone, he doesn’t know yet. He’s due home quite soon, I’m gonna tell him in person.”

    After a bit he said: “No, all right, fair enough. But we’ll need to talk about it later. Uh—well, I suppose it’s all right if I tell Penny, is it?”

    This really took me aback. “Um, yes, of course. I just don’t want it leaked to the Press.”

    “Good,” he said dully. “It might take her mind off Jacki and Peter not producing any grandkids for her.”—Jacki’s their daughter, according to him she threw away a promising career in PR that she’d only just started on to marry him. Peter’s an accountant and in his more rabid moments Brian has been heard to declare that in his opinion he’s incapable of it. They’ve been married for three years and the career throwing away wasn’t on account of preggy, it was on account he’d just got a job in Edinburgh. And Brian and Penny hardly ever see them. Their son, Stephen, is younger, he’s at uni in Cardiff, but they hardly ever see him, either, except at the beginning of the hols when he brings home loads of washing or at the end of the hols when he brings home more loads of washing plus and the sleeping-bag. A very normal family, in fact.—“Well, she’d kill me if I didn’t tell her, but look out, she’ll start knitting little yellow things for it.”

    Poor old Brian. “That’s all right, Brian, we’ve got that syndrome back in Oz, too.”

    “I suppose you have, yes. Well, thanks for telling me. And if you need help to get your stuff down to this cottage, I suppose we could manage something…” He scratched his chin. “You can have Mike, and one of the vans.”

    “Um, really?” Heck, I wasn’t hinting! “Thanks very much, Brian.”

    “That’s all right. –I’d better ring Varley, I suppose.”

    “Don’t tell him!”

    “Mm? Oh, he won’t be interested. No, he can get going on the proposal script, better get it out of the way, at least it’ll give us a skeleton for the series…”

    I got up. “Yeah. Um. Brian, I really am very sorry about all of it. Um, well, if there’s anything I can do to pay you back…” Didn’t mean to say that, it just came out.

    He gave me a dry look and said there was, actually, and outed with an agreement to do The Captain’s Daughter The Christmas Special, which some of us had sort of forgotten in the intervening excitement had been mooted at one point.

    I agreed I’d do it, but when? So we sorted out that the baby was due in September, so I’d probably be able to manage if we filmed my bits in October. He didn’t want to wait till November, because you never know what might crop up.

    “No, well, late October should be okay: it doesn’t affect the brain, you know!” I said with a misguided laugh.

    He gave me an even drier look and said that Penny claimed it did precisely that: she was Hellishly fuzzy for months after both of theirs.

    “Oh, well, I suppose we could use an auto-cue.”

    “You and Amaryllis Nuttall both,” he agreed on a sour note. “All right, why not?”

    “Is she coming back for it? Good! She’s lovely! Um, had you thought that Daddy Captain might marry her, in the end, Brian?”

    “No. Why?”

    “Largely because she’s lovely! Um, no, well, what I was thinking, you could capitalise on that dotty vagueness of hers, and, um, maybe bring in her daughter, you see, that’d cover the younger set, but make the fifth series The Captain’s Wife: focus it on her and her dottiness.” He was just goggling at me, apparently speechless, so I went on: “People’d say it was like The Reluctant Débutante, but why not? It was a terrific hit in its time. And maybe make the new daughter more like the deb: she didn’t want to do all those debby things at all, you know.” He was looking totally blank so I explained: “I know that blonde girl in the film didn't put it over, but it was in the script, if you listened carefully. She was opposed to all the deb crap. It could make a good plot angle. Daddy Captain, and Mummy in between the dottiness and the vagueness, and Doctor because he’s Daddy Captain’s best mate”—I wouldn’t want them to write poor old Garry out of it—“are trying to make her go down the correct debby road and marry her off to a correct young man, preferably Navy and stiff-upper-lip, but she doesn’t want to.”

    “That theme’s a bit Sixties for us, though.”

    “She could be a rebel before her time, why not? And if you work it out it’ll be about three years down the track from the very first episode, so about 1957? Weren't they already in the rock ’n’ roll era by then?”

    “It could work… I’ll talk to Varley. But changing the title’s a bit drastic. And frankly, I don't know if we can cope with Amaryllis on a full-time basis.”

    “Her scenes could be quite short. But she has got that quality that lights up a screen, Brian, you must admit. And the public love her.”

    “Takes one to know one. No, well, I’ll definitely think it over. Sign here,” he said drily.

    So I signed. Well, if it’s really beyond me, I suppose I can get a doctor’s certificate, but as I’m normally healthy as a horse, no reason to suppose I won’t be able to manage it. And I certainly owe him one. Well, more than one, really.

    Mike turns up to drive me to the cottage at crack of dawn on the Friday. Rupy gets the door phone, and the door, I’m in the bathroom, throwing up.

    “You’re early: she’s still throwing up,” he informs him as I stagger out in my bright pink quilted nylon dressing-gown.

    “Yeah; hi, Mike,” I croak.

    “Hullo, Lily Rose; you look pretty green, maybe you better hop back to bed.”

    “No, I’d have to keep hopping out of it.”

    “Been there, done that, Mike, dear,” Rupy explains severely. “She claims she’s going to pack this morning.”

    “In between it, eh? Yeah, well, thought I could give you a hand.”

    “Does Brian know?” I say faintly.

    “More or less. I hadda take him and one of the legal types and young Damian to the airport first thing, they’re off to France to talk about royalties or something for the French-language version of the fourth series, evidently he only signed up for three with the Frogs and—uh—Dutch, was it? Anyway, they’re looking for a better deal on the fourth. And The Christmas Special.”—That I signed for the day before yesterday—right.—“He said to ignore anything Timothy or Gavin might’ve said about needing transport this afternoon, young Jase can take them to their PR wingding.”

    “Yuh—uh—what PR wingding?” I croak. Not mentioning that it isn't afternoon.

    “Dunno, Lily Rose,” he says cheerfully. “Oops, are you—”

    I dash out to the bathroom and throw up again.

    Somewhat later. All the folders of notes are in the van, and we’ve been through the sequence of male cretins filling giant cartons with books in spite of being told NOT to put books in those big cartons, they’ll never be able to lift them, and the subsequent: “Christ! What’ve ya got in here? Rocks?” and half-emptying of said giant cartons, and Doris has come upstairs to help, and also told them big cartons are too heavy when filled with books and what they need is some nice little apple boxes or butter cartons, and produced some. They all seem to be New Zealand apples, so much for all those claims from Tazzie, thought they were only the usual Grate Australian Lies; and New Zealand butter, explains the price of butter in the shops here. Both Mike and Rupy have demanded heatedly whether I need to take all these books—bloody books, in Mike’s case—but I do, because there’s nothing so annoying and time-wasting as having to stop to track down a reference when you’re in the middle of a chapter and then finding the book’s not on your shelves. Alternatively I could leave the books here, and every time I need to verify a reference ring Rupy and get him to fax me the page/s containing the exact quote, making sure it/they contain/s the page number/s, plus and the title page, the back of the title page and the— No! He doesn’t even know how to send a fax! Exactly. Sourly he tells Mike that I brought home a taxi-load of more books from varsity the other day but Mike isn’t surprised.

    They’ve just ordered me sternly NOT to go down to the front door, they’re capable of loading a van and it’d alert the paparazzi, and anyway Aziz is giving them a hand while Dave keeps the paparazzi off, there aren’t so many of them today, and Rupy has just claimed, inaccurately, he can carry two butter cartons of books at a time out to the lift, and Mrs Lyons from the far side of the lift shaft who we hardly ever see has just come over to say Mr Els has just rung her to say can we let the lift go, he needs it, it’s time for Jay-Jay’s walkies, when the door phone buzzes. Dave tells us it’s an Indian kid that claims she knows us but in his opinion she’s an autograph hunter. And ought to be in school and NO! Ya can’t speak to them! –Sorry, Rosie.

    “Ask her her name,” I say in a doomed voice.

    “She reckons,” he replies dubiously, “that it’s Imelda. You know, like Imelda Marcos, the dame with all the shoes.”

    “Yeah. We know her, she’s from The Tabla, down the road, you can let her in.”

    And the lift goes down half-filled with cartons of books, Mr Els getting in with Jay-Jay, as we verify by squinting down the grille, and in very short order returns with a beaming Imelda.

    “The teachers are on strike!” she bursts out.

    “Yeah, and ya could get on home and give your mum some help in the house, or help them chop stuff in the kitchen. If ya stay here, you’ll have to work. And does your mum know—” Silly question.

    I ring Mrs Singh. If we’re sure she can help, Imelda can stay. And she’s been so stroppy lately, have I got any ideas? Me? It’s her that’s already brought up two daughters, not me! On the other hand, Imelda is very like what I was at that age.

    Well, put it like this, the school’s got a very nice, neat winter uniform: a maroon and white checked skirt and a tan jumper with a maroon stripe at the neck and hem, and they can have a white, tan, or maroon blouse. So Imelda’s wearing the regulation skirt, taken in until it’s excruciatingly narrow and let down until it comes to the ankles. The footwear’s non-regulation black patent platform-soled ankle-boots smothered in punched holes and studs and ornate metal hooks for the laces, and laced with giant laces that finish by going round the ankle of the boot twice. The pullover’s a regulation one, but she’s brightened it up with three large metal clips, bikie-style, and a non-regulation purple high-necked tee-shirt. Her misguided mother let her have a reversible anorak, maroon one side and black the other, so the black side’s the one that’s showing, natch, and there are approx. sixteen more metal clips or badges on that. And, this is the very latest at Imelda’s school, dunno what the rest of the world is doing but down our way it’s very In, the nice regulation maroon muffler has been stretched to gi-gan-tic proportions and had two feet of each end unravelled, and knotted or combed out or left in curly, scraggy bits, and the rest of it’s had holes cut out here and there which are starting to run: it’s the scraggiest, daggiest, trendiest muffler in all creation.

    The hair’s in Rasta plaits, Mrs Singh actually cried when she had that done. Plus and little metal beads on the ends, possibly some have fallen off or possibly they weren’t all meant to have them. In my day your father had to physically force your panama onto your head every summer but Imelda’s school has more sense, they don’t even have berets any more, let alone panamas. So it’s a panama, looking jumped on, naturally (though in her case she bought it down the flea market looking like that while in my day you did the actual jumping yourself), with kind of ragged bits of wool, not off the scarf, they’re more orange, wound round it instead of a ribbon, and a few odd badges and metal clips dangling off it. One ear sports seven tiny gold rings round the upper rim, very pretty, and the other sports something long and dangly she got down the flea market and keeps in her pocket, only putting it in when she’s— Ya got that. Yeah. It’s a really cold day, so she’s wearing gi-normous and very dilapidated fur-lined black leather bikie gloves she got down the flea— Yeah.

    Sadly I tell Mrs Singh I haven’t got any ideas, but it’s a stage. She knows that—sigh—but it doesn't help. And how am I? Glumly I report. She was like that with Richpal, their eldest, but it wore off after the first three months! Oh, good. That means I’ve got about six more weeks of it to look forward— What? Sorry, Mrs Singh. Oh—no, I promise I won’t lift anything heavy. She tells me to send Imelda home the instant she starts making a nuisance of herself, so I agree, and hang up. Imelda hasn’t bothered to listen, she's already in Joanie’s room, dismantling the—

    “Don't touch that!”

    She’s unplugged it from the wall, she’s not dumb! And she’s helped Greg move his computer! Yeah, yeah. Together we pack the computer equipment in its own boxes, Imelda expressing approbation of the fact that I’ve had the foresight to keep the boxes and the polystyrene, and refusing to let me lift the CPU. Dear God, please don’t let her drop it, I’ll believe in You for the rest of my life if only You don’t let her drop it… He doesn’t let her drop it, bummer, that was a stupid promise, wasn’t it? Added to which, I’ve not only copied everything to the uni’s system, I’ve also backed up every single file on it to disk. Two copies, one’s with me, one’s in my desk at the uni.

    During this period I only throw up three times, I’m definitely getting better.

    Rupy’s been packing my clothes. He comes in to report it’s done, all warm things and only practical things. And I’d better take the small heater from my room, in case the one I took down there before packs it in. Doris comes in to report that the men have finished taking the books down, and do I feel like elevenses, yet, dear?

    “Or breakfast,” notes Rupy pointedly. At first she just tuts because I haven’t been able to eat any and then it dawns: he hasn’t had any, either. There was nothing stopping him: Mike wouldn’t have minded if he’d sat down and had it in front of it him, in fact he’d have probably joined— Oh, the Hell with it, gay or straight, they’re all mad. I am feeling better, so Doris volunteers to get us something nice and plain, and packs me off to have a shower.

    Then Mike, Aziz, Imelda, Rupy and I all sit down to have it. Lashings of toast with those mushrooms Rupy thought we might use in an omelette, overlooking the fact that neither of us knows how to make an omelette, gallons of tea, and more toast, with marmalade. Doris just has a cuppa, she had her breakfast hours ago, of course. (She hasn’t brought Buster up, cartons being taken out and the door being left open and big men coming and going—she must mean Mike, Aziz is tallish but very thin—would be too upsetting for him.) I don’t fancy mushrooms fried in butter, but fortunately the others all do. I’m too late to stop Rupy engulfing the last of them but Doris has kept some back for Dave, so if Aziz likes to send him up? Meekly he trots out to take Dave’s place and Doris fries up the remaining mushrooms while some of us are thinking What if Dave doesn’t like— But he does.

    Meanwhile Imelda checks what Rupy’s packed in my case and packs my laptop bag. I unpack it, removing the box of tampons and pointing out that there is one time in a woman’s life when you don’t need the blasted things, and removing most of the makeup, pointing out the village is used to me without makeup, and putting the actual laptop in. The tape recorder and those of the tapes that weren’t fitted into the cartons go into my army-surplus satchel. Now I’m ready.

    No, I’m not, Imelda wants to come, too. And, pleadingly, it’s the weekend! Mike wonders, poker-face, how she’s gonna get back for school on Monday. But the teachers are on strike! Usually it’s only for a day, isn’t it? Gives them a long weekend, he notes airily. She’s about to burst into tears so I ring her mum. At first Mrs Singh is absolutely horrified but I assure her Imelda’s been a great help packing and I’d really like her help with the unpacking.—“Yeah!” from behind me.—Mrs Singh starts to waver, and finally asks to speak to her. Imelda starts off good only then she starts to get whiny and then she starts to get whiny and sulky, in Punjabi. (That’s not esoteric knowledge on my part, I asked Rhonda what language it is her Mum and Dad speak, and that’s it, they come from the Indian part of the Punjab, it got split up at Partition and half Mr Singh’s rellies got stranded in Pakistan. The reason they didn’t decide to emigrate over to India being that that side of the family had lived in that village for three hundred years and as they’re not either Muslim or Hindu there didn’t seem much point.) Eventually she shrieks, in English: “I will not! And I will so speak English, it’s my language!” Which it is, true. So I wrench the phone off her, the twit.

    Not that I was any better at that age: Mum and me had such a fight when I wanted to go up to Queensland with Joslynne on the bus to her Aunty Pam’s that I never got to go. And she hadda sit by a fat lady all the way that her mum spotted when they put her on the bus and asked to keep an eye on her, that talked at her non-stop all about her bloody rellies that Joslynne didn’t know or care about. Though she knew an awful lot about them by the time they got to Brizzie.

    Mrs Singh explains tearfully that Imelda’s been so naughty… Yes, I was pretty horrible at home when I was that age, but I was a lot better when I was out of the home environment, and a lot of it, if I remember rightly, was the boredom factor, as well as not being able to cope with the hormones.—“I can so!” from behind me. Mike tells her to watch it and Rupy asks her if she wants to cut off her nose to spite her face and Dave, he’s younger than them, tolerantly says she can have this last mushie, if she likes.—But I’m not sure how to get her home again, because the village is a long way from Portsmouth and I’m not sure about the trains. There’s a confab in Punjabi and then Mr Singh comes on the line and apologises grimly for his offspring and after the obligatory exchange of protest, more apology and so forth, admits that Rhonda and Jimmy reckon this time the teachers are gonna be out for all of next week, they don't know which side their bread’s buttered on. This last being Mr Singh’s own, he’s a small businessman that has to graft for every penny, not a salaried person with holiday pay and a pension plan and a union like Jimmy and Rhonda and all the rest of the teachers. But that doesn’t mean Imelda hasn’t got homework to do, her schoolwork’s been a disgrace this year!

    “Yeah, well, if the local teachers aren’t out she can go in to school in Portsmouth with the Potter kids from the hardware shop, I mean the ironmonger’s, there’s two girls and a boy. There’s no school bus, though: they have to get the workers’ bus, it leaves at quarter to seven.”—He gives a nasty laugh and says that’ll learn her.—“Yeah. And if they are on strike she can knuckle down to it at the cottage, I’ll be working myself.” After more objections, much weaker, he gives in and says if I'm absolutely sure? “Yes, ’cos to tell you the truth, Mr Singh, it’s awfully isolated and though we have got a big dog I’d be grateful for the company.“ Unexpectedly Mr Singh laughs again and asks how big this dog is so I explain Tim’s a retriever. She’s scared stiff of big dogs. (Does this all sound horribly familiar, folks? I mean, recalcitrant, determined, scared of big— Yeah.) He better speak to her.

    I hand her the receiver, and warn: “It’s your dad, he favours the idea of getting you out of their hair, in particularly your poor mum’s hair, for the next week, so if I was you I’d be real respectful, meek and grateful.”—“What a hope,” from behind me.—“Shut up, Mike. –Well?”

    “Yes,” she growls, taking the receiver.

    We all listen hopefully. She hasn’t got the guts to tell her father that English is so her  language and though it’s all in Punjabi, it’s pretty respectful, meek and grateful: we can tell that. So the upshot is she has to change, deeply grungified school uniform not being suitable for a country jaunt in Mike’s van, and she shoots off home to do that.

    And when she comes back I give Rupy a big hug and put the horn-rims on for good luck, and give Doris a hug, and Buster, she’s popped down and got him; and Dave and Aziz form ranks on either side of me and we shoulder our way past two yawning reporters and a photographer who almost drops his camera in surprise, and into the van, and off.

    … “Where are we?”

    “Outer London, haven’t you ever been this way before, Imelda?” returns Mike calmly.

    No, or else she's forgotten all about it.

    “Go to sleep or something, it’ll take ages,” he advises.

    She ignores that.

     … “Where are we?”

    “In the van, going south. Why don’t you read one of those books of Lily Rose’s?”

    She ignores that.

    … “Where are we now?”

    “In the van, going south! I told you it’d take ages, don’t keep asking silly questions!”

    She subsides, for the nonce.

    … “Mike—”

    “For Pete’s sake! We’re not even halfway, are ya satisfied?”

    “No! Don't be mean! I need to go to the toilet!” she wails.

    “I might need to go soon, too,” I admit.

    “Women! All right, keep a look-out for a caff or a pull-in.”

    We do, it’s one of those giant complexes with an enormous, like, not McDonald’s but that sort of thing, designed for long-distance lorry drivers, I think, well, there’s certainly a huge number of them parked here. There are ranks of loos, all spanking clean, what a relief, thinking of some of those filthy ones at filthy little servos Beyond the Black Stump on long hauls in Oz. We go. She admits to being a bit hungry. I admit to fancying a vanilla slice. We venture into the restaurant to find Mike already installed at a table with a couple of giant cream doughnuts and a coffee in front of him, grinning and waving at us. Ooh! Can she— Whatever she likes, and possibly Indian girls don’t get spots in their teen years, maybe their metabolisms can cope better than Caucasian girls’— We both have a vanilla slice and a coffee. It’s very bad coffee, nothing like the wonderful stuff The Tabla produces, but she drinks it to show us how grown-up she is. I’m terribly thirsty so I then have a Coke as well and humiliatingly Mike forces me to go to the bog again before we leave.

    As we take off he starts to tell me, in great detail, about his wife Gwenda’s bladder troubles when she was having their Simon, and then, in great detail, about her blood pressure troubles when she was having their Junifer (the name being Gwenda’s choice, it’s from a song, big mistake because no-one remembers the song now). And Imelda doesn’t say anything at all, not even “Ooh, there’s a cow!” for ages and ages…

    “Ooh, there’s a horse! Where are we now?”

    “You can read the road signs well as us, can’tcha? –Give her the map, for God’s sake, Lily Rose.”

    I hand over the map and for a long time there’s just rustling and a puzzled silence…

    “This is Portsmouth,” he warns. “You wanna see the sea, Imelda?”

    “Um, yes. Can we?”

    “Why not? If there’s a bloody great warship in, dare say ya might get to go on it, too, depending on whose warship it is,” he notes snidely.

    “Very funny! No, he doesn’t mean it, Imelda. I’m the last person Commander Corky Corcoran’s gonna invite on board.”

    “I know. But John’ll be back soon, won't he?”

    “Yeah: when is he due back?” asks Mike on a grim note.

    “He said the beginning of March but so far he hasn’t been able to give me a definite date because with the change in the administration everything’s up in the air.”

    He sniffs, but doesn't say anything.

    … “Ooh, there’s the sea!” Short silence. “Ugh, it looks cold, doesn’t it?”

    “Freezing,” I agree. “Even those seagulls look as if they’re shivering, poor things. Give us back the map, Imelda, I can’t remember how to get to the village.”

    We pull in and Mike studies the map. “There. You sure?”

    “Um, hang on. Which way is north on the map?” Resignedly he points. Gee, that makes it easy. I hold the map up very high. “Yes, because see, Portsmouth is like to your right when you look at the map of England, and John’s little bay is just on the coast to the left of it.”

    “Yeah. Right and left being?” –No flies on him.

    “This is right,”—tapping my right hand—“and this is left, and that’s where you said the village must be!”

    “Okay, we’ll try it. Anything ya wanna buy in town before we go?”

    “No, thanks, Mike, the freezer’s full of stuff.”

    “Okay, then.”

    We go.

    … “Ooh, is this it? Neat!” she cries.

    “Shit, it’s a bit isolated, isn’t it?” says Mike numbly.

    “Yes, but there’s the two of us, and Velda’ll pop over with Tim as soon as we like.”

    “That John’s dog? Yeah, well, I’ll start unloading this lot, Lily Rose, and you give her a bell right now, okay?”

    So we do that. I almost forget about turning off the alarm but fortunately Imelda prompts me. She seems to remember every syllable Rupy or I have ever uttered in re John and/or the cottage. And some syllables I could swear I’ve never uttered.

    … Oh, God, her father was right: she gasps and shrinks as there’s a tap on the back door and I cry: “Come in, Velda!” and Velda and Tim come into the kitchen, respectively smiling, and grinning, panting and tail-waving.

    “Hi, Velda! Yes, Tim! Good boy! Good boy!” I gasp as he immobilises me where I sit by putting his front paws on my shoulders and ecstatically licking my face. “Good boy! Yeah, missed ya, too!” I say, hugging him. “Get down, now!” Nothing. Shit. “Tim! Sit!” He sits.

    “Oh, dear, he’s a bit over-excited,” murmurs Velda.

    “And a half.” I introduce everybody to everybody and finally say: “And this is Tim. Yes, good boy,” as he moves his tail and looks at me hopefully. “No; sit! Imelda, come and say hullo.”

    She can't let herself down in front of all of us so she comes shrinkingly up to my side.

    “Just hold out your hand very, very slowly and let him sniff it.” She holds out a small, trembling hand. Shit, has Tim ever met a Brown hand before? He sniffs, and gives it a quick lick. Imelda squeaks and snatches it back.

    “He’s a very friendly dog,” says Velda helpfully.

    “Yes. But it took me some time to get used to him. He doesn’t usually put his paws on anyone’s shoulders, in fact I’m pretty sure he’s been trained not to, John wouldn’t approve at all. But he was very pleased to see me again, you see.”

    “This’ll be because you spoil him rotten, eh?” notes Mike, giving him a careless pat and ruffling the ears. “Yeah, good boy. No: down!” He sits again. “See: he’s pretty well behaved.” Imelda nods mutely, obviously wondering when it’s gonna bite her. “Yeah, well, I’d say he’d settle any burglar’s hash. I’d better be going, Lily Rose, if you’re sure you two”—wry look at Imelda—“can manage to get all that stuff unpacked?”

    We’re sure. I go out to the van with him.

    “Listen, Lily Rose, I don’t doubt that Tim’ll take a chunk out of anything that comes near you, but if that kid starts giving you cheek, give us a bell and I’ll be down here like a shot, okay?”

    “No, really, Mike, she’ll be all right.”

    “She better be. That Velda, she got any kids?”

    “Um, not yet, no.”

    “Thought not. This,” he says, producing a crumpled card, “is my home number, okay? Gwenda’s usually home during the day, you give her a bell if anything even looks like going wrong. And if you can’t get her, for Christ’s sake get that Velda to take you in to the hospital in Portsmouth.”

    “I will. But the doc says I’m as healthy as a horse, and the morning sickness is nothing to worry about.”

    “Good. Now, I’m gonna come down and collect you Monday week—”

    “Mi-ike!”

    “’Is Master’s Voice has told me to, okay? So I’ll bring the limo. Expect me around three-thirty, fourish. Should be a clear run in, most of the traffic’ll be going the other way, so you’ll be at the flat in time for your dinner.”

    “Mm,” I say, nodding, and trying not to bawl. “Thanks for everything, Mike.”

    “Well, ’Is Lordship did okay it, but I don’t say I wouldn’t of done it anyway.”

    “Yeah.” He’s tall, so I have to tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thanks.”

    He gives me a big hug. “Look after yourself!” And gets into the van and drives off.

    “Has he gone?” says Imelda the second my face appears round the kitchen door.

    “Yeah, ’course.”

    “Good. He’s the bossiest man I ever met!” she says, scowling.

    “Then you haven’t met many men, but then, none of us thought ya had, did we, Velda?”

    She gives a strangled laugh and looks apologetically at Imelda. “Well, no! Shall we start unpacking, Rosie?”

    A strange reluctance at the thought of opening all those boxes has come over me… “Um, no, thanks all the same, Velda, but me and Imelda can do it tomorrow.”

    If I’m sure? I’m sure. She then brings in some milk and fresh bread from the car and I give her a kiss and we all go out to wave her off…

    “Wuff! Wuff!”

    “Yes, there goes Velda, Tim. Never mind, we’ll see her very soon. Um, better close his sacred gates,” I recognise glumly.

    “I’ll do it!” She’s off like a shot.

    “Couldja work that bloody latch?”

    “Yeah, ’course!” –Annoyed scorn.

    “Good. I never can, I think he chose it on purpose, it’s a sacred male latch.”

    This time it’s pleased scorn. “It’s easy!”

    Something like that. We go into the lounge-room and she officiously turns on all the lights, even the neato little one on the sacred desk. “Um, Imelda, promise you won’t touch anything on that desk? That’s John’s desk; I never use it, you see.”

    “Of course I won't!” Picks up the picture of Matt. “Who’s this?”

    Put it down, put it down! If ya drop it and the glass cracks and scratches the picture he’ll never forgive me. (Don’t say it.) “That’s his son, Matt, when he was four, isn’t he adorable?”

    “Um, yeah.” Embarrassed laugh, and she puts it down, phew. Too young to find little kids adorable. “Are you hungry? I could get the dinner, Dad told me I had to make myself useful.”

    Good on him. You can get dinner every night, for mine. (Don’t say it.) “Um, not really, not yet. Those iced buns we had at that last comfort stop were filling, weren’t they? Um, I tell you what we could do.” I wander over to the ranks of largely empty, waist-high shelves kind of to the rear of John’s desk, that go all along the wall, the one the wood’s stacked against outside, as far as the beginning of the dinette. “We could clear all this crap off these shelves so as I can put my books on them.”

    Imelda investigates further. “This is a proper bookcase, though, wouldn't it be better to use this?”

    His antique oak dresser, yikes! “Um, no, that’s a posh Pommy thingo for putting your best dinner plates on, or so they tell me, I think we better not touch it. But all this crap could go.”

    She comes back and looks at it doubtfully. “It looks like souvenirs, to me.”

    Well, yeah! Oh. “Most of it dates from his parents’ time, they used to use this place as a beach house. Um, well, I don’t think John is a souvenir-y sort of person. But we won’t throw it out, just put it carefully in a cupboard.”

    “Is there a cupboard?”

    I tell her about the huge one under the stairs, and half the kitchen cupboards are empty, or they would be if everything wasn’t spread out. She investigates. I go and sit limply on the sofa in front of the empty fireplace. Tim comes and leans against my leg…

    “Rosie! Rosie!”

    I come to with a jump. “Whassamarrer? Uh—oh, Imelda. Shit, was I asleep?”

    “Yes, for ages! I’ve done it all, see!”

    My God, the poor little thing’s not only cleared the wanking crap, like a giant shell with a chip out of it, a bamboo boat with a crooked sail, a badly carved outrigger, a badly carved coconut, but she's filled all the shelves with my books and folders, all in the wrong order.

    “See?”

    “Yuh—uh, thanks, Imelda: that’s wonderful,” I croak.—What else can ya say? Ya done it all wrong?—“How long did it take?” I croak.

    “Oh, not too long!”

    She looks awfully hot, help.

    “Tim was asleep, too!” she hisses as he suddenly rouses with a jerk.

    “Yeah, he’s capable of sleeping for hours.”

    “Um, is he?” she says with a nervous laugh, backing off as he looks mildly at her. “Um, shall I get the dinner?”

    “Aren’t you exhausted?”

    An adult would be pleased rather than annoyed at this evidence of concern but she cries crossly: “No, of course not! I’m not a kid!”

    Yes, you are, no-one else has that much energy. “I would be. Lifting books is terribly tiring. Um, well, have you even seen your room, yet?”

    She stands on one leg. “Not yet.”

    Nor she has, in fact our bags are still where Mike neatly parked them. “Well, let’s take our bags up first.”

    And up we go.

    Now, the spare room of John’s cottage can only be described as ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Even Barbara only managed to say it was very restful. Poor Imelda looks round it in shrinking horror: her own room has a really pretty floral wallpaper and matching floral curtains, spring flowers, it’s charming, though not much of it is now visible under the giant posters of hideous pop groups. John’s spare room, by contrast, has severe navy-blue duvet covers on the twin divan beds above severe navy tailored valances, with severe pleated navy curtains at the window. The floor is dark oak with a severe dark navy rug, which is allowed to have one thin white stripe round its edges. The small, plain dressing-table and the tallboy are painted white. The walls are plain white plaster. So is the ceiling. One framed print of a ketch, the sort that’s schematic and allows you to see exactly how many ropes and spars and nuts and bolts the thing had, is allowed to decorate one wall.

    “Sorry,” I say to her expression. “It’s mostly his Navy friends that stay here, you see. The bathroom next-door’s all yours: John had an ensuite put in for the master bedroom.” I show her the bathroom. All white, totally Spartan. “Would you like a navy-blue towel or two? He’s got plenty of those,” I say in a weak voice, then we both break down in hysterics and I say, mopping my eyes: “Wanna see his room? It’s almost as bad.”

    Eagerly she comes in with me and is duly horror-struck. She admires the ensuite, though. We go back into the bedroom.

    “You could get new sheets and a new duvet cover, Rosie!”

    “Uh—not a duvet cover, without consulting him, after all he has to sleep under it, too. But we could think about redoing your room, why not? Only we better keep to the blue theme. We could ditch that wanking pic, though.”

    “It wasn’t a boat of his, was it?”

    “Ya mean, like his sailing boat, like that? Nah, it’s not a yacht. We could go to the shops tomorrow.”

    “Portsmouth? Yeah! Um, but you can’t drive.”

    No, but I have now discovered that Graham Howell from the service station runs a very small taxi service that only serves the villagers, like, not the weekenders and retirees, he doesn’t advertise it at all, but the villagers all know that if you give him a bit of notice he’ll be only too happy to take you anywhere, day tours to stately ’omes included. And if it’s Portsmouth, for shopping, he won’t charge you for the time between dropping you off and picking you up because he can always do some errands or go to the pub or pop in to see his sister or all three. So after we unpack, half-heartedly in my case and very thoroughly in Imelda’s, I can hear her opening and shutting the tallboy drawers and the door of the white built-in wardrobe like anything, we go downstairs and I ring him. No sweat, pick us up around tennish, is the word.

    I don’t fancy mucking round making dinner, or even waiting while she does, but Imelda solves that by opening the large plastic container she put in the fridge earlier. Mum said we hadda have this tonight! Gee, no argument from me. Dunno what it is, but it’s extra, and we put it on some rice that she makes in double-quick time. Tim gets all excited but he’s not allowed any, and I explain very carefully to Imelda that there’s something in onion that's poison to dogs. It can't be, onion’s very good for you! Yes, but dogs’ metabolisms are different from humans’, and it’s quite true, John had a friend when he was a boy whose puppy died because he gave it something with onion in it. Not curry or pizza, no, I think it was before pizza, actually. She looks awed but not entirely convinced.

    “It’s like aspirin is to cats, see?”

    A great light dawns. She knows about that, they’ve got a cat (Sproggins, Greg named it that for a joke, and it stuck.) She’ll never give Tim anything with onion in it ever!

    Good. And we dump the plates in the dishwasher, she knows all about that, in fact she can work it better than me, and does so. I’m not allowed coffee: her mum’s ordered her to see that I don’t drink too much coffee; so she makes some herb tea and we take it and the sweets Mrs Singh’s provided into the main room and light the fire.

    Tim comes and lies down with a huffing noise on the rug and she eyes him cautiously. “Can he eat sweets?”

    “What’s in them?”

    “Dried full-cream milk and sugar and rosewater.”

    “Gee, no wonder they taste so good! Well, he's not officially supposed to have sweets at all”—she gives a muffled snigger, she’s got it—“but if that’s all they’ve got in them, one would probably be all right. Though milk makes him chuck up.”

    She decides we better not risk it.

    The phone rings while Tim and me are in the kitchen, ostensibly getting me another cup of herb tea but actually checking his bowl to make sure she gave him enough water—she didn’t, he never drinks it all and it’s empty, so I refill it, slurp, gasp, slurp—and she rushes in and gasps: “It’s a man! I think it’s him!”

    “Good, now I can get off to bed,” I concede, yawning. “Can you let Tim out, Imelda? Just go to the back door and open it, he’ll go out!” I shout, going into the sitting-room. “Hullo?”

    “Hullo, darling, so you got there safely? Who on earth was that who answered the phone? One of your friends from Henny Penny?”

    I explain. He agrees dubiously that she’ll be company for me. But what about school? I explain. He sees. And how’s Tim? I deliver my report. And how’s his work going, and does he know yet when he’s coming home? It still looks as if the whole picture may have changed with the new administration, he can’t say more than that, and he doesn’t yet know when he’ll be home but it will be very soon. And am I keeping well and not doing too much? I lie… And has the publicity been very foul? I lie…

    When I hang up I realise there’s a sort of strange feeling behind me so I go out and look for her. She’s in the kitchen, crying. “He went out, but he won’t come in!” she wails.

    “No, he usually likes to stay out for at least half an hour. Then it’s judged fair to call him in, and if he doesn’t come, you shut the back door and let him shiver outside all night. No, well,” I say to her appalled face, “that’s the theory. Actually you toss and turn for a couple of hours, preventing your girlfriend from nodding off, and then you sit up and say loudly ‘Damn the brute!’ and rush downstairs and let him in. Saying bad words, usually.”

    “I see,” she says, grinning weakly.

    “Yeah, well, come on back in the warm and have another lolly before I eat them all.”

    She does come back but looks longingly in the direction of the telly.

    “Go on, turn it on, we can watch it until it’s time to let him in, but then I’m gonna turn in, I’m beat.”

    She turns it on. Parkinson, whaddelse?—Gee, is it that early?—Guess who? Varley Wanking Knollys, trying unconvincingly to look deprecating. Fortunately we’ve missed most of him. He doesn’t break the news the Beeb have picked up Simeon’s Quest for their next full colour, It-Never-Rains-In-Southern Telly-Oxford, sell-it-to-the-Yanks mega-epic, so they can’t have. Sucks to him. Then it’s Poppy Mountjoy, on the strength of her family connections, presumably, it can’t be on the strength of that Dr Susan Dane part of hers, that’s for sure, ’specially given that it’s now been canned. She’s mostly talking about the Mountjoy Midsummer Festival, shit, is it on again? Uh—yeah, last year it was off, right. This year she's co-artistic director. Right, that’s out, even if I had been so mad as to think of going, which I hadn’t. No mention of those kids of hers, wonder how they’re getting on? I start to tell Imelda about her dear little boy but stop, she doesn’t wanna know. Ooh, Rosie, did you hear that? They’re having Adam McIntyre this year! I brighten momentarily. Doing Horner? If so, I’ll spring for— Bummer. Not The Country Wife but The Man Of Mode. Varley’s actually looking interested: he asks if McIntyre’s taking Dorimant? No, Sir Fopling Flutter, just a comic cameo, really, quite a departure for him. Varley rejoins with some tale about McIntyre doubling as one of the comic artisans when he was out in New Zealand doing the Dream, no, before the film, in the amateur production that gave Derry Dawlish the inspiration for it, blah-blah, it look as if he’s about to race off with the conversation, Michael doesn’t interrupt, either he doesn’t care or it’s all rehearsed or, also possible, he’s hoping Poppy’ll lose her rag and shout Varley down…

    They don’t actually come to blows and it gets very boring, Imelda nips out to see if there was any sign of Tim. –No. So here’s the third guest. I choke. They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel: Gaynor Grahame? Who’s she? You may well ask, Imelda! God Almighty, it’s a pink sequinned top and tight pants under a flowing satin pink, uh, skirt? Panniers? Like, a long skirt, only open at the front? The best of both worlds, right. Smotheringly feminine while dealing competently with those bloody camera angles. Just about to open as what? Who cares, it’ll be more of the same. Then it’s the name-dropping stakes, which Parky wins by a nose, though Gaynor gamely picks up each gambit, tosses it in the air and demolishes it. Pity he doesn’t really give her her head, she knows all the dirt about everybody in the Business since 1930. I’ve actually heard of some of them. She’s starting to really give us the low-down on poor darling Larry, darling Viv and dearest Peter—crumbs, really? I never knew that!—but Michael stops her: isn’t she going to give us a song? Oh, God. One song and the sprightliest dance you ever saw, you must admit she’s wonderfully game, always feature in any Gaynor Grahame show. So they let her rip. I Did It My Way. God knows why. She doesn’t dance, possibly their insurance couldn’t cover the risk. The studio audience claps numbly and Gaynor smiles and smiles and kisses her hand...

    “I thought that was a man’s song?” says Imelda numbly.

    No kidding? “Yeah.” I get up. “I’m gonna call Tim.”

    He comes racing up, thank God, so I lock and bolt the back door, check the front door, make sure the screen’s safely in place in front of the fire, tell Imelda not to touch it and to put all the lights out when she’s ready, and stumble upstairs.

    Saturday morning, tennish. “Sorry, Graham, forgot about this!” I gasp, as, two seconds after he’s come into the kitchen, grinning, I throw up in the sink.

    “She’s having a—” Imelda breaks off.

    “Don't spread it round the village, Graham, John doesn’t know yet,” I say weakly.

    Graham’s a plump, amiable, balding middle-aged character. Shit, no, he won’t tell anyone! And when is he due back?

    “Any day now,” says Imelda firmly before I can tell a weak lie.

    I smile weakly. “Yeah.”

    “Um, well, what do you want me to do, Rosie? Come back later? Or you want Imelda to do your shopping for you?”

    “Yes!” she cries eagerly. “I can!”

    “Yes, but you don’t know the Portsmouth shops. Blast! ’Scuse—” Stumble over to the sink again.

    “Well, what you want to get? Can I help?” asks Graham calmly. True, he is the father of four. Was Molly this sick? Is everybody this sick? I rinse the sink out yet again and re-rinse it with John’s Dettol, yet again.

    “More disinfectant, that’s for sure. Um, well, where’s the list?”

    Imelda’s got the list. Graham raises his eyebrows slightly but says he can help. Weakly I give her my credit card and let the pair of them go off, Imelda assuring the poor man she knows the trick of the gates, she’ll shut them for him! I’d feel sorrier for him but I’m throwing up again. Maybe I might go back to bed: maybe if I lie down I’ll feel better…

    Much later. “You bought what?”

    “Uh—could take it back,” says poor Graham, looking foolish. “It was on your list, though. And it was on sale.”

    Imelda’s bought a sewing machine. Compared to Aussie prices, it was cheap, yeah, one mercy. “You can’t make curtains without one!”

    “But I thought we were only going to trim the curtains?” I say weakly.

    “No, the duvets. We’re going to make under-curtains, ruffled ones, like Tiffany’s got in her room!”

    Thinks: yeah, but her and your mum made those. Oh, well, let her, it’ll keep her occupied.

    “Um, sorry, Rosie,” says Graham sheepishly as she rushes out to turn the kitchen table into a sewing table.

    “Gee, don’t apologise, Graham, it was on the list!”

    “Yeah,” he says, grinning sheepishly.

    “Never mind, it’ll keep her busy while I’m working.”

    He’s looking at the computer and the piles of re-sorted folders on the dining table. “Right. You’ve made a start, eh?”

    “No, this is only the beginning of the start!” I admit with a laugh. “Nothing’s plugged in, ye—” Bummer, he’s off and running.

    Fortunately he knows what he’s doing and gets the printer and scanner working, no sweat, and do I want him to connect the modem? No, I won’t need it, thanks. And did they get any lunch? Yeah—sheepish grin—took her to McDonald’s. Good. How much do I owe him? He starts to protest but eventually lets me pay him back for the lunches and the parking lot as well as the fare. I think he's telling the truth about the fare, it sounds about right. Unless he undercharged me last time. And we all have a cup of tea and he goes, with renewed thanks, both of us waving like mad, Tim being held back forcibly, he doesn’t like Graham’s car, and Imelda rushing off officiously to shut the gate after him.

    We go back inside and I have my first Indian sewing lesson. Good grief, it’s got a slow speed! Maybe I can do this after all.

    She’s beaming with pride: she chose it specially! See, it’s this lever here: when it’s in this position— I can never remember levers and switches, I don’t admit this. Go on, try hemming this ruffle, Rosie! She’s already ironed the hem down, the other end of the kitchen table has become an ironing board. Concentrating like mad, I sew. Clunk—clunk—clunk: it’s wonderful, you can see it doing it, it’s not like Grandma’s terrifying machine that she reckoned any idiot could work. Me being the idiot that was the exception to the rule, natch. Clunk—clunk—clunk… Hurray! I did it! She examines it critically. Quite good. But because a machined hem will show, you have to be very, very careful to get it even. Concentrate on keeping this side of the foot against the edge of the hem, see? I nod meekly. I can do another ruffle and then she’ll take over. I do another ruffle. Clunk—clunk—clunk… Phew, done. Good. I’ve improved. And she takes over competently.

    Thankfully I creep back to my nice, easy sociology and statistics. Boy, sewing takes it out of ya, I’m sweating all over…

    Later. Mrs Singh rings up. Is she behaving herself? She’s been wonderful, she’s doing some sewing for me, and she unpacked all my books while I had a nap yesterday, and judging by the wonderful smell coming from the kitchen she’s cooking up something really delish for dinner! And thank you so much for the curry last night, it was extra! And the sweets. That was nothing and the sweets will be good for me, they’re full of calcium and not to let her have too many of them, they’re not for her. I go and get her and warn her: “It’s your mum, and I’ve given you the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, so for God’s sake do us a favour and talk some Punjabi at her.”

    “All right. Stir this,” she says amiably, going.

    I stir. It doesn’t look like anything from our freezer and definitely not like anything in the cupboards and certainly not like anything I put on the shopping list, but never mind, it smells great. “Um, I don’t suppose you could teach me to make this, could you, Imelda?” I bleat as she comes back.

    “Festina lente,” she says smugly. “I’ve ironed some more hems, you can do some more ruffles if you like.”

    Folks, by now I know a Royal Naval order when I hear one, there’s no if I like about it, so I sit down, and sew, clunk—clunk—clunk, sweating all over.

    Good, I’ve really got the trick of it. She’ll teach me how to do this curry later in the week, it’s really easy. Can I get the rice out, please? Numbly I search for rice, numbly I chop when she tells me to, stir when she tells me to, and fetch things, frequently the wrong things.

    Being as how the kitchen table’s a sewing table and the dining table’s an office desk, we end up sitting in front of the telly with trays on our knees. Hers is the nice wooden one from the “pantry” and mine is… “Um, Imelda, I think this is silver.”

    “Yes, Mum’s best one’s just like it.” She looks at my face. “It is washable, you know.”

    “Mm, only, um, did you read this stuff on it?”

    “It’s still a tray, though.”

    It’s a trophy. It was over on the bookcase next to the fireplace by his chair with his silver cups for boxing and cricket… Oh, well. First time in its Royal Naval boring existence it’s ever been used, but so much the better, a tray is, as she says, still a tray.

    “They need polishing, I’ll do them tomorrow.”

    “Huh? Um, his cups? Um, yeah, thanks very much, Imelda.”

    Tomorrow, Sunday. Tennish. She’s polishing his cups, all right: the kitchen’s filled with the smell of— I rush over to the sink and throw up.

    “Go back  to bed, Rosie, I’ll bring you up a cup of weak tea a bit later.”

    I totter back to bed.

    Very much later. The Potters won’t eat her, in fact Harry will probably get an instant crush on her and Gwennie and Cora will probably think her urban grunge is fab. And Jim and Isabel won’t be that interested, they’re used to teenage kids. But on the other hand, at her age I’d of died sooner than front up to a strange house, no, shop, worse, and ask to speak to some kids that I didn’t even know.

    “All right, we’ll both go, why not? I need the exercise and Tim always like a walk.”

    “Wuff! Wuff!” He’s been sticking closer than a brother, poor Tim. Maybe he thinks I’m about to go away and desert him again. Which of course I am, only not for another full week and it’ll only be between Monday arvo and Wednesday lunchtime. How I’m gonna manage rehearsing with wanking Paul Mitchell while I’m throwing up every ten minutes I have no idea. Just rush out every ten minutes to throw up, I guess.

    She thinks it’s a long way but I point out that in urban terms it’s about the distance from her place to her mate Georgette Williamson’s and back, and she frequently does that twice in a day. Yes, but this is all country! I don’t point out that it’s only country until you’re over the other side of the hill and down the road, she can see that for herself.

    She thinks the village is lame but that was to be expected, our block and the next side street where Sally and Raewyn’s dry-cleaning shop is have got more shops between them than the village has. I point out the Garden Centre but she doesn’t get it. I point out the arty-tarty shop but all she says is: “Good, maybe we can find something there to brighten up the Navy Room.” (We’ve started calling it that and as the 1st of March is fast approaching we’d better get out of the habit bloody quick.) We don’t pop into the superette, we’ll grab the one or two things we didn’t put on our Portsmouth list or she’s thought of since on the way back. We cross over and I explain to her that that’s the up-market baker’s for the weekenders and retirees, ignore it. She looks down her nose and notes that it’s only got ordinary stuff anyway. It has if you’ve lived all your life in London, that’s for sure. Two blocks along from the flats there’s a completely fab shop, a Jewish delicatessen that has the most gorgeous bread rolls ever, like with tiny bits of chopped onion and salt on top and, dig this, although the onion’s all cooked with the roll it’s never bitter or burned. Mr Goldman makes other bread, too, but those are the best. He’s got this huge old barrel and he keeps his dill pickles in that, like it’s filled with the pickle water, geddit? They’re the best pickles I ever tasted.

    We go into POTTER, Ironmonger, Tim of course coming, too. There’s a crush of weekenders and retirees in expensive goose-down padded anoraks or those awful padded raincoats or heavy camel hair, plus and the up-market tweed hats and headscarves like the Queen’s, so we wait. God knows what they’re all buying. Can’t be nails or screws, they’re reported to be incapable of lifting a hammer or handling a screwdriver. Can’t be anything to do with their water pipes, they’re very reliably reported to get plumbers in from Portsmouth to do all that. Uh—electric tin-openers? I’d of thought they all already had twenty of those.

    “Hi, Jim. What on earth did that lot want?”

    “Don’t ask,” he groans. “How are you, Rosie?”

    Cora pops up beside him like the genie. “We saw you on Parkinson!”

    “Huh? Oh—couple of weeks back. Yeah. How are you, Cora?”

    “Good!” she beams. She’s the youngest, only just thirteen, bright as a button, round-faced, golden curls, and said to be a Holy Terror.

    “This is Imelda, she lives in my street. This is Cora, she’s the youngest,” I explain.

    They stare inimically at each other like two cats and Jim Potter digs his elbow into his one’s side and says: “Say hullo, she won’t bite,” and I dig my elbow into my one’s side and say: “You can say hullo, they do speak English, this isn’t the North Pole.”

    They growl “Hullo,” and Jim says cheerfully over them: “Only ruddy feels like it, eh? How you coping in that bloody cottage, Rosie?”

    “Fine. We got lots of wood,”—our eyes meet meaningly for an instant—“and I brought down another electric heater.”

    “That’s good, because I just sold the last of mine. Half of them seem to have thought this was the South of France.”

    “Yeah,” I agree, as Harry and Gwennie emerge from the back regions looking suspiciously at Imelda. “Hi, Harry, hi, Gwennie. This is Imelda.”

    “Hullo,” she says sulkily before she can be humiliatingly prompted again.

    “We actually came to ask you if the teachers are on strike here, too,” I add.

    Jim gives a deep groan and sags all over his counter and Harry admits, grinning like anything: “Yeah, they are. They’re gonna be out all week.”

    “This delight,” notes Jim sourly, leaning on his counter, “doesn't mean there’s anything to do here, though.”

    “Ya mean like no cinema and no video-game parlours? Right.”

    “I never said a word about video parlours and anyway, video games are lame!” she bursts out.

    “I know. I was speaking generally, Imelda, not getting at you. –She’s been great, actually, Jim, she’s been making the dinner and doing a lot of sewing for the spare room.”

    “Can you sew?” breathes Cora in awe.

    “Yeah. So what?”

    “Hey, didja sew that?”

    Under the black parka, which seems to have sprouted even more dangly bits of metal—actually I think two of those are John’s horse brasses, but what the Hell—she’s wearing, as an under-layer, a giant black high-necked jumper and over that there’s a… It might’ve started off as a tee-shirt. No, two tee-shirts. Brown and grey. It’s kind of like a crazy-paving pattern and the bits in between the pavers are silver sequins.

    “Yeah. So what?”

    “Hey, it’s really cool!” breathes Cora.

    Imelda brushes at it slightly, looking carelessly off-hand. “Not bad.”

    “Did you do that to that scarf?” asks Gwennie abruptly.

    It’s a long pale grey muffler (proving that the entire thing’s an Outfit, and yes, she is wearing the panama), and it’s been given the same treatment as the school muffler. “Yeah,” she says suspiciously.

    “It’s great,” she sighs enviously.

    “You do that to your school scarf your mum hadda spend megabucks of my hard-earned on and I personally will rend you limb from limb,” notes Jim cordially.

    Ignoring that completely, Gwennie says: “Hey, ya wanna listen to CDs?”

    Imelda actually looks at me pleadingly.

    “Yeah, go on, why not? Me and Tim’ll grab the stuff from the superette, there won't be much to carry.”

    Cora’s already lifted the flap in the counter invitingly and they all disappear into the back regions.

    “That the desired result?” says Jim with a grin.

    “More or less, yeah. What in God’s name are they all gonna do for a week, Jim?”

    “Dunno. Listen to pop music and drive Isabel crazy?”

    “Yeah,” I concede as very, very loud pop music starts up and Isabel is heard to scream from the back regions: “TURN THAT DOWN!”

    The noise abates to the point where we can hear actual speech and Jim says: “Send her over here if she's driving you mad, Rosie.”

    “Thanks, Jim. Well, she has got plenty to do, actually, her father loaded her up with her schoolbooks”—he snorts—“and she’s started this project of redecorating the spare room.”

    “Does the Captain know?” he says immediately.

    “Sufficient unto the day,” I reply blandly. He chokes but eyes me uneasily.

    “It’s not teenage grunge and posters of pop stars, Jim, it’s blue and white striped material that she’s making ruffles out of.”

    He allows that doesn’t sound too bad and informs two well swaddled blue-rinsed ladies that he’s sold the last little electric fire. They go, not hiding the fact that they’re very, very annoyed with him.

    “You wouldn’t have a bread saw, would you, Jim? John’s got this up-market electric knife and I’m terrified of letting the kid anywhere near—” He’s produced some. Thank God. I’m gonna lock that electric knife in John’s bedside cupboard, one of the few in the place with an actual lock, and put the key in my handbag. I tell him this and he expresses great sympathy, wraps the bread saw carefully, and asks me on a grim note exactly when John is due back? Not receiving the vague reply with anything like pleasure. Then he tells me to hang on, and nips out. Meanwhile another well-swaddled lady, this time supported by a well-swaddled thin little hubby, both of the camel-hair variety, come in so I tell them: “If you’re looking for little electric fires, Jim’s just sold the last one,” and they go, looking very, very annoyed.

    “Another pair of electric fire hunters just came in,” I explain as he and Isabel come in, grinning.

    “Up theirs, then.”

    “Jim! –How are you, Rosie?” Is it my imagination or is she looking at me narrowly?

    “Cora’s already told her we saw her on Parkinson,” he notes.

    “Shut up! I wasn’t going to say any such thing! Well, we did, actually, Rosie. You looked very nice. Did they tell you to say all that?”

    “Yeah, ’course.”

    She nods pleasedly and hands over the big newspaper package she’s hugging.

    “Wuff! Wuff!”

    “Tim! Sit!”

    Isabel admits it is bones—Wuff!—and she was gonna make soup, but she was kidding herself, the kids won’t touch it. And I thank her profusely and put the B,O,N,E,S in the shopping bag, just as well I brought one, and grab Tim’s lead, and we all bid fond farewells, Isabel looking at me narrowly throughout, it’s not my imagination because as I close the shop door I hear him hiss: “What didja have to stare at her like that for?”

    At the superette Murray’s delighted to see me and so are his customers except for two blue-rinsed ones that look down their noses, one of them actually asking if they can expect any service. God. So then Murray tells her that there isn’t any peanut butter, they had a big run on it last week, everybody seems to be making saté sauce. And she goes, looking coldly annoyed.

    “Is everybody making saté sauce?” I ask, propping my elbows on the counter, as the other blue-rinsed lady, having been informed that if there were no minted peas in the freezer then there are no minted peas, lady, also goes, looking furious.

    “Not to my knowledge,” he replies blandly.

    We collapse in sniggers.

    And then Belinda comes out from the back regions and after enquiries after my health during which she looks at me narrowly, I get the full report on Terry Stout’s new venture as land agent’s assistant in Portsmouth (shades of Varley’s wanking Simeon’s Quest, though I don't say it), the gist being he’s a dismal failure at it as both his parents predicted he would be. No killer instinct. And finally, though not before Murray’s asked me grimly exactly when John is due back, I complete my purchases and bid fond farewells and go, Murray hissing as I close the shop door and hurry to untie poor Tim from the lamp post: “Why’d ya have to keep staring at the poor girl like that?”

    All I can say is, John better come back P.D.Q., because obviously, while Graham Howell didn’t tell anybody, he of course told Molly, spouses don’t count. And she’ll have told Belinda Stout, because guess what, Belinda’s her sister. And sisters don’t count. Is there any blood tie between the Potters and the Stouts? ’Cos it’s obvious Isabel knows. Put it like this, if he isn’t back P.D.Q. there’ll probably be a lynch mob waiting for him when he does turn up.

    Much later. Jim rings to say not to worry that it’s getting dark—I hadn’t noticed, in this dull weather you need the lights on in the cottage anyway, and I was buried in my work—he's just gonna run Imelda home in the van.

    “You don’t need to, Jim, she’s got legs.”

    He rubbishes this and hangs up. I go into the kitchen and open the fridge and close it again and open some cupboards and close them again. Dunno what she was planning for tea, sorry, dinner, but I better not start anything, it’ll be the wrong thing.

    As it turns out neither of us has to cook because Isabel’s sent over a huge quiche, no, don't argue, Rosie, it was going begging, she made two because Jim’s sister and her ruddy husband (unquote) were threatening to come over from Portsmouth this evening only they just rang to cancel it. So we have quiche, it’s stuffed with ham and onion and tinned asparagus, it’s absolutely yummy. Imelda wonders if she could make it so I tell her I’m sure she can, and fetch her one of John’s cookery books that he’s never managed to make anything from, and so the evening passes peacefully, her alternately reading bits from the cookery book, largely aloud—“Ooh, listen to this!” or “Hey, this sounds good!”—and vetoing everything I want to watch on the telly. So we watch mindless American crap. John rings up in the middle of the most mindless stuff so I give him a very full report and he says he’s very glad that I’m enjoying the village. I don’t work up the guts to tell him we’re redecorating the spare room, and he doesn’t know when he can leave, so what’s new?

    Imelda makes me a cup of peppermint tea to cheer me up, it doesn’t but eating the last of those yummy calcium-rich rosewater lollies does. And so to bed…

    Monday. I get up determinedly and work in the intervals of rushing to the sink—wish there was a downstairs loo, the upstairs ones are too far to reach in time. Imelda considerately just has toast and coffee for breakfast because the smell of anything cooked might upset me. Then she sets the dishwasher going—one teaspoon, one mug, one small plate, one knife, right—and gets on with the machining. It’s the big ruffles for the duvets this morning. Then she brings them down and there’s a fair bit of grunting and several Blow!’s and one actual Bugger! but I don’t investigate. She comes in to ask if I can remember where “we” put the booklet that came with the machine. I can’t, but advise the kitchen drawers and she finds it and reports that she has. Silence falls apart from the sound of the dishwasher (it hasn’t got a short-short cycle) and the sound of the sewing machine.

    “Look!”

    I jump ten thousand feet. “Oh, wow. Those look great, Imelda!”

    She beams, and we go upstairs to put the now frilled duvets back on the beds. Shit, even though there’s no visible change yet to the curtains the room already looks almost human! Especially as she’s replaced the tailored navy pillowcases with the new pale blue floral ones she got in Portsmouth, on sale, they were once part of a set, unquote.

    After lunch (pizza from the freezer, she informs Tim sternly that it’s not for him, poison, see?) she stands on one leg and asks can she go over to Harry and Gwennie and Cora’s?

    “Yeah, sure. Wrap up warm. Got your gloves?”

    Of course she has, great scorn, and she vanishes.

    Peace reigns…

    The phone rings and I jump ten thousand feet. It’s only Rupy, he’s at rehearsal, they’re having a break, Paul is furious with Darryn, he’s let the hair grow and he’s wearing designer stubble! (Don’t point out this doesn’t matter as they’re not ready to film yet.) And the actress slated for this episode’s ageing paramour has broken her leg skiing, Paul’s furious! Did I see Varley and darling Gaynor on the box? Weren’t they dire? No argument there. How am I? I admit I’m still throwing up, there’s no point in lying to Rupy, but that it seems to be slackening off towards ten o’clock, touch wood.

    Then I get back to it, Tim replaces his chin on my ankles, and peace reigns again…

    Blast! The ruddy phone again! “Hullo?”

    Imelda’s ringing from Le Petit Cabinet de Carole. Huh? Oh—the arty-tarty shop, right. (Thought cabinet meant something rude in French?) “What’ve ya broken?” I ask tactlessly in doomed tones. Nothing! Um, only there’s some lovely pictures and “we” haven’t got any money. Who’s she with? Oh, only the Potter kids, right. How much are these lovely— Jesus Flaming Christ! Tell the bloody woman we’re not weekenders, Imelda! Yikes, she does. Then she offers me an amended price if I buy the set. Each? No, for the set—that’s right, isn’t it? Carole or whoever confirms this. Well and good, but I can’t buy them over the phone. No, but the lady will put them aside— Yeah, yeah. I write down the amended price very large on the telephone pad and agree. They’ll be foul, kids of that age don’t know the difference between crap and Monet, but too bad, let her have them. And John can choke on it.

    I go back to my work…

    “Hi!” she pants, bursting in from the back passage. I jump ten thousand feet.

    “Hi. Uh—hi, Harry—Gwennie—Cora,” as they burst in, panting. “No, Tim! Sit!” as Cora gasps and shrinks. He sits.

    Can she take them up— Sure. They thunder upstairs. In two seconds flat the noise starts up. “HEY! STOP THAT BLOODY ROW!” Nothing. Right. I march upstairs and burst into her room without ceremony. “TURN THAT OFF!” Harry’s so stunned he does. “In case I forgot to mention it, the one house rule of this cottage is, no loud pop music will be played, at all.”

    “But—”

    “It’s aural crap, I hate it, I’m trying to work, and DON'T DARE TO TURN THAT ON AGAIN!”

    Harry’s hand retreats from the giant ghetto-blaster: must be his, she didn’t bring one. I snatch it up. “Assimilate this. If this gets turned on again, it will be chucked out of that window down two storeys to the frozen ground, geddit?”

    He’s bright red and he chokes: “It’s mine! You got no right!”

    “That’s probably true, Harry, but who’s gonna sue me if I do? Your dad? The only way any of you are gonna listen to this crap is with headphones on, and I don’t care if you haven’t got any! Got it?”

    They’ve got it, they get up looking sulky and Gwennie says defiantly: “We can always go home.”

    “Ya can go, for mine. I’ve come down here to work, not to argue with stroppy teenagers.”

    Imelda bursts out: “You’re really mean, Rosie!”

    “No, I’m not, you knew I was coming down to work but you volunteered to come anyway.” I hold the ghetto-blaster up. “What’s it gonna be? Two storeys to its death or keep the bloody thing turned off?”

    Harry glares and mutters: “Off.”

    “Good.” I hand it back to him.

    Gwennie bursts out: “But there’s nothing to do here!”

    “It’s not a teenage video parlour, it’s a civilised house. Ya want music, John’s got stacks of CDs of Bach and Mozart.” Ugh, no, yuck. “Or ya can go in the kitchen and make sweets, Imelda reckons she knows how to make these fab Indian sweets her mum does.”

    They try not to look eager, and grudgingly concede they might try it. I go back downstairs, not bothering to wait while they decide. Two seconds later they’re all down with me. Can they really? Yeah, no sweat. If they burn the pots—they WON’T!—I don’t care: he’s got enough pots in there to stock Harrods. Smiling uncertainly, they go out to the kitchen. “And SHUT THE DOOR!” Someone shuts it and I hear the kitchen door also being shut cautiously. God Almighty, what a fuss, was I that stroppy at that— Don’t answer that. Well, I was never into the loud pop music crap, but Kenny certainly was, it drove Dad ropeable. Mum didn't much care, she hasn’t got an ear, but she didn’t like it when it got too loud.

    I put one of John’s Mozart CD’s in the player and work on peacefully, ignoring the strange smells that filter through from the kitchen and the occasional loud crash and the occasional burst of shouting…

    Much later. “Um, are you still working?”

    “I'm not just sitting here admiring the bloody computer, Cora. What’s up?”

    “Um, nothing. We’ve done the sweets.”

    I can hear the dishwasher chugging, let’s hope it can cope with burnt milk and burnt sugar. “Goodoh. They turn out okay?

    Most of them. Right. And Imelda says they have to cool. That’d be right. I look at her expectantly and she bursts out: “Is it all right with you if we stay for dinner? Imelda says she’s gonna a do a real curry and we won’t play the ghetto-blaster or anything!”

    Did they send her because she’s the youngest, like, bully her into it? No, I don’t think anybody bullies Cora. Because they thought she was the most appealing? She is, but I’m the wrong sex. No, must be that she volunteered herself because she’s got more guts than both her siblings put together.

    “If you can stand it, stay for dinner by all means, Cora. But you’ll have to check with your mum, she might’ve started cooking something.”

    “No, she said she was tired of feeding our great mouths, it’d be fish fingers.”

    “Nevertheless, ring her.” She rings her. There’s the usual squawks of protest from the phone, and indignant squawks in reply from Cora, and then Isabel wants to speak to me, so I reassure her they’re welcome and explain it won’t be any extra work for me, Imelda’s doing the cooking. Oh, well, in that case... Jim’ll pick them up at nine-thirty, if I can stand it that long. I think I can. Have they been behaving themselves? she asks in a doomed voice. Did Harry bring that damned ghetto-blaster of his with him? I explain the noise started up but I nipped it in the bud. Isabel asks in awed tones how I managed it. “Threatened to drop the bloody thing out the window, Isabel. The upstairs window.” She laughs like a drain and says she’ll try it. And the horrible thing has got ear plugs (sic) but he won’t use them. She reminds me again that their father’ll collect them at nine-thirty and rings off.

    “You can stay. Your dad’ll collect you at har’ past nine.”

    “Half past nine!”

    “I got the impression that was a sine qua non, Cora.”

    She can’t admit she doesn't know what that is, so she just says weakly she’ll tell them, and disappears.

    I put another CD in the player and get on with it…

    Turns out the Potter kids have never had a real Indian meal before but none of them dares to say it’s really weird and they don’t like it. Imelda found some of those packets of own-brand yellow split peas in a cupboard so that’s what the main dish is, split pea curry, and there’s a potato curry, think it’s got tamarind water in it, mm! and a spinach curry. None of them dares to say they hate spinach but Harry pokes at his with a very dubious expression on his face. And bought chapattis, they’re fiddly to make and this brand isn’t bad. None of them know what to do with them and they watch in awe as Imelda and I break bits off ours and scoop up curry and convey the result to our mouths…

    “Try it. If it goes on the floor, no worries, floorboards are washable.”

    Gwennie looks askance at the Persian rug but doesn’t say anything.

    After a bit, as Imelda and I are seen to take spoonfuls of the yoghurt in between our hand-held mouthfuls of curry, Cora squeaks: “I thought that was pudding?”

    Imelda stares at her and I say: “No. Go on, try it. I’d recommend a mouthful of the potato curry, it’s the hottest one, and then a mouthful of the yoghurt.” She tries it.

    Harry’s investigating the pickle. “Ow! Help!”

    “You took too much,” I say, handing him his iced water. He gulps and gasps, his eyes stream.

    “How hot is it?” says Gwennie in horror,

    “Not very hot,” Imelda and I both say. We grin at each other and she explains: “It’s only a bought one.”

    It takes some time but they eventually start to eat and eventually it all disappears and Cora actually wants some more potato curry and Harry wants some more of the funny one.—The split pea, right.—And admits he always thought that curry had meat in it.

    “We often have meat, we’re not vegetarians,” says Imelda calmly. He nods dazedly.

    After that everyone washes their hands and the bowls are rinsed, just as well John’s got so many pudding bowls, eh?—Heh, heh.—And Imelda makes a big pot of peppermint tea and the kids opt for Coke instead and we eat the sweets. Some of them: she’s made trays and trays. It’s all taken quite some time so Cora’s just deciding she can manage one more of those lovely squashy balls in the lovely sauce when Jim taps at the front door. Great cries of dismay and consternation but eventually, grinning all over his face and wringing my hand and saying with a wink he’ll try that window trick, he drags them off.

    “I don’t think they really liked it,” says Imelda sadly.

    “Uh—they did in the end, Imelda. It takes a bit of time to get used to a completely different”—shit, almost said strange—“cuisine. And that place they go to in Portsmouth sounds like it serves English stew with a dollop of chilli in it.” She nods feelingly. And we go into the kitchen to put the bowls in the dishw— Strewth!

    “Uh—I guess it doesn’t do pots all that good, Imelda,” I say numbly, looking at the burnt messes on the bottoms of John’s big pots. She’s looking as if she’s gonna cry so I add: “There’s a fair few pot-scrapers, what say we soak them overnight and give them a good scrub tomorrow, eh? And if we can’t get them clean, too bad, we’ll chuck them out and he’ll never know.”

    “Really?” she gulps.

    “Yeah. What man counts his pots?”

    “Dad does.”

    “Uh—yeah, but that’s his business. I thought it was a great dinner, and that spinach curry was every bit as good as your dad’s.”

    “It wasn’t that good!” She’s bursting with pride.

    “Yes, it was, it had that sort of creamy taste his does.”

    At this point John rings so I give him a glowing description of the dinner and the sweets. And he says with a laugh in his voice: “What about the mess in the kitchen?” Well, there are one or two turmeric stains, but so what? I don't mention them, I just say sternly “Nonsense,” and he laughs like anything. But he still doesn’t know when he’ll be back…

    It’s been such an exhausting day that I call Tim in, never mind if he’s only had twenty min., and she’s evidently drained, too, so we just crawl off to bed.

    Tuesday. She’s scrubbing the pots like billyo when I stagger into the kitchen around tennish. Soaking-wet patch on the tum an’ all. “Let’s see. This one can go out, Imelda. Think it’s done its dash. Yeah, I can see you tried. Lemme look at that one you’ve got there. Look, chuck it out, too, eh?” But it’s a good stainless steel pot! Not now, it isn’t. (Don’t say it.) “Bugger that, the man can afford as many pots as he likes, chuck it out.” So they both get chucked out. Then she points out the turmeric stains I already noticed. “Too bad. It’ll wear off, in time. Think I might have a cuppa.”

    “Ooh, are you feeling better?”

    “Put it like this, I chucked up from six-thirty on, and it seems to have worn off for today, touch wood.” She nods, looking horrified, and puts the jug on. I sit down on a hard kitchen chair with a sigh.

    “What are we gonna do today?”

    “Dunno. I did so much yesterday I’m whacked.”

    “I knew you were working too hard!”

    Something like that, yeah. “Yeah.”

    She tells me I need to pace myself, gets some tea and then some toast and Marmite down me, and I start to feel marginally alive and agree to have a shower.  I'm just coming down from it, feeling much better, as she rushes into the passage and hisses: “There’s a man!”

    “Let Tim out.”

    She lets Tim out and holds the back door tightly, ready to slam it shut on the burglars and rapists. “He’s not barking!” she hisses.

    “No, can’t hear any growling, either, prolly hasn’t got him by the leg. Oh, hullo, Jack,” I say as Jack Powell comes round the corner of the dinette, grinning, with Tim frisking at his heels.

    “Hullo, Rosie; how are you?”—Looking at me narrowly.—“Hullo, who’ve we got here?” I explain this is Imelda, she’s a friend, she lives in our street, as we go into the kitchen and Jack sits down at the kitchen table. “Need any odd jobs doing?”

    “Not real— Do we?” I say as she bursts out: “Yes!”

    She’s covered in embarrassment and it gets very involved but it amounts to, she bought this stretchy wire stuff and all the right things, but she can’t get it to fit! It’s for the inner curtains, the striped ones. She produces them. I see, she’s threaded them onto it: they look really, really ace. And this little hook thingo must be what she means. Jack take us upstairs and settles the bloody non-stretch stretch-wire in two seconds flat, only having to screw in Imelda’s screw-in thingos with an iron hand in the process. No human agency is ever gonna move them, that’s for sure. And we’ll never be able to wash the curtains because we’ll never be able to unhook— No, maybe John will, he’s got strong wrists… “Huh?”

    “Looks pretty, eh?” repeats Jack, grinning.

    She’s looped back the inner curtains with bows, they got frills all round the edges, see, they meet in the middle, half concealing the window, and then the severe navy ones are just allowed to form like a frame to them.

    “Yes, they look ace, Imelda.”

    Imelda explains in great detail that she got the idea off the way Mum and Tiffany did Tiffany’s room… And after he’s admired the frills on the duvets (that now match the inner curtains) and the new pillowslips, we go downstairs again and have a cuppa.

    “Plumbing okay?” he asks casually.

    I know now he’s a registered plumber, it says so on his truck, on its door, one of the reasons the village is so down on the weekenders and retirees that have their plumbing done by Portsmouth firms, so I tell him sadly the plumbing’s fine, only Imelda bursts out: “No, ’tisn’t!” And he gets her to admit that John’s fancy waste disposal isn’t working properly. Humming happily, Jack goes to turn the water off. Coming back, he warns us not to touch that switch on pain of— On second thoughts he goes to turn the electricity off. Then he settles down happily to completely dismantle the sink. Next he gives the dishwasher a really good going-over but we haven’t managed to bung that up yet, though he does clean it out for us. Then, humming happily, he vanishes upstairs…

    “What’s he gonna do?” she hisses.

    “I think, though he’s too kind to say so, Imelda, that he’s gonna check that neither of us have bunged up the bogs with tampons or pads, and that I haven't bunged up the bidet with sheer ignorance mixed with cack-handedness.”

    She nods, smiling guiltily. Yo, boy. Just as well he came, eh?

    “This means we’re gonna have to give him lunch,” I note.

    “Oh—yeah! Um, the electricity’s still off… Oh, well, I’ll use the Aga.” (The Tabla’s got one, it’s not like she took one look at the thing and miraculously knew what to do with it.) I nod feebly. “Does he like pizza?” she hisses. He must do, he’s a normal bloke. This feeble answer satisfies her. She bustles around starting the thing up. I just sit here limply, I can’t do any work until Jack turns the electricity back on. And anyway I’m still feeling drained…

    Eventually he comes back, smelling strongly of John’s best sandalwood soap, and grinning. “Don’t put pads down that toilet,” he says simply to Imelda. “It’ll handle tampons okay, but it doesn’t like pads.” He adds something technical about bends but she’s still in an agony of embarrassment.

    I get up. “Yeah, um, Jack, you wanna come and turn the electricity back on?”

    “Eh? Didn’t you put it on again?” But he ambles out to the lobby with me. I say feebly as he opens the fuse box’s little cupboard: “She’s only fifteen, Jack.”

    “Thought they all knew it all and then some, these days?”

    “They know it, but she’s probably only talked about things like periods and pads and stuff to her mum, and maybe her sisters. It’s not an Indian thing, all girls are like that.”

    He scratches his head. “Yeah… But no point in pretending it doesn’t exist, Rosie!”

    “No. And I certainly don’t want John’s plumbing stuffed up.”

    “No. Uh—I’ll watch it in future, shall I?” –Grin, grin.

    I bash his arm. “Yeah!”

    We go back to the kitchen. She’s apparently recovered, she’s putting the pizza in the oven. Jack wants to know how old the thing is—he means the stove, not the pizza. I tell him it dates from the ark like the cupboards and he agrees that’d be right. Glancing with interest at the new yellow stains on the awful lino and the cupboards.

    After the pizza and the sultana cake and the cups of tea he has to go. So I go out to the truck with him and he says casually, looking at me narrowly: “How you keeping, anyway, Rosie?”

    “All right,” I say with a sigh.

    Looks at me narrowly. “You look a bit washed out.”

    “I’m throwing up every morning, the doc says it’s normal, all right?”

    “Yeah,” he says, grin, grin. “When’s it due?”

    “Mid-September.”

    “Uh-huh. He know, yet?”

    “Not yet,” I sigh. “I thought it might be nicer to tell him face to face, y’know?”

    “When’s he due back, again?”

    “Very soon,” I sigh.

    “He better be,” he says grimly, getting into the  truck’s cab. “Take care!” He goes.

    I wander down the drive but he’s got out again and is shutting the gate. “Thanks! Bye, Jack!”

    Waving, he drives off one-handed…

    She doesn't let me off: later in the arvo we go over to the village and buy the set of pics from Carole at Le Petit Cabinet de Carole. Hand-painted watercolours of blue flowers never seen on the face of the planet. Very pretty, Imelda.

    Wednesday. I get a bit of work done until about two-thirty, when the Potter kids turn up. She’s gonna teach me and Gwennie and Cora how to do a simple meat curry. Harry wants to take Tim for a walk, can he? Yeah, sure, if he’ll go with you, Harry. Tim’ll take almost any human being for a walk, so they go off happily and us girls get down to it… It’ll freeze really well! Shit, it’ll have to, there’s gallons of it. We don’t feel we can take much of the credit, we just followed her instructions as she stood over us. Gwennie and Cora don’t wait for Harry, they’re so eager to show their mum their effort. The shock’ll kill Isabel, I’d say. They hurry off with their warm casseroles carefully packed in baskets. Whose are those? Oh, they brought them over for the porpoise; yeah, come to think of it, Jim’s shop has got baskets. Can I get back to it? Her face falls. Well, what’s she want to do? Re-cover that lamp she bought in Portsmouth? Ulp. “But I’m so cack-handed, Imelda: with the best will in the world I’ll be no use to you.” Turns out she can't understand the flaming instructions in the mag she got in Portsmouth that purports to tell you how to re-cover a lamp. We struggle through it…

    It’s pitch dark by the time Harry and Tim stagger in, both soaking wet.

    “Don't let him—” Too late, he shakes himself all over us. Then Harry is forced upstairs to take a shower and change into some of John’s clobber. He’s in agony, it’s equally embarrassing having to use Imelda’s bathroom or my ensuite. Finally he plumps for the ensuite, possibly because it’s nominally shared by a man? We don’t ask, we’re dragging Tim into the sitting-room and putting more wood on the fire and forcibly rubbing the brute dry with a good towel. Two good towels. How wet can a dog get? Three good towels!

    Then Jim rings up, absolutely ropeable: Harry was slated to do maths this afternoon, the lazy little sod, where is he? I explain about the long walk and the soaking and the didn’t realise how strong Tim is and the exhaustion and he relents slightly and agrees to come and get him.

    Imelda and me end up having pizza in front of the fire followed by mugs of cocoa, somehow neither of us feels like doing much cooking…

    Thursday and Friday having been more of the same, except the Potter kids didn’t come over, she went over there, and Tim didn’t get wet, and Jack didn’t turn up again, and she finished the redecorating by making a frilled cushion for the dressing-table stool, it looks ace, I suggest feebly on Saturday around tennish that maybe she oughta do some of that homework her Dad fondly believes— It’s Saturday! Yeah, and she didn’t do any schoolwork all week. I'm gonna be working all day: the village’ll be full of wanking weekenders, I warn, this gives her pause. Well, if she works all morning (two hours, right), can she go over to see Harry and Gwennie and Cora in the afternoon? Gee, why not, it’ll give me some peace. I graciously concede she may. She gets her schoolbooks and comes and sits herself down, ulp, at the far end of the dining table. This is where ya do your scholarly work, ya see. Oh, deary, deary me… Tim gives up and asks for Out, can you blame him? A short time passes…

    Um, she can’t do this, Rosie, can you show— It’s algebra, so the answer’s gonna be a lemon, unless their level of algebra for fifteen is about what our level was for thirteen? –No. Sorry. “All I know from algebra is that ‘a’ isn't always ‘a’, it can be ‘b’ or even ‘y’, I’m sorry, Imelda. And for God’s sake don’t mention the word ‘geometry’: my geometry’s even worse.”

    “I can do algebra and geometry,” says a meek, deep voice from the front door that we never noticed opening. Tim rushes in: “Wuff! Wuff!” Pant, bounce, excitement!

    “John!” I scream, abandoning the algebra and rushing over to hurl myself at him and burst into tears on his heavy navy Navy greatcoat.

    He hugs me very, very tight and says into my curls: “Don’t bawl, Rosie, darling.”

    “Why didn’t you say you were coming, you wanker?” I finally gasp. It certainly explains why he wasn’t there when I rung him last night, the wanker.

    “Didn’t know I was. Got my orders, then I had the chance of a lift on—er, a plane,” he says, coughing slightly. Right, be an illegal lift on a giant American Navy plane, they got planes, ya see. “So I just crammed my things into my bags and made a dash for it.” –Every single bag will be packed in not just neat but rigid order, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word “cram.”

    “Yes,” I say, hugging him and sniffing. “I’m so glad to see you!”

    “Good. Give us a kiss?”

    We have a long kiss and I lean on him heavily and he says with a smile in his voice: “So this is Imelda, is it?”

    “Eh?” Shit, I’d forgotten all about her. She’s looking embarrassed but also very, very pleased, that’s a relief. Well, John won’t mention pads or tampons in front of the kid, that’s for sure. So I introduce them nicely and she gets up awkwardly and big, tall John looks down at little, plump Imelda and smiles very much and gently engulfs her little brown hand in his big, pale, strong one.

    “Didn’t hurt, did it?” I say proudly.

    “Um, what?”

    “When he shook your hand. He knows how to shake a lady’s hand properly,” I say with great approval.

    “Oh! Um, yeah!” she gasps, all flustered.

    John smiles and strips his greatcoat off, and pulls up a chair beside hers. “Now, what about this algebra, eh? –Rosie, darling, a pot of English tea would be a lifesaver at this juncture.”

    “Yes, ’course. I’ll get ya some. English Breakfast?”

    “Wonderful!” he says with a laugh, picking up her chewed biro. “Let’s see…”

    I go out to the kitchen, grinning like an idiot. I can’t stop that glowing feeling that everything’ll be all right now, though logically, there’s no reason whatsoever to suppose it. I’m as preggy as ever, he’s as ignorant of the fact as ever, and he still hasn’t suggested marriage. I’m humming: what the—? “Love, love me do, you know I love you...” Yeah. Too right!