Episode 7: Lude Sing Cuckoo

Episode 7: Lude Sing Cuckoo

    Summer is a-cumen in, but gee, if you imagined that Household Names get summer holidays, you were wrong, there. First we gotta finish filming the second series that’s gonna go to air immediately after la rentrée, like what we were supposed to have finished in May, only what with constant interruptions from my Aunty Kate and two whole days spent personally signing computer-generated letters of thanks to all the fan mail that came in after Parkinson and was forwarded on to us (Brian’s idea, he went into a terrific gloat over it), and the sound being all wrong on one episode so we had to do the whole thing again… Yeah, well. SNAFU, geddit? Situation Normal, All— Right, you got it. Added to which, if we thought we were off the hook after that, we were wrong, see? Because in summer the British public goes fête and bazaar mad, there’s umpteen of them to open and if they can’t get a Royal, Lily Rose Rayne and Michael Manfred are the next choices. He’s over the moon about it, poor old creep. Personally I could do without it, I’m not a very good traveller, though unlike him I enjoy the actual fêtes and bazaars, rather than the fawning adulation and autograph signing. The Mountjoy Midsummer Festival isn’t on this year, but they want me and Rupy to do a guest spot at another festival. Rupy thinks it’s near Bournemouth; let’s hope so, because then we can drop in on dear old Maybelle.

    Added to added to which, Timothy Carlton, that’s Barbara’s boss, the head PR honcho, he’s done a deal with the Royal Navy whereby they will let us film a lot of publicity shots and backgrounds on one of their big ships and a submarine this summer, with some sort of agreement that no-one’s letting on to us hoi polloi the exact details of, that if Derry Dawlish makes a film of it the Royal Navy will also be in on the act. Sailing round the Med flying the Flag, I think. So, once it looks as if it might have stopped raining and the Fleet’s in, two periods which will not necessarily coincide, we’ve got to go down to Portsmouth, I’m not too sure where that is, actually, and do the shots. What if the Fleet happens to be in and it stops raining at the time I’m booked to go off and fly the Henny Penny Flag, talking of Flags, at this ruddy festival? Barbara’s sure we’ll work something out, and Bournemouth’s quite near to Portsmouth, really. Is it? Not on Arthur Morrissey’s map with the hedgehogs, it isn’t. Can’t find the other maps, I think Aunty Kate must’ve pinched them. Well, work it out: who else that had access to my bedroom would want a whole lot of maps of Britain?

    We’re finishing refilming that bung episode today, and talking of Arthur Morrissey, he’s here, and so is Mrs Morrissey, I told them ages ago they could come and watch if they liked. And of course they did like, it was a question of picking a day when Mrs Morrissey could get away from her clients, she does housekeeping for a lot of very genteel clients, and when Arthur wasn’t helping with the Over-Sixties in their church hall, it’s mostly bingo, the dogs, and little trips to see Guess Who in lovely drawing-room comedies. None of them voted to go to the Tate Gallery, funnily enough, or even to see that new big wheel—um, literally, by the river: y’know? The one that was meant to be ready for the New Millennium but it wasn’t. Well, most of them have been to Blackpool in their younger days, or even last summer, and besides, it doesn’t look safe. No, it doesn’t, does it? And I’ve already had to remind Euan and Rupy very firmly, on separate occasions, if you see what I mean, that I’m no good at heights and wild horses wouldn’t get me anywhere near it. And I’m not too keen on the idea of the Whispering Gallery at St Paul’s, either, thanks, Euan. He was dashed, he thought it’d be romantic to go miles up in the air in this whacking great dome and send each other messages along the wall. Along the wall? I’ve seen it on TV, I’d be plastered to the fucking wall, you’d have to prise me off it with a chisel! Arthur doesn’t like heights, either, so he quite understands. Me and the Over Sixties both.

    We finished the close-ups this morning, Mrs Morrissey got bored and got her knitting out, but heck, she wasn’t alone, Yvonne Baker, she’s my Personal Dresser, she was doing hers, too. I’ve gone up in the world, added to which they don’t trust me to wear exactly what I’ve been told, as I’ve been told, and not twitch at it or pull it up or down, or let the stockings with the seams up the back twist or— Well, you get the picture. Evidently I was driving poor Jane, she’s the continuity person, out of her skull. Not to mention Paul Mitchell, but then, he specialises in being driven out of his skull. So Brian said the Hell with it, they’ve sold it to every English-speaking country that’s got TV and it’s being dubbed into French, German and Italian as we speak. Give her a Personal Dresser.

    Yvonne’s nice, she comes from Jersey: you know, like Gerald Durrell’s zoo and Rupy’s friend’s sugar daddy’s place and John Nettles? She’s got a lovely sort of furry accent, I can’t describe it, though I can imitate it, but that’s what it is: furry. Like, her family’s been there for generations, they speak the sort of French that’s spoken on Jersey, too. They’re in the tourist business, of course: they run a Frenchified-looking bar that sells steak and chips with the beer, shades of Seve and Joanie, but red wine or that red aperitif stuff if the customers want it. I’ve forgotten what it’s called, I think it starts with B, but it’s very French, the English visitors sometimes ask for it and the American visitors always do but the French don’t. But she got sick of waitressing, she did a Course and started working in her friend Annabelle’s hairdressing salon. (It is called Annabelle’s, why waste a lovely name? And she can highly recommend it if you’re ever on Jersey. But its prices are a little steep, they’re aimed at the people that own the tax-free places, or rather, their wives and girlfriends.) Then she did another Course, this one was on make-up and stuff, and then she decided she wanted to get off the Island.

    So she came up to London and after a bit she got a job as a make-up girl but then she went into Dressing. She likes that, you can see a bit more of the show that way, especially if you get to be a Personal Dresser. We got drunk together one evening after the filming, she was demonstrating what the red stuff was like, and she let it out to me that her real ambition, like, why she left home, was to be Sean Connery’s Personal Dresser. Which I entirely understood. Only of course now she realises it was just a dream. The year before last she was Adam McIntyre’s Personal Dresser for a telly thing he did for Henny Penny, one of those serials where it’s all huge overcoats and those weird hair-pieces down the side of the face, and gloomy backgrounds—not Dickens, something else—but she said it wasn’t the same. Even though he’s really handsome and he’s got a lovely figure. Which I entirely understood. –Not B, D: Dubonnet, that’s it! It comes in white, too. Or was that something else? They were both French, though.

    I was going to take Arthur and Mrs Morrissey somewhere nice for lunch, but fortunately Barbara warned me that’d be the wrong move: of course they’d want to come to the Henny Penny canteen, and see the TV people! Which they did, so we did. Did I mention the canteen food’s nice and solid? Arthur wanted baked beans on toast but regretfully decided against them, he does know what they’ll do to him. So he had a Scotch egg and chips and then a vanilla slice, he loves those. So do I, so I had one, too, on condition that I only had ham salad first: Paul’s put me on a diet and told Barbara to watch me, even though it’s not strictly speaking her job. Barbara had ham salad, too, she usually does if we go to the canteen, what a waste, and Rupy did, too, he’s decided he’s been eating too much mash and chips, and now that Mrs Kennedy from downstairs is away on her cruise he’s got us both tapping madly every morning, and going to Della’s whenever we can fit it in. Gray was thrilled, he thought we’d think we were too good for them now that we’re Household Names. Though I can’t imagine why, after all he’s known Rupy for ages and me for over a year, now. He wanted Della to offer us a discount, but of course she didn’t, good on her, why should she? We have sort of promised to be in her Christmas Show, but neither of us has worked up the guts yet to mention it to Timothy or Brian.

    Mrs Morrissey had a meat pie, chips, and peas, followed by a big slice of apple pie with cream. Well, they squirt it out of a big aerosol spray but it tastes almost like cream. Bob Goodrich, he’s one of the sound men and quite an individualist, not as terrified of being seen to associate with the opposite sex as most of them, hard-ons or not, he came and joined us. He had the same as her except that he chose the apple and apricot pie.

    Darryn Hinds joined us, too, he’s started mooning after me again. He was chasing Poppy Mountjoy for a bit: yes, the lady with the two overdressed little kids that’s one of the Mountjoys, she did the guest spot in a specially inspired episode of Varley’s where the social-climbing Commander (Rupy, of course), makes a big fat boo-boo and invites the Hon. Leslie Fitz-Mallory over from Monte for a ship’s ball, a possible candidate for hubby to the Captain’s Daughter, you see, only he turns out to be the Hon. Lesley, female. (I.e., Poppy.) Only barely credible even with Paula’s dialogue, though I suppose they didn’t have as many paparazzi then and she might not have got her pic in a paper that Commander or anyone else on the ship that was taking a blind bit of notice of the shenanigans their officers were getting up to would’ve seen. Poppy was really surprised when I asked her how her kids were getting on. She didn’t actually know, but she could tell me they’re down at Eddyvane Hall with Granny and Grandpa, because she’s ditched the hubby and is trying to get her equity out of the maisonette in Chelsea. She told me a lot about it but I don’t want to buy it even though she could leave finance in.

    Anyway, Darryn had ham salad, too, he was copying me, but I made him have a big bread roll as well, he’s only a boy really, and they always have huge appetites. Well, my brother Kenny sure did at that age. He wolfed it up, never even noticed it going down style of thing, so there you are. Mrs Morrissey thinks he’s lovely, she was thrilled to meet him, and asked him all about his flat, and his mum and dad, and how he got into acting. She’s a much better interviewer than most of the posh dames from the flashy mags, that’s for sure. Ugh, which reminds me, I’ve got another one of those tomorrow. Approved by Henny Penny, natch. Barbara’s gonna sit in, natch.

    What with interviewing Darryn, and Bob Goodrich obligingly telling her all sorts of stuff about the fallibility of the Big Stars he’s worked with, and seeing some of the people from the SF thing that’s in production with their costumes on, the greenish ones with their makeup and horns as well (it’s a pretty crapulous show), Mrs Morrissey was thrilled. Not that she’s seen any British SF series worth watching since the old Doctor Who. Didn’t she like that tall, thinnish one with the muffler? No, she thought he was silly. What about the little blond guy? Always thinks of him as Siegfried’s brother—right. Our table thought it over and voted firmly with her, yep, too right. Red Dwarf got the thumbs down all round, the consensus being that it’s too up itself (L.R. Marshall), too bloody pretentious (Bob Goodrich), and tiresomely self-conscious (Rupy). Though, really, no-one’d need more than Mrs Morrissey’s brilliant summation: very unconvincing, and why do they have to wear those Mod clothes and hairdoes? No-one needed Arthur’s anxious translation of this as “street-cred”, we’d got it, yep, too right.

    Now we’ve gotta refilm the tap bits, this is one of the episodes with tapping in it, Brian and Varley don’t give them that every time round, even though thousands of them write in begging for it. Psychology, ya see: keep ’em glued and begging. Gloria, the make-up girl, redoes my make-up. Jane, the continuity girl, vets it for continuity. Yvonne checks my outfit. A run in my stocking! I’ll have to— I remind her that if I’m tapping it’ll have to be tights, not stockings, because even Brian won’t wear tapping in suspenders: much though he’d like to draw in that kinky percentile of the viewing public, he’s admitted it isn’t the image a family show wants. I think lots of the letter-writers want it, though, especially the ones that, even though they’re all addressed to me, they won’t let me see. I change into a pair of my special old-fashioned tights with the seams down the backs of the legs and Yvonne rechecks me and Jane re-vets me for continuity. Then Gloria touches up my make-up and Jane re-vets that. Then I’m allowed to stand fidgeting in front of the camera for ages while Bob Goodrich holds his little instrument under my nose, sorry, that came out rude, but ya know what I mean: a meter or something, and they fiddle with the lights…

    Gloria retouches my makeup, Jane re-vets me for continuity and shouts at Yvonne and Yvonne readjusts my tight little button-up cardy with the neato pearl and crystal embroidery on it. Pale yellow, if you’re that interested. Then Bob rechecks me with his meter. Then they readjust the mikes. Then they readjust the lights. At this point Mrs Morrissey is heard saying loudly: “Is this going to go on all afternoon? I could’ve done Mrs Lavich!” and the head sound man bellows: “QUIET ON SET!” and Paul Mitchell bellows: “WHO SAID THAT? Quiet on SET!” and Bob rechecks me with his little gizzmo…

    And so it goes on. At long, long last Paul yells: “Okay, CUT! That’s a wrap, boys and girls!” and it’s actually over, much to Mrs Morrissey’s surprise. She’s of the generation that pre-dates the free use of the expression “wankers,” but that’s clearly her opinion of them. “No-hopers” is what she calls them. Yep, no argument there.

    Over beyond the cameras Paula O’Reilly’s been grimly monitoring it, clipboard in hand. One of Paul Mitchell’s favourite little tricks is to remove her carefully thought-out dialogue and replace it with much smarter dialogue that only him and his flatmate will ever understand, because it’s full of totally obscure Fifties references that Paul’s mugged up and inflicted on the unfortunate flatmate. I can hear her quite clearly sounding off to poor old Bob Goodrich: “Thank God! What does our demented leader imagine this is? Some giant Hollywood epic?”

    “Eh?”

    “A wrap? Boys and girls? –Oh, forget it, at least he isn't going to make us all suffer through the entire scene again.”

    Bob’s been drooling, he rather likes my legs, though I think he prefers the tits, on the whole. “Oh, I don’t know.”

    Paula watches sourly as the ship’s company, well, blokes, all amble on again and look hopefully at me. “You and the rest.”

    Paul’s shouting at them to get OFF, he doesn’t NEED them any more, that was a WRAP, and they go, most of them looking at their watches and calculating if they’ve got time to go to the pub before they have to get on home to their partners. You can see Paula looking at him and hesitating; then she makes up her mind to it and goes over to him—they are actually on speaking terms this week.

    “That went quite well, didn’t it?”

    He glares at the Captain’s Daughter. “Given that the cow can’t act, yeah.” Not bothering to lower his voice, I’m only a Dumb Blonde.

    Paula shrugs. “I thought she wasn’t bad, actually. Well—admittedly a dippy blonde cast as a dippy blonde, but she came over quite well?”

    His High and Mightiness ignores that and gives her acid instructions about the script for tomorrow’s shoot, I’m not in those scenes, thank God. This means that as usual Paula’s gonna be burning the midnight oil on what she has long since described to me, why she thinks a dippy blonde cast as a dippy blonde would want to know or care I dunno, as her “miserable apology for a no-overtime salary.”

    She comes over to me, I think to spite Paul, and says kindly: “That went well, Lily Rose.”

    I’m just sitting on a fake bollard waiting while Mrs Morrissey gets Michael Manfred’s autograph out of him and tells him she remembers him as Little Micky Manfred. To demonstrate I really am deaf to what’s being said five yards from my eardrums I jump a bit, and flutter the Lily Rose lashes, they are real, I've got Mum’s eyelashes, but Gloria darkens them up, and coo in that gurgling, breathy little coo known and adored by over twenty million viewers per episode of the bloody thing: “Do you really think so, Paula? Oh, goody!”

    “Yeah,” says Paula resignedly.—Can’t stand the coo, can’t stand the expression “Oh, goody.”—“Really. Doesn’t mean His Lordship may not make you dub the sound track in over it, mind you.”

    “I don’t see why.”—Opening the baby-blues very wide.—“Jimmy was saying they’d just dub in the sound of an odd wave or two—breaking, y’know? And p’raps a faint seagull, during the orchestral bits!” –Smothered giggle.

    “Anything to drown the orchestral bits,” agrees Paula mildly. “Well, I dare say that’s right, if Jimmy told you.” –Jimmy’s one of the sound men. All the crew like Lily Rose, it’s not just the tits and the legs, it’s something to do with being treated like real human beings. Correspondingly, they loathe Paul Mitchell, Michael Manfred, and all of our glamorous ageing paramours, beg pardon, guest spots. It all makes for a harmonious working environment.

    Lily Rose nods earnestly and Paula adds, trying not to let the boredom creep into the tone: “Going down to Portsmouth for the junket, are you?”

    “Ye-es. Paul told me to wear a pink suit.” –Plaintive look.

    “That means he expects to see you there, in it,” she says kindly.

    “Ye-es… Pink? On a boat?” Now, folks, given that the first series featured a very funny scene, written by Paula, in which the Captain’s Daughter was initiated into the seamanlike difference between the terms “ship” and “boat”—

    Oh, forget it: at least the creature’s amiable enough, and does what she’s told, and puts over My Lines as they were meant, is written loud and clear on her forehead, how dumb does she think— Don’t answer that.

    “Isn’t the plan that all the sailors are going to line up with their hard-ons and drool at you for the cameras, Lily Rose? Pink would seem the ideal choice.”

    “Ye-es… Did he mean one out of stock?”

    Paula blenches. There was a Big Row, still very clear in everyone’s memory, over Lily Rose’s wearing a non-Management-approved garment, to wit, that icky grey-blue fuzzy jumper, to open that bazaar the first week Aunty Kate was here. “Well, unless you own a pink suit that he or Brian have personally approved, I’d say so.”

    “Yes, but he won’t let me wear any of the show’s clothes while I’m travelling!”

    “Lily Rose,” she says heavily, “how many times have I told you, you need a better agent.”—I just look at her plaintively, while visions of my Overseas Royalties dance in my head.—She sighs. “Wear your own clothes during the journey, and change when you get down there.”

    I nod seriously and Paula, just about managing not to mop her fevered brow, nods kindly and totters off.

    Lily Rose Rayne looks after her with a completely blank expression on the dewy-rose face that by now has adorned the covers of every form of TV guide known to humanity, three down-market women’s mags, one middle-of the-road women’s mag, and one quite up-market Sunday supplement. And come la rentrée will be visible gazing blankly but beautifully from the sides of buses and gigantic hoardings next to a bar of “Lily Rose” soap from a very nice cosmetic house. They reckon it’ll sell like the proverbial, along with the scent in a pale pink bottle, the bath pearls, and the whatever-the-Hell-else that they could dump the perfume into. Middle-of-the-road, aimed at the grannies and the younger teens, not quite my greatest fans, and at my greatest fans, the deluded males who’ll buy it for their unfortunate wives and girlfriends. No, they didn’t design it for me. They had it all ready to go, but the well known personality who was going to be the Face for it blotted her copybook radically—you probably saw some of it if you saw the BAFTA awards, turning up with the wrong bloke being only the half of it. Less than half. So Henny Penny’s PR types leapt in with their offer, and the perfume house, what a misnomer, giant multinational is more like it, leapt at me. They also own giant refrigerated long-distance lorries, and sixteen supermarket chains on the Continent, and like that. Euan was very annoyed with me, he said they test their products on laboratory animals. I do feel some sympathy for the laboratory animals, but at least they’re bred for the purpose, it isn’t like they go out and kill wild ones. And it was nothing to do with me, it’s written into my contract that I advertise whatever Henny Penny decides on. He did his nut but as I pointed out, it can’t get much worse than pink scent if they want to preserve the show’s family image, now can it?

    In case you think I was imagining Paula’s feelings about me, I wasn’t, because inadvertently the laptop bag went home with her when she gave me a lift home a while back. I left it in her car, I was desperate to get away from her, she couldn’t think of a thing to say to me the whole trip, and there was a new tape in the recorder, so it copped the lot. She must’ve brought it in and popped it down in the sitting-room. Unfortunately they didn’t say anything useful about nationalism or the Falklands War or Bosnia or like that, and if you’re thinking it serves me right, well, actually I didn't do it on purpose. Anyway, this is what it picked up, more or less:

    Footsteps, that’s Paula, and the door. Then she says: “Making dinner? Bless you.” That’s her permanent bloke, he’s a teacher, he usually gets home hours before she does. Jack, is his name, Jack Corrigan, though I don’t think it’s significant that they’ve both got Irish surnames.

    “How’d it go, today?” says Jack—chewing something.

    “Do not ask,” she sighs.

    “Oh? Bitches get their knives into Lily Rose again?”—still chewing.

    “Did you julienne those carrots by hand?” she says in a sort of pretend whisper, she does it at work, too. That’ll be what he’s chewing.

    “No. By food-processor. Did they?”

    “No more than usual,” sighs Paula. She makes a funny noise, I think trying to get her shoes off. You can hear the sofa creak, too.

    “Got ants in your pants?” asks Jack in a kind voice.

    “Get me a drink, for the love of Mike.—And don’t bother about the bread, please.” Sound of clinking in the background. “Thanks,” she sighs. You can hear her drinking.

    There’s a sort of creak, I think he’s perching on the arm of the sofa. She doesn’t scream at him to get off or like that, she’s not the Aunty Kate type. “I’ve often wondered,” he says thoughtfully, “what girls like Lily Rose drink.”

    “Eh?” –That’s Paula putting it on.

    “Not when they’re out with deluded chaps, you fool! No, when they’re alone. Do they actually go to the trouble of concocting snowballs, and, um, Shirley Temples, and—um—well, you know.”

    “Not actually,” she says drily.

    “Mm?” he says dreamily. “Come to think of it, don’t think I mean Shirley Temples, aren’t they non-alcoholic? I’m thinking of something along those lines, though: pink and—

    “Just stop,” she orders bitterly. “We shot the bloody Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend scene today, and— Shut up!”

    There’s a thump, he falls off the arm of the sofa? Then he laughs himself silly.

    After a bit you can hear her swallowing her drink and then she says: “They keep blenders full of alcoholic frothy muck in their bloody pale blue fridges, that’s what. Piña coladas. Frosted daiquiris,” she elaborates grimly.

    “Uncle,” says Jack in a weak voice. “Has she got a pale blue fridge?”

    “No idea. Read Sunday week’s colour mag and find out,” says Paula sourly.

    “You’re not serious?”

    “Possibly not. But they had her in their smudged version of glorious Technicolor—we know!” she says loudly as he tries to tell her it’s cheap paper. “And cheap ink, and shut up. Where was I? Uh—yeah. They had her in fuzzy blue angora and pearls, hugging a fuzzy doggie to the tits,”—it wasn’t, it was Doris Winslow’s Buster, corgis aren’t fuzzy—“and in a lacy slip ‘relaxing’, hah-hah, on set in a bloody director’s chair with a fuzzy cardigan half off, make that three quarters off, a bloody bikini, so why wouldn’t they show her draped all over the bloody bachelor-girl pad?”

    “True. –You’ve got it wrong, though: the cardigan wasn’t fuzzy, it was one of those strange pearl- and crystal-bead-embroidered jobs I can just remember Mum wearing: they seem to be Back. Or In, or something. Well, half the girls in the Fifth were wearing them last mufti day.”

    “Thank you for that sociological aperçu, Corrigan,” she sighs.

    “Was it that bad?” replies Jack mildly.

    “Yes! Oh, uh, today?” says Paula sheepishly. “Um, sorry, love. Not really. Except that— Oh, well,” she says with a sigh. “Coralee Adams was on set, she’s back for a second guest spot as one of Daddy Captain’s ageing paramours, and poor old Lily Rose got the full treatment: superior drawl, the look down the nose, well-projected flinch at sight of the outfit—you know the sort of thing. Added to which, she corrected the poor little thing’s diction.”

    Jack gulps, but manages to say: “Coralee Adams is famous for that old-school-tie voice, Paula. Um, how did she take it?”

    “Lily Rose?” Paula sighs again. “Meekly grateful, and told Coralee admiringly that she sounded ‘like a real lady.’ Thus enabling certain others to wonder, not quite under their breaths, how she would know. God!”

    “Er—she wasn’t taking the Mick, was she?” he says uncertainly.

    “Jack, I only wish I could believe the girl’s got the nous to! –Oh, that bitch Meryl Fisher did her bit, too. –Playing one of Daddy Captain’s old aunts,” she explains.

    “I always thought she was a nice old thing,” he says dazedly.

    “Jack, she plays nice old things,” replies Paula heavily. “Plays them, read my lips: P,L— Sorry. No, well, she looks the grandmotherly type, of course. Gave Lily Rose a sickeningly sweet little spiel about saving for one’s old age, the phrase ‘flash in the pan’ and the other phrase ‘fickle public’ only being articulated fifty times in the course of it. And please don’t ask if the girl countered with something sharp about speaking from experience, because, as I think we have established, she has not got the nous to.”

    “God,” he says with a wince in his voice. “Have another whisky, old girl.”

    “Ta,” says Paula gratefully. Bottle and glass sounds again. And she swallows and sighs loudly. “Baby cham,” she says in a much milder tone.

    “Huh?”

    “Girls like Lily Rose. Blenders full of frothy muck, and baby cham.”

    “Oh! Yeah,” says Jack. His voice fades a bit, maybe he’s going back to the kitchen. “That’ll be it.”

    Paula sighs yet again, and groans a bit and the sofa creaks. After a bit she mutters bitterly: “If only the girl’d stand up to the creeps!”

    “Wouldn’t that make it worse?” says his voice, pitching it loud, but from further away: he is in the kitchen, there was the sound of a blender or something.

    “What?”

    “Make it worse!” he shouts. “Provoke them!”

    “Oh. Yeah. –YES!” she shouts back. “It’d feel good, though,” she admits. You can hear her swallowing again, and sighing again.

    See? None of it’s my imagination: she is totally taken in by my disguise. Though actually, she was a lot kinder about me behind my back than I'd expected her to be.

    After that I got carried away and deliberately left the laptop bag in Paul Mitchell’s car, though as Rupy has pointed out, several times, eavesdroppers can commonly expect to hear no good of themselves. I rang Paul on his mobile while he was still travelling and made him swear to take the bag inside with him, not leave it in the car. I could hear him thinking “silly cow,” and probably “pre-menstrual to boot,” but he did it. This is what it picked up:

    “Hi, how was it?” That’s Malcolm, he’s a chartered accountant, and usually gets home at a reasonable time. I’ve been to their flat, it’s very smart, but Malcolm said they’re beginning to regret the industrial-look grey steel room divider, because in the first place it’s so sterile and in the second place everything, but everything, marks it. And scratch! You only have to wave the vacuum at it—or their Ma ’Arris does, the stupid bitch. (He said it, not me.) And also the pale grey crushed-look leather sofa that set them back a bomb: it doesn’t look ace like in the mags, it only looks crushed. Paul glared all the time he was saying it, so it must be true.

    “Do not ask.”

    “Did the bimbo play up?” asks Malcolm. Stirring something? “If you want a drink, you’ll have to get it yourself, I can’t leave this.”

    “If you mean bloody Lily Rose, no! She is too fucking stupid to play up!” he shouts.

    “I’m glad we’ve got that out of the way,” Malcolm responds calmly, stirring.

    “We had to re-shoot that bloody Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend scene. We did it seven times,” he groans. “Seven times. In its entirety.”

    “Mm. Did you? Mm.”

    “You’re not listening,” says Paul bitterly.

    “It’s not that interesting, love. If she didn’t play up, what did she do? Or not do.”

    Paul’s making a grunting noise, taking his shoes off? That leathery squeak and creak’ll be the expensive sofa. “Just generally thick as a brick. Not that the part doesn’t call for it. No, well, I swear it’s the sixteenth time she's asked me what she’s supposed to wear down at Portsmouth.”

    “Mm? Oh, when you’re down there for real: yes. You’ve got her all over-anxious, after that time you tore a strip off her when she turned up at that Opening in the wrong thing.”

    “I tore a strip off her?” says Paul bitterly.—Bonk! Bonk! Think it’s the shoes hitting the deck.—“What about the strip bloody Hendricks tore off me? It’s not part of my job description to make sure the dim bitch only wears outfits that Management’s approved!”

    “Tell him that,” Malcolm suggests mildly.

    Paul gives a bitter laugh. “Darling, the whole thing was our revered producer’s own glorious inspiration, or so he would have us minions believe. Since it took off, no-one can tell him anything!”

    “Well, if it wasn’t for him, you’d all be looking for jobs, wouldn’t you?” says Malcolm comfortably. “Was he there today?”

    “Oh, he looked in several times, just to keep us all on our toes, yes.”

    “Maybe he has got a thing for her,” he says comfortably.

    “No! I’ve told you a million times, he is Mister Boring Bourgeois Respectability in person! –Do you know who he reminds me of?”

    “Who?” asks Malcolm obligingly, stirring.

    “Arfer Daley,” says Paul evilly.

    “Who?”

    “Wake up! Minder! The George Cole character!”

    “No need to shout. I get it. Crooked but respectable with it. Oh, and terrified of women, come to think of it.” Scraping noise, maybe taking a pot off the heat. “Want a Pimms?”

    “What?”

    “Goes with the Fifties ethos,” says Malcolm blandly.—Taking the Mick.

    “No, I damn well don’t!”

    “Oh, all right, then. I thought it’d be nice, for a change.”

    “It wouldn’t. And don’t dare to suggest a pink gin. I’ll have a Scotch. Triple, thanks.”

    Clink of bottles and glasses; then Paul says: “Bless you.” Loud swallow.

    “Better?”

    “Mm.”

    “Who else played up?”

    So Paul gives him chapter and verse on the continued bitchiness of Coralee Adams and Meryl Fisher, and the subsequent evilly blue lighting of Coralee’s face by the lighting man (possibly Lily Rose’s greatest fan in the universe) and complete masking with a bulwark and a bollard of Meryl’s person by the cameraman (possibly Lily Rose’s second-greatest fan in the universe)... Malcolm makes the odd murmuring noise from time to time, and eventually suggests he has a nice hot shower.

    The next bit’s over the dinner. It was soup he was stirring, they start with it. Paul has to taste it and praise it, it’s no different from a hetero marriage.

    “You know,” says Malcolm over the soup,  “I think she’s quite nice.”

    “Who?”

    “Lily Rose,” he says tranquilly. “I quite liked her, that time she and Rupy Maynarde came to dinner. More croutons?”

    “Did you fry them in butter? Then no, thanks,” replies Paul grimly. “The girl is the cretin to end all cretins: I’ve told you a thousand times.”

    “Ye-es… The thing is… Well, you’ve seen those old Marilyn Monroe films.”

    Paul takes a deep breath. “Hendricks ordered the entire cast and crew—”

    “We know. Required background. But you have to admit, when they’re good they’re good. Terribly stylish.”

    “And?” he says dangerously.

    “We-ell… One can’t define the Monroe magic, of course.”

    “And?”

    Malcolm says slowly: “Look, I know she was reputed to have driven Olivier mad—”

    “Is there a point to this?” he says dangerously.

    “Only that Monroe had real talent, and that Lily Rose doesn’t actually mimic her. The thing is, she manages to suggest the same sort of thing without doing the impersonation bit.”

    “Blonde and boobs,” says Paul sourly, slurping his soup.

    “Did you even taste that?” asks Malcolm sadly.

    “What? Yes! I said, it’s excellent. And I’m hungry,” says Paul heavily.

    “Oh, good. No, well, I was wondering if perhaps she's brighter than you think? –Lily Rose. Well, bright, really. Truly talented.”

    “A nacktress, you mean?” he says in a very nasty voice.

    “It was only a suggest—”

    “Just don’t. Is it you or me that has to direct the cow every working day of his life?”

    “Ye-es… Look, the viewing public adore—”

    “The viewing public are cretins!” shouts Paul. “They’ll watch anything blonde with tits, whether or not it actually MOVES!”

    “Mm. Well, I won’t attempt to list the number of so-called comedy shows that have died the death after one series, or less than one, in the case of some. But I will say, how many have been howling successes in the last five—no, make that ten—years? One,” he says pointedly. “And how many have had Lily Rose Rayne in them? One.”

    “Every time the cow opens her mouth in public she shows herself up for the cretin she is,” says Paul tiredly. “And can we drop it, please?”

    “If you like. But I thought she did surprisingly well on Parkinson. –Just think about it. She was on with two old-timers more than capable of upstaging anything that moves, and did she play their game and retire ingloriously defeated looking like a total nit, like most of dear Michael’s credulous guests would in those circumstances? –No,” he answers himself.

    “Darling,” says Paul sweetly, “she is too thick to play anyone’s game.”

    “Maybe. Nevertheless she came over as a very sweet girl, and they came over as two spiteful ageing tarts. –Think about it,” he says smugly.

    “I’ve thought, and may we have our mains, please?”

    Sounds of Malcolm getting up and collecting plates. “It’s roast beef of old England,” he warns.

    “Not roast potatoes?” says Paul faintly.

    “No, in consideration of your cholesterol count, whipped. Superb whipped.”

    “Yeah, yeah,” he says, sounding brighter, though.

    It’s petit pois, as well, because Paul praises them. They eat for a while and then Malcolm murmurs: “Don’t you think I’m right?”

    “Huh?” says Paul with his mouth full.

    “About Lily Rose. On Parkinson.”

    Paul sighs. “I might possibly be tempted to agree that you might possibly have a point, were it not for the fact that today as ever was, she asked me, as I think I mentioned, for the sixteenth time what she did oughter wear down at Portsmouth.”

    “I thought you said sixtieth, actually. Doesn’t prove anything except that she’s over-anxious—”

    “Not that. Referring, as she did so, to the pride of the Royal Navy,” says Paul through his teeth, “as a boat.”

    Malcolm must remember the episode where Paula’s carefully written script elucidated the correct naval terminology for the benefit of the Captain’s Daughter, because he gulps. “Oh.”

    “Yes, ‘oh’,” agrees Paul with tremendous satisfaction. “Thick as brick. Any mash left?”

    Rupy insisted on listening to this tape, and just about passed out when he thought Malcolm had spotted me. But I was pretty sure Paul Mitchell wouldn’t take any notice of the opinions of his mere life-partner. Because up-themselves types like him never do: gay or hetero, it’s all the same. And I was right, wasn’t I?

    And I was very glad to hear the “boat” line went over so well. In fact I decided there and then to trot it out for Paula as well. Which is why I did, today.

    I’ve got that interview today. Another Sunday colour mag, or maybe it’s the same one. Anyway, they want an interview and pics of me at home. We start off with a panic because Barbara’s got an upset tummy, she should never have gone to that Greek place last night, the food was terribly oily (especially to persons used to a diet of ham salads without dressing and mineral waters with a slice of lime, but I don’t say it), and she can’t get round to oversee me. I promise to wear only Henny Penny-approved garments and no blue-grey of any description and she hangs up to rush off to the bog. Rupy’s very dashed because he’ll miss it: he’s got some very naval scenes with Lieutenant Welwich, Lieutenant Hallett, Cock’s-un and Bo-son today. I promise to tell him all about it. Miss Hammersley’s come over, she promises to tell him all about it. Doris Winslow and Buster have come upstairs, they promise to tell him all about it. What with the rabid excitement on the part of some, and the complete disinterest on the part of another, it’ll be Buster’s narrative that’ll be the most coherent, you betcha. Rupy’s suckered Mike into picking him up in the limo this morning, so we all go downstairs to wave him off and incidentally inform Imelda Singh, who by pure coincidence happens to be standing on the kerb, that today is a school day, and if she doesn’t get right off to it we’ll phone her da— She goes.

    It’s a different Sunday Supp: they haven’t seen the brown before, and they blench. We try the roof but their photographer doesn’t like our view of grey windy sky and other roof-tops, so we come back down. They’re going to have to fudge every shot, so what’s new, with a bit of back-lighting from the main windows of the sitting-dining room, blah, blah. It goes on for hours and hours and hours, and even the fact that our new cleaning lady, Jessica Strezlicki is her name, comes in and starts hoovering noisily doesn’t suggest that maybe they’ve outstayed their welcome, they just make her switch it off and make her make them cups of tea, what do they think she is, a tea slave? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve changed my clothes and told them that Buster is not actually mine, much though I’d like him to be. Lunchtime rolls round but they don’t notice. Jessica’s been down and done Doris’s place and three other places on the first and second floors and come back and seen it’s no-go and been off to her clients in the next street and had her lunch, and come back again, realised we haven’t had our lunch, and kindly volunteered to go out and got us some. And got it. We’re not allowed to have a break and eat it, though. But at long last they go and Jessica kindly makes us a pot of tea and we fall ravenously on it all. Ham sandwiches, cheesy biscuits, plus some savouries, pukkorahs, pakoras, whatever, that Mrs Singh rushed out and forced on her as she was passing. And a sultana cake that was gonna be for afternoon tea but we might as well have it now.

    Doris asks limply whether it was an interview in depth, dear. I dunno, didn’t think so. Coulda been. Miss Hammersley asks dubiously whether it’s going to be a half-page photograph inside, my dear, she rather thought they only did that for—er—politicians, or— Well, that time they interviewed dear Kenneth, she doesn’t know if I saw it. I dunno. Might be. Jessica asks if the photographer really was who she thought he was. If so, he only does celebrities, Lily Rose, it’ll be sure to be on the cover! Uh—I thought he only did the cover of Vogue, these days? We exchange frantic glances and after a bit Miss Hammersley concludes that in that case it will be a half-page portrait inside, and that that was an interview in depth. Ooh, cripes.

    Rupy’s found the festival place on the map. “Chipping Ditter, see?” I can’t see it at all. He jabs crossly at the map. “There! There!” Uh—oh. Very small print. Next to that hedgehog. Whassat? He peers. “Steeple? Oh, means a viewable church, darling. Or cathedral.” Brilliantly he decides it must be Chipping Ditter’s church because this year’s festival is in aid of it. He doesn’t know whether it’s biennial or not, he’d never heard of it, maybe it’s a one-off? They’ve got an awful lot of eminent people in it, for a one-off, Rupy. He ponders. It’ll be the village where Adam McIntyre and Georgy Harris have their select hideaway! Is it select? He doesn’t know personally (irritated) but so people tell him. I thought they lived in a very select, detached, two-storeyed fake Tudor house in Hampstead and in between times dashed off to the villa in Corfu but it seems I was wrong, they’ve got a hideaway in Berkshire, too. Or is it Wiltshire? We peer. No counties on the map. Rupy decides it might be. And look, Portsmouth isn’t that far away! Not with a nice car! Neither of us has got a nice car and I can’t drive. I don’t remind him. We peer...

    “So where’s Bournemouth, where Maybelle lives?”

    Looking lofty, he shows me.

    “Ye-es… But where’s Dover?”

    “Dover?” He thinks I’m potty, the whole world know where Dover is, ya see. Only them that’s from the North, Rupy. I don’t say it. He points to Dover.

    “Over there? But—um—but Gray took me to see the White Cliffs!”

    “Did he, dear? Quite a drive. Very nice fellow, Gray.”

    I do frantic mental arithmetic, based on the putative distance according to Arthur’s map with the hedgehogs on it, and the time me and Gray spent driving around wet southern England… “Um, I suppose we did drive for ages after we’d had our tea. Um, well, we drove quite a long way to the tea place, too. After the White Cliffs,” I explain lamely. I did get off the train at a stop that wasn’t the Bournemouth stop, didn’t I? Rupy finds it on the map. Oh. That explains why the White Cliffs were so near. But Gray must still have had to get up very early and drive all the way over… Oh, dear, I didn’t thank him enough!. What could I give him?

    Rupy suggests a tea-towel. Very FUNNY! Er—a part in the series, dear? Heck, Rupy, if it was down to me, he’d have been head tapper of the chorus of sailors, but it isn’t, is it? Nothing is. Ask him to partner me in the tap piece for the Festival? I will! I ring him up straight away. He’s thrilled. Rupy was gonna do it but he doesn’t mind, they’ve asked him to do the Noël Coward impersonation he did in the last episode of the first series. Personally I wouldn’t have thought there was anybody still alive who remembers Noël Coward, but I was wrong, half the population of the British Isles does and they all wrote in to say either that Rupy was wonderful or that he had it all wrong. But as Timothy from PR says, they were watching. And the ratings were sky-high. Almost as big as Diana’s Funeral. Added to which Brian had just sewn up the Spanish-language deal for the show, which if you look at the world map is most of South America. So he broke out the champagne again.

    “Portsmouth…” I look at it dubiously.

    “No dinky cottages are marked on this map, those are all hedgehogs, and stop thinking about Captain J.H.!”

    I’m very red. “I am not!”

    “Yes, you are, darling, you think about him every time the words ‘Navy’, ‘Portsmouth’, or ‘cottage’ are mentioned.”

    I do not! …Never stopped, more like. “Um, well, is there a train from London?”

    “Brian’s sending us all in hire cars, dear, chauffeured. Or OB vans in the case of those who need equipment. And those who prefer to drive their own have to fill in sixteen forms in quintuplicate and claim a petrol allowance.”

    Scowling horribly, I retort: “I’m not going all that way in the back seat of a car! I’d be sick before we reached—”

    He’s waiting. “Yes?” he says politely.

    “Halfway,” I return defiantly.

    “I don’t think Brian will wear you going all the way to Portsmouth on the train—if there is one—by yourself, Rosie. You’re a Household Name, now, dear.”

    “He’d prefer me to sick up all over Henny Penny’s chauffeured hire car, would he?”

    He winces. “Must you be so graphic? Er—well, see what Barbara thinks?”

    I have. She thinks we’d better do what her bosses say, what does he imagine she thinks? “Don’t be a birk, she’s a minion.”

    He blinks.

    “I only meant it technically, you oughta know me by now!”

    “Technically,” he says weakly. “Yes. Other people may not see these technical observations of yours in that light.”

    “I don’t make them to other people. Um… No, I’ll fix it.”

    … Later. I’ve fixed it. What I’ve done, see, is give everyone the impression I’m going with somebody else. It was quite easy.

    “Thanks, Arthur!” I give him a big hug. He’s thrilled, even though nobody at this precise moment has spotted I’m Lily Rose Rayne and is leaping forward with autograph book poised. He gives me anxious instructions about following his list of instructions, and getting off the train where his instructions say— Etcetera. And hands me the big bundle of women’s mags under his arm, I’d thought they were for him and his mum up to this moment, and a big plastic shopping bag with a Tupperware container and thermos in it.

    “Just some lunch. Now, don’t talk to strange men even if they do seem nice. Our population’s about four times as big as Australia’s, you know, it was on a quiz show.” He gets into the train with me and puts me into my seat. “Don’t try to open this window.”

    I nod obediently.

    He looks at me dubiously.

    “I’ll be all right, I got myself down to Bourne— Um, well, all the way to the festival last summer quite safely.”

    “That isn’t the way I heard it,” he says sternly. “Now, don’t get off the train for any reason until you get to your stop.”

    What if we crash? What if the train’s on fire? What if the line’s up further down the track and they tell us all to get into buses? That happened to Aunty Kate once midway between Adelaide and Melbourne, boy was she ropeable. “No, righto.”

    “Now, you’re quite sure you know what to do?” Other passengers are pushing past him, so I nod, even though I’m not sure.

    “Good! You’ll be fine!” he says bracingly. Heck, does it show that much?

    “Thanks ever so, Arthur. Hug?” We have another hug and then he reluctantly gets off. I press my nose to the window. Why does he looks so small, he’s only standing there right outside… We’re off. “Bye-bye! Bye-bye! Thanks, Arthur!” He can’t hear me. I wave madly. He waves mad— Gee, these sodding British Rail trains go fast, eh?

    I settle back with my bundle of mags… A tribute to Barbara Cartland. Figures. Reads as if they wrote it twenty years ago, which they probably did, only the old dame socked it to the lot of them, eh? Good on her. …Ooh, “Lily Rose At Home”. Shit. Try another. This is better. Lots of lovely ads for stuff I’m not selling. Letters… Crumbs. Did she? Did they? Crumbs. … “Sheilagh’s Love-Child; I’m Keeping My Darling Baby”, never heard of her. …Or him. …Who? Never heard of him. …Another tribute to Barbara Cartland, gee, same pics. …“Are Georgy and Adam Breaking Up?” Of course not, you cretin, she’s having a baby and he’s made her give up the part at Stratford and they’re both gonna be in the Festival at Sodding Wherever on condition that she only does something that she already knows backwards and has lots of naps during the day. Euan’s told me all about it: he was so uxorious you’d think he was the father instead of not even an uncle. No, well, gone clucky, it’s a well known syndrome, and that, folks, is something that’s gotta be sorted out this summer. Because it wouldn’t be fair to— Ooh, are we stopping?

    No. A signal, or something.

    —to let him go on thinking I’m as keen as he is, well, as serious as he is.

    I read on… Crikey, did she? Didn’t he? No! Another tribute to Barbara Cartland. …We are stopping, it’s still all suburbs, dunno where we are. I don’t look up, even though I’m heavily disguised as myself, to wit, well-worn jeans, old sneakers, old green tee-shirt I got second-hand at one of Lily Rose’s bizarre openings. Green’s not my colour—not that faded-out olive with a chipped, once gold, possibly British Army logo, crest according to Rupy, could ever suit anybody. “And it’s probably contraband!” Bulldust, Rupy, the Army doesn’t print gold logos on its personnel’s tee-shirts, it’ll be from one of those faked-up Army Surplus shops where everything’s made in China or Korea. I've got the army satchel to match, that is, I bought it on sale from one of those faked-up shops when I was on holiday in Adelaide. (Out wandering desperately round the city so as to get away from Aunty Kate, of course, whaddareya?) It cost eleven dollars, mind you that was a bit back. It makes a change from my laptop bag, which was getting a bit grubby, so Raewyn and Sally from the dry-cleaner’s have taken it tenderly in hand and swear it’ll be good as new by the time I get back. Whenever that’ll be, we’re gonna start off with the photo op at Portsmouth but then Rupy and me absolutely have to go off to the festival, we have to get some rehearsals in, for God’s sake, so Paul’s decreed the guys can shoot backgrounds for a while and he’ll see if we need to be recalled—threateningly. That means we better not need to be and if we do it’ll be all our faults, you betcha.

    “There was movement at the station”, but I still don’t look up. If ya didn’t get that, don’t worry, only dyed-in-the-wool Aussies do, it’s only slightly better known back home than Waltzing Matilda and very much better known than the national anthem, what most people of Mum’s age and up still automatically think is God Save The Queen. A few people get into our carriage and we start off again. It’s still not very full, don’t think many people take British Rail to the south on a working Tuesday.

    I read on… Crikey, did he? Didn’t she? No! Yet another tribute to Barbara Cartland. …Still all suburbs, dunno where we are. Try another one. Ooh, this one’s much more up-market, a tribute to Sir John Gielgud! I’ve never seen him in anything decent, but Uncle George—I don’t mean Mum’s brother, he’s my real uncle, I mean Joanie’s Dad, George Potts, he’d be about sixty-seven—he reckons he was taken to see him as Hamlet during the War as a boy of about nine, and has never forgotten the experience. Yeah, well, as a girl of about seven, I was taken to see Star Trek The Motion Picture and I’ve never forgotten that experience, so what does that prove? I read the story avidly. It doesn’t say anything about him being gay or being caught in toilets like G.M., like what Rupy assured me he was, poor old dear. Um, it wouldn’t be getting on for lunchtime, would— Uh, no. Very definitely not. Well, Jesus, it feels like hours! I give up on the mags for the nonce and bring out the laptop.

    … We’re stopping again. Still all suburbs. Oh, only another signal. No, ’tisn’t, yes, ’tis. No— Signal. Right. We move on very slowly— Ooh, and a real stop! In case you’re wondering, trains don’t usually make me sick unless they go really, really fast, swaying like billyo, round lots of corners and Mum’s never gonna take me on that Tourist Mountain Railroad again, she’s never been so humiliated in her life. Serves her right for taking me on it in the first place.

    “There was movement at the station”, so I look down at my laptop, better safe than sorry. I think some people get in, not many. Don’t think anybody gets out. We start up again…

    “Is this seat taken?” Baritone, lightly amused: no, can’t be, wishful thinking. I look up—

    Jesus!

    “Hullo, Rosie,” says John Haworth with that terrifically masculine grin that goes right through you and turns you to jelly from the waist down.

    “Where are you going?” I croak inanely.

    “Portsmouth; aren’t you?”

    I nod inanely.

    “May I?” He’s looking at the pile of mags on the seat next to me with that not-quite-smile.

    “Arthur Morrissey gave me those, he’s an amateur tapper that lives with his old mum, we go to the same dance classes, and you can wipe that smirk off ya face, they’re not my taste.”

    “I didn’t think they were. I was wondering who gave them to you,” he says mildly.

    “Oh.” I scoop them up and shove them down on the floor between my leg and the side of the train and he sits down. Wearing that flaming horrible tweed jacket again, and dreamy fawn whipcord slacks, and a fawn knit shirt, like a golfing shirt, y’know? More up-market than a tee-shirt, it’s got a collar and everything. Open at the neck, you can see just a bit of chest hair, it’s greyish fawn, curly, not too thick. I think I’m gonna pass out.

    “How military,” he says before I can pull myself together and thank him for the pink rosebuds: even if it was a joke, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure it was, they were beautiful flowers.

    “Fake military. Second-hand,” I say grimly.

    “Mm.” He’s looking at the tee-shirt again: as part of my disguise I’m not wearing a bra, the British Viewing Public won’t recognise them without a pointy bra or strange bikini top with even more stiffening in it than the bras.

    “All right, it’s the real me!” I say aggressively.

    “Er—yes, I can see that.”

    I did NOT mean— “Not that,” I say lamely. “The gear.”

    “Mm.”

    “Not Lily Rose Rayne,” I say, taking a deep breath, “and thank you very much for the rosebuds, they were wonderful, joke or not.”

    “Joke?” he says dubiously. “You didn’t think it was a joke, did you, Rosie?”

    I’m incapable of speech: actually I think I’m gonna bawl, rather than choke which was what I’ve been thinking up to about now I was gonna. I just nod, sort of jerkily.

    “It definitely wasn’t a joke, although I have to say I did fully appreciate every nuance of the performance, Rosie. Especially those pauses.”

    I nod jerkily again. A tear works its way out of one eye. But I try to pretend it hasn’t: it’s on the other side to him—

    He’s seen it, he puts his arm round me, and says with his face very close to my ear: “What is all this? Of course it wasn’t a joke, I thought you were wonderful, I laughed myself silly.”

    “I—thought—it was—a joke!” I bawl.

    “Mm.” He doesn’t say anything else, just tightens his arm, maybe it’s sexist or patronising or authority-figure, or worse, father-figure, or all of them all rolled into one, and though I’m thinking all this I’m also thinking I don’t care. At the same time I’m very, very, very glad it wasn’t a joke, and trying to stop bawling, how humiliating, what a total nong, and wondering whether he knew I was gonna be on this train, but he couldn’t possibly— Like that.

    Eventually he takes his arm away and gives me his hanky and I blow my nose very hard and say: “Thanks.”

    “Better?”

    “Yeah. Um… The rosebuds only came on the Sunday.” I wasn’t gonna say that, I don’t want to hear he watched the interview in his cottage with his ageing paramour and the reason he didn’t send them on the Saturday was they were still in bed.

    “Mm? Oh! Yes, I didn’t see it until the Saturday: we were at sea. I asked my housekeeper to tape it for me.”

    I look at him with my mouth open, loud ringing in the ears is apt to do that to you. He just looks blank, boy is he the original poker-face.

    “Housekeeper?” I eventually croak.

    “Marion Blaine is her name, Mrs Blaine, she looks after my cottage. On a daily basis, when I’m home. Otherwise pops in to dust and collect my mail.”

    I nod numbly.

    He tells me where it is. I don’t understand, but I think it is the same as what the Admiral said. Out of Portsmouth. On the coast.

    After a bit I say: “I’ve seen some cottages, like, down at the village near the Mountjoy Midsummer Festival. And I’ve been to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, Aunty Kate made me go. But the only lived-in cottage I was ever in, it wasn’t like those, it was more modern.” I tell him all about Maybelle’s cottage with its roses and rosy wallpaper, I can hear myself rattling on, why am I doing it, he must think I’m the world’s worst nong!

    “Is that the sort of cottage you like, Rosie?”

    “Um, yes. Well, I liked it better than Anne Hathaway’s, that’s for sure. I dunno. It was… Rupy says it’s dinky,” I admit with a scowl.

    “Mm?”

    “I’d call it cosy,” I announce with a scowl.

    “Yes,” he says, smiling, I think genuine. “It sounds it. Mine’s a bit older.”

    “Thatched?” I croak. Rupy’s told me horror stories about rats in thatched roofs.

    “No. I don’t know what its original roofing was, but some time in the Thirties it was modernised: the roof’s tiled.” So is half of Sydney, the half that isn’t ye Grate Aussie corrugated iron, colour-steel if you’re being conscientiously up-to-date. I sag in relief. Though why relief, God knows, I’m not being invited to it.

    “What’s the matter?”

    “Nothing, only, um, Rupy reckons you can get rats in thatched roofs.”

    “I think that’s so, especially if the thatch isn’t looked after very carefully. Would that be Rupert Maynarde, who plays Commander Hawkins?”

    My mouth sags open. I nod dopily.

    “Mrs Blaine’s been taping it for me,” he says with that not-quite-smile.

    “Yeah. Do you call her that?” I say inanely.

    “Mrs Blaine? No, I call her Marion and she calls me John. She’s a woman of about my own age with a grown family.” He eyes me narrowly. “I see. You don’t approve of our British class system, is that it?”

    “Got it in twenty,” I say tightly.

    “Nor do I,” he says tranquilly.

    I gape at him again.

    “I am not personally responsible for the hierarchical command system of the Royal Navy,” he says mildly.

    “Not much!” Shit, that slipped out. He’s trying not to laugh. “Um, sorry.”

    “In war, which is what the system’s designed for, nothing else works.”

    “I know that. You couldn’t possibly sit round a table with a bloody committee before you decided to fire a shot. But I don’t approve of war, either.”

    “Ah.”

    There’s a short pause. I refrain with a terrific effort from closing the laptop, and try not to glance at the army satchel, which is down by my foot near Arthur’s mags with the tape recorder in it but off, I wasn’t intending to talk to anyone this trip.

    “The Falklands?” he murmurs delicately. “Kenneth Hammersley was most intrigued to find you were so interested—”

    “Look, shut up!”

    I can feel his shoulders shaking, the wanker, so I don’t look at him. Just sit here trying not to pass out, sort of thing: I can feel him all down my left side: although he’s stopped putting his arm round me he hasn’t moved away from me.

    Then he asks super-politely: “What are you writing, Rosie?”.

    I give in. “Oh, look for yourself.” I turn the laptop so as he can see the screen with the nationalism stuff up..

    He reads quite a lot of it, looking very interested. I can hear him breathing and smell his lovely smell, sort of him and his after-shave and… Has that tweed coat got a smell of its own?

    “Has that awful coat got a smell of its own?”

    “Yes: tweed. –Jacket. This is very interesting.”

    “Thanks. I’ve finished the original article: it’ll be published next October. I’m working this up, now.” I close the program, close the laptop, and slide it onto the seat between me and the side of the train.

    “Mm. Are you quite sure you don’t want my opinion of the Falklands Conflict?”

    “War. All right, then, if you insist!” I get the tape recorder out and turn it on. “John Haworth,” I tell it. “Royal Navy. Captain. Aged—um, fiftyish?”

    “Fifty. Ask away.”

    “I usually just get them to chat,” I admit feebly.

    “Mm. Well, let me see. At the time of the Falklands Conflict, I was in command of H.M.S.—” He tells me. It takes quite a long time because I ask some questions and some of them really disconcert him, like how many men under his command were killed or wounded and what did he feel about it, but he answers them all.

    “Thanks. That was solid,” I say, telling the tape the date, then stopping it, rewinding it, taking it out and replacing it with a fresh one, and putting the recorder away, turned off. Since he’s watching me I then defiantly write out a label and stick it on his tape before I put that away. “Royal Navy. Captain. Male. 50. 6/6/2000.”

    “I’d be very interested to read the book. It will be a book, will it?”

    “Mm,” I admit. “Not for at least a year, yet.”

    “Mm-hm. And the television nonsense?”

    Gee, why was I hoping that wouldn’t come up? Glumly I tell him about Mark’s Master Plan. He wants to know what stage we’re at so I explain that at the end of August—I don’t muck John Haworth, Capt., R.N., about and call it la rentrée, gee, funny, that—Mark’s gonna call in all the field workers, whether they like it or not. Because everybody will have had about a year by then and he wants to get it finished and published.

    “Hierarchical,” he murmurs.

    “You better believe it. Where Mark Rutherford sits is the head of the table!”

    “Yes, I can see that would be so. Er—and how do you cope with that, Rosie?”

    What, meek little me? Gulp. He’s pretty well seen through me, that’s for sure. “Well, I’m going along with it, I only got the fellowship because he was on the interviewing panel. And I need to be associated with a solid success, even though my article’s been accepted. Well, small group dynamics are interesting, and so is the hierarchy of command,”—he doesn’t blink—“but it’s Mark’s baby, not mine. I did tell him about the nationalism stuff when I started it, and he made some useful comments, but he wasn’t really interested. I think he’s more or less forgotten about it. But it’s up to me what I work on, I don’t have to get his approval. And the fellowship’s got more than another year to go, so I’ll just refuse to be roped into any more of his bright ideas.”

    “I see.”

    There’s a short pause.

    “It does seem to me that possibly you’ve gone a little overboard with this Lily Rose business. Did you mean it to go on this long?”

    “No.” I gnaw on my lip. Finally I tell him about the horrible shock it was learning that Brian Hendricks had pre-sold it and everyone’s livelihoods were depending on me.

    “Ye-es… You didn’t see it as Hendricks’s responsibility? After all, he was the one who pre-sold it, not you.”

    “No, but John, the thing is, I let him believe I was an actress, even though I did tell him I hadn’t had any experience, and that I wanted to do it!”

    “I see, Rosie.” Suddenly he smiles at me. I gulp, and try to smile back. “Forgive me: I was being ageist and every other sort of -ist you could possibly imagine. Well, unwilling to admit that a person of your age and sex, not to say from a former colony, could possibly have the sort of old-fashioned conscience which we of the Royal Navy—”

    “Shuddup, you wanker!” I thump him hard on the thigh. Funnily enough he doesn’t object. Those very clear, sky-blue eyes sparkle at me.

    “No, but I was. Sorry,” he says meekly.

    “Yeah, well, I’ve been making the same sort of prejudiced assumption about you, I suppose. I’m sorry, too.”

    “I think you have, yes. –A joke?”

    He’s still on about the pink rosebuds. I gnaw my lip again. “Yeah.”

    He looks at me with a smile. “I think you’ve done one whole series, and the second will be out in September, is that right?”—I’m nodding glumly.—“Yes. And a third?”

    “Half of them have signed contracts for it already. Um, well, it’s not the crews so much, it’s the actors. Michael Manfred’s been talking about buying a cottage, it’s the first time for years he’s been in a long-running show, and he can’t be far off sixty, but he’s never even been able to think about retiring until now. Well, old actors don't retire, they merely do guest spots, but not having to hunt for work every few months, y’know? And Rupy wants to buy a flat, he’s sick of renting, but even though he’s been in work pretty regularly he hasn’t managed to scrape up a big enough deposit, because the banks don’t like to lend to actors. And Garry Woods, that’s Doctor, he’s about Michael Manfred’s age and him and his wife have always lived in rented flats, even when their kids were growing up, and now he’s got the chance of going halves with his cousin and his wife in a really nice little townhouse, it’s got an upstairs and a downstairs, so they could put in another bathroom and a kitchenette, kind of like two self-contained flats, but not blocking off the staircase, only they’ll never swing it unless we do a third series!”

    “Hush: calm down, I see,” he says putting his hand on top of mine. He’s got big hands—not clumsy, very well shaped, but strong-looking.

    I try to calm down but actually it isn’t possible with that big, warm hand on top of mine. “And Paul Mitchell, he’s the director, well, he’s very pleased to be in regular work, too. Often they change directors in long-running series, but Brian Hendricks isn’t into that, he wants to maintain the tone, and he likes Paul’s way of working, he’s very meticulous and economical. And Paul and Malcolm, that’s his life-partner, he’s really nice, well, they’re buying their flat but Paul let it out to me that most of the equity’s Malcolm’s and it isn’t nice to feel obligated. So now he can start to pay his share.”

    “Yes,” he says, squeezing my hand.

     I gulp. “So, um, I sort of promised myself that I’ll do the third series. We should have finished recording it by Christmas. Then I’ll stop.”

    “Mm.—Squeezing it again.—“And this rumour of a film?”

    “I am NOT— Sorry. If Derry Dawlish really wants to make a film of it, he can find someone else. I’ve got to concentrate on my work next year.”

    “Yes. Brian Hendricks knows nothing of this?”

    “No,” I admit in a hollow voice, only partly induced by the fact that his hand’s still on top of mine. Just as well I put on those thick red stretch-nylon knickers under these really thick jeans this morning, to get crudely physiological for a moment. I can see plain as plain he’s stiff as a ramrod, boy, that’s helping.

    “Of course: you wouldn’t want to prejudice your research results… Do any of them know?”

    “Rupy does but half the time he forgets, he’s so into the acting scene,” I admit, looking at it, well, difficult not to, and away again.

    “Mm.” Think he saw me looking, his mouth twitches a bit and his hand gives mine a quick squeeze. Then he says slowly: “I imagine it won’t go down too well, if it comes out.”

    “No. The public and the media’d be really ticked off if they found out I was an academic pulling the wool over their eyes. I mean, if I was just someone pretending to be an actress they wouldn’t mind, in fact I think they’d probably like it, but not this.”

    “No, quite. Er—well, you’d certainly never work in television again, but do you want to?” –Sharp look.

    “No, of course not! But Brian’s reputation would suffer, and so would Henny Penny Productions’. –That’s his company. They’d never believe he didn’t know about it, and even if they did, I think they’d still blame him. Well—human nature?”

    He lets go my hand and rubs his chin. “Yes, I think I agree. So how do you plan to end it?”

     Well, gee, actually L.R. Marshall hasn’t thought that far.

    “Um, dunno,” I growl. “Look for a lecturing job back in Oz and just disappear?”

    “That would work, yes.”

    “Yeah.” After a minute I admit: “Euan sort of knows. At least, he knows I’m a sociologist but he doesn’t realise I’m doing it as field work, he thinks I let myself be suckered into it.”

    “Euan? Oh—yes, I think we met,” he says in a horribly neutral tone.

    “Yeah.” After a moment I admit sourly: “I’ve been making up my mind to give him the push. He’s very nice but I’m not in love with him and I never was in love with him, and now he’s getting too serious and making nesting noises and crap.”

    “Crap?”

    “Not in itself. Only when it’s me involved, because he thinks I’m sweet, he’s incapable of seeing me as I really am.”

    There’s a short silence. I’m not looking at him, I’ve totally lost my nerve, why did I say all that? Either he’s thinking I sleep with anything in trousers that fancies me, mind you I’m not saying I don’t, if I fancy it back, but I don’t want him to think so, or he’s thinking I’m chasing him. Or both, actually.

    Then he says: “Did you ever give him a chance to see you as you really are?”

    “Well, yeah, I think so, because I never hid the fact that I'm a sociologist from him. The first time I met him, that was at that festival at Eddyvane Hall, Rupy got him to pick me up from the station, I was pretty tired and cross and hungry. I’d been travelling all day, I had to get up at five-thirty and I ate my sandwiches for morning tea, um, anyway, that’s irrelevant. But he got the unadorned me, if ya see what I mean. And actually I don’t think he liked me much, only then we went to a pub and I had something to eat and he had a beer and, um, to put it baldly, he got a look at the ruddy curls and everything, and, um, kind of forgot what he’d learnt.”

    “This happens a lot, does it?” he says primly.

    “Shuddup. Yeah, it does. Not with the people I work with, of course. But it does with the dim male percentile. Yeah.”

    “I think that’s inevitable.”

    Is he taking the Mick still? Uh—no, don't think so, actually. “Yeah, only then ya gotta disillusion them. Or dump them. Or both.”

    “Yes. Correct me if my arithmetic’s wrong, but wasn’t that festival about twelve months back?”

    “Look,” I say heatedly, “you may be a saint in human form, but I’m not! And nothing else that dishy and that nice was offering! And what if nothing ever did?”

    “Well, what if?” he asks, he’s wearing that poker face.

    Scowling horribly, I admit: “I dunno. I did consider settling down and marrying him, if ya wanna know. Only last time he rung me up from Stratford all he could talk about was Georgy and Adam expecting a baby, and I realised I couldn’t do it to him, he’s too nice. It wouldn’t be fair. Because I might’ve gone on for years, only then I’d of broken out. Run off with another bloke or something. And even if I didn’t, um… I don’t want that.” Swallow. “Settling for half a loaf.”

    “Mm. Large portions of humanity do.”

    “Yeah, right, and their marriages come unstuck. Mind you, the ones that are all hearts and flowers to start off with don’t fare any better, statistically speaking.”

    “No, quite.”

    “So I’m gonna dump him. He’ll be at the stupid Chipping Ditter Festival, too, it’ll be the perfect opportunity.”

    “I see.”

    Do you? Well, I don’t: are you pleased or sorry or totally indifferent? I stare blankly out the window at large portions of England. The train’s going quite fast. No, it isn’t, it’s slowing down: a station? Uh—no. Signal. Abruptly I say: “Was that Wimbledon, where you got on?”

    “What?”

    “That station, where we stopped at.”

    “Er, no, I caught the train in town. I—uh, well, I knew your television people were due to come down to Portsmouth and I couldn't help wondering if you might be on the train, so even though I knew it was damn stupid and, er, wishful thinking or something, I looked up and down the carriages at each of those first two stops. I missed you the first time, that military hat you had on was a damn good disguise.”

    “It was making my head hot,” I say lamely.

    “I know the feeling.”

    “Yeah—um…” After a moment I admit very weakly indeed: “I was afraid it wasn’t you. I mean, when you said was this seat taken, I thought it was wishful thinking, too.”

    There’s a short pause. I risk a glance at him. His mouth’s very tight and the nostrils flare a bit. Then he puts his hand back over mine and squeezes it very hard. “Yes.”

    So of course I burst out: “Why didn’t you ring me or anything? I’d never of thought the roses were a joke if you’d of rung me!” –Genuine Astrayan as she is spoke, but I can’t stop myself.

    “Well,” he says slowly, “a large part of the last year I’ve been at sea, Rosie.”

    I nod. “I asked Miss Hammersley a couple of times, and the Admiral. They said you were on manoeuvres. And she explained that he can’t usually say where because of the defence of the realm.”

    “Yes. But it wasn’t only that, I suppose…” There’s a long and sickening silence, what if you’ve ever been through one of those you’ll know exactly what I mean, and if you haven’t I hope you never have to.

    Then he says: “I suppose I was fighting it, Rosie. Telling myself that we had nothing in common, and that the age difference— Well.”

    “Yeah.”

    Then he gives a funny little smile, kind of twisted, and squeezes my hand again and says: “Then I lost. –The fight,” he explains as I look blank.

    “Oh,” I say in a very, very small voice.

    “There was also the little matter of a few—uh—anomalies in my life that needed straightening out,” he adds with a grimace.

    Anomalies? I’m blank for a moment and then I realise. “Oh: the lady in the black and puce, that we saw you with at the Ritz’s tea place?”

    “Yes. –Puce? I'd have said magenta.”

    “No, Miss Hammersley said it was puce.”

    He smiles a bit. “Then it must have been. Terrifying, wasn’t it?”

    “Y— Um—very smart!” I gasp.

    “Yes. I have to admit that for quite a long time I was into very smart, terrifyingly puce or magenta ladies, Rosie. I’m not a saint in human form, any more than you are.”

    “No.”

    “And they seemed to be…” He makes a horrible face. “What was offering.”

    I agree seriously: “Yeah, in your socio-economic bracket, they would be.”

    “I’m glad you understand.”

    So did you dump her? I can’t stand it, I gotta ask! “So didja dump her?”

    “Oh, God, yes!”

    I’m so shattered I almost pass out. “Oh, good,” I utter weakly.

    “Mm.”

    After about ten aeons he adds: “I’m like that, have to get everything—er—squared away. Ship-shape. It’s one of the things that used to drive Sonya—my ex—mad, I’m afraid.”

    “I see, you were tidying up your life.”

    “Mm.” He grimaces. “Getting rid of the mess, Rosie. There has been a fair bit of mess, at my age.”

    “Life’s like that,” I say seriously.

    “Yes. So—well, then I sent you the roses. But we were sent back to sea on the Monday. I did ring you but obviously the female who took the message didn’t pass it on. Well, she didn't seem too keen on yours truly, frankly.”

    I’m goggling at him. “When was this?”

    He makes a face. “Monday. From the ship, radio-telephone; my operator thought the Old Man had lost it.”

    “Just let me get this straight, you rung me the Monday after those flowers came?”

    “Yes. Around ten-thirty in the morning. The woman who answered your phone ascertained I wasn’t your friend Euan, and then ascertained I was the same John Haworth who’d sent you the roses. Then she tore a strip off me: the gist of it was that you were involved with a nice young man and I was to sheer off. Though I did manage to get her to concede she’d tell you I'd phoned. She didn’t, I gather?”

    I'm so furious I can hardly breathe. Fucking Aunty Kate! “No, she bloody didn't. That was Aunty Kate, and I’m gonna kill the cow!”

    “Middle-aged, believed she was doing it for your good?” he hazards in a very neutral voice.

    “Yeah, the more so because she’d just found out I was Lily Rose Rayne and decided me and Euan were gonna be the Show Biz match of the century! She went on and on about how suitable— Jesus!”

    “I see.”

    “Have you been at sea ever since then?”

    “Just about. Got home to find new orders, to wit, get Dauntless into shape and prepare to host the television people and do the Navy proud, words to that effect. She was starting to look damn down at heel, poor old girl, after months at sea, so it was all hands to the spit and polish. Well, gave the poor fellows a bit of leave, first.”

    “Yes. So what were you doing in London?”

    “Seeing my lawyers, calling in at the Admiralty, and—uh—making quite sure it was your show and that you would be down there.”

    I gulp.

    He smiles at me and says: “Don’t bawl, Rosie, darling.”

    “No,” I agree, sniffing a bit. “That was a lovely message, what you wrote on the card.”

    “Good.” He smiles at me again and after a bit I realise he isn’t gonna kiss me in public.

    So after a bit more just sitting with his head against mine, me all warm and glowing, and him very warm, to judge by the side that’s against me, it’s like being next to a big bear, what with the hairy tweed coat, I realise that I’m gonna be physically unable to stop myself from putting my hand on his cock unless I get a strong distraction, so I say: “Shall we have lunch?”

    “Lunch? Er—there isn’t a restaurant car, darling.”

    “No, but I've got some here, Arthur made it for me.” I produce the shopping bag with its thermos and Tupperware container. “There’s loads.”

    He doesn’t want to eat up my lunch but I persuade him. We have to share the top of the thermos, boy that’s a hardship. He’s hungry, maybe he didn't feel like breakfast, or is that wishful thinking again on my part? He ends up eating most of the ham and tomato sandwiches (mixed, they’re good) and I end up eating most of the Marmite, cheese and lettuce ones. There’s a big slice of fruit-cake so we halve it. It’s a really nice lunch. Arthur will’ve made it himself, he always makes his mum’s lunch when she’s gonna be out all day at her housekeeping jobs.

    After lunch we just sit here dreamily hand-in-hand. Every so often I sneak a look at it, I can’t stop myself. Lots of England goes by and the train stops somewhere and some people get off. When it starts up again he breathes in my ear: “Come home with me.”

    I jump ten feet. “Um, yeah! Um, when?”

    “Now.”

    “Um, yeah, aren’t you on duty or something?”

    “Not until tomorrow, how about you?”

    I’m supposed to be heading for a hotel, where presumably I’ll find the rest of the TV types, quite possibly panicking because I’m not there. “Actually, I’m not officially on duty till tomorrow, either.”

    “Good. Will you?”

    “Yes.”

    He smiles and puts his head against mine again. I’m looking at it again… This time he breathes in my ear: “Stop looking at me, I’ll go off like a rocket, I can barely contain myself as it is.”

    I gulp and try to look out the window instead, but I don’t take in much of England, that’s for sure.

    The train’s stopping. “Come on, Rosie,” he says, standing up. Boy, from this angle the view’s even—

    I go into a panic because it’s not where Arthur’s instructions say I did oughta be, but he manages to get me, the satchel with the laptop inside it, the shopping bag with the thermos inside it, and the bundle of mags off the train.

    “My car’s here, I always go cross-country from here. Is this all you brought? Weren’t pink suits mooted?”

    “Jesus, did they actually say— Um, yeah. All that stuff’s gone down with Yvonne in one of the cars.”

    “Right: come on, then.”

    It’s the middle of nowhere! Where the Hell are we? I don’t say this, just accompany him meekly. His car’s a very old black Jag. A slow grin spreads over my face, I just love them! You know that red Jag Morse always drove in that detective series? That sort of vintage: real leather seats and a walnut dashboard.

    “Old but reliable,” he says in that very neutral tone.

    “Glad to hear it,” I reply, poker-face.

    He unlocks it, grinning like anything, and we get in.

    Fortunately for L.R. Marshall’s nerves, although he’s the not sort of bloke that kisses you in a public British Rail train, he is the sort of bloke that kisses you madly the minute you’re in his car.

    “Oh, John!” I finally gasp, coming up for air.

    He doesn’t say anything, just buries his face in my ghastly fake army surplus tee-shirt, well, and in them, it’s the most glorious sensation I’ve ever experienced, in fact I get this sort of swoopy wave of something sweeping all through me, at first I wonder if I'm gonna have an orgasm on the spot, but it isn’t that, it’s more pure ecstasy, and at the same time as I’m thinking he’s the most terrifically masculine man in the universe, I’m sort of feeling he’s my son and I want to baby him, and at the same time as I’m shatteringly happy, I want to bust out bawling. So this is love? It’s gotta be, I never felt anything like it before. I just put my arms around him and hug him very tight.

    I don’t really see the cottage, though it’s still daylight, I just get an impression of a neato little beach and a cottage all by itself set back a bit but it hasn’t got a picket fence, it’s got a low brick wall, and it’s brick, too, and then we’re inside and he's kissing me madly and pulling the tee-shirt off and unzipping his fawn trou at the same time and two seconds later we’re on the floor and he’s in me and we’re both coming like fury.

    About five thousand aeons later I blink at him and manage to croak: “I never had one like that before.”

    “Me… neither,” he says very, very faintly, he’s still panting into my shoulder.

    “Is this a Persian rug?” I croak.

    “Mm? Mm.”

    In that case his spunk is trickling out of me onto a Persian rug. I ought to be counting days and thinking what about AIDS, but I’m not, see, I’m just lying here and reflecting that I oughta be, and that that was simultaneous within the definition, and it was indescribable, except that he was sort of pulsing into me—like, the penis was actually squirting it, I suppose?—while I was clenching like fury on it, it was the best thing ever. And what a pity you can’t work out how ya done it because I’m not kidding myself that we could ever reproduce it deliberately.

    “Sorry,” he says in a very muffled voice after absolutely ages.

    I’m not. “Whaffor?”

    “Precautions,” he produces, very, very faintly. “Didn’t—think.”

    He’d be the Pill generation, of course. Like Mum, she done it with loads of guys before Dad, I got her on the sweet sherry one evening and boy, did she give me an earful, he doesn’t know the half of it to this day, poor old bugger. “I think it’s all right.”

    At that he sort of rolls half off me and onto his side and peers at me anxiously. “No, ’tisn’t, Rosie, darling. Stupid. Selfish.”

    “There are two of us here.”

    “I don’t think you could have stopped me!” he says with a smothered laugh.

    “I didn’t want to.”

    “No.” He kisses the tip of my nose very gently and says: “When’s your period due?”

    “In a day or two. Thursday, if it’s on time.”

    “Oh, good,” he says feebly, sagging.

    “But I wouldn’t be blaming you even if it wasn't.”

    “Uh—no. But you should.”

    “Crap.” Gee, his ceiling’s got a lot of cracks in it. Plaster, yellower than Maybelle’s. “That was simultaneous, wasn’t it?”

    “Cataclysmic, more like!” he says with a laugh. Starting to feel a lot better, ya see; they always do like to hear it was simultaneous, but in this case, it’s true.

    “Yes.”

    “Simultaneous, too,” he says, kissing my nose again. “Lovely, darling.”

    “Mm.” At this I hug him very, very tight. He’s surprised, he gives a sort of shaky laugh and then he bawls into my shoulder. Captain John Haworth, R.N., bawling on the shoulder of a mere L.R. Marshall? Yikes.

    “Don’t,” I manage to say after quite some period of shock.

    He looks up, sniffing a bit, his eyes are all wet, crikey, talk about periwinkles drenched with dew. “What a clown. Sorry, darling.”

    I can’t think of anything appropriate to say so I just say: “That’s all right,” and give him another hug.

    Eventually he sits up and decides we have to get me off the floor. So he sits in a big leather chair and pulls me onto his knee. The both of us have taken off our pants, if ya see what I mean, and of course he took my tee-shirt off, so it isn’t half bad. “I suppose I didn’t believe, in my heart of hearts, that you would,” he admits.

    Eh? Me? Not do it with the most absolute dish ever to cross my path? Is he nuts? Groggily I manage to croak: “You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever met, John.”

    “Eh? Rats,” he says feebly.

    “No, honest.”

    He gives an incredulous but pleased laugh and shoves his face into my tits, ooh, lovely. After a bit he says into them: “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met, Rosie.”

    I dunno that I believe him but I reply happily: “That makes us quits, then.”

    We sit here for ages until somebody honks a horn outside and he chokes and tips me off his knee. “Marion Blaine! –My housekeeper!” he says to my blank face.

    Alas, the sophisticated sexiest woman he’s ever met dissolves in helpless giggles.

    “Stop laughing! Stop laughing, you prat! For God’s sake! Where are my trousers?”

    I’m in ecstasy.

    “Stop laughing!” he hisses, hauling up his trousers. “And for God’s sake, nip upstairs!” He chucks my jeans at me.

    I’m laughing so much I can hardly move, but I obligingly stagger upstairs. Not pointing out that somewhere on his up-market polished wood floor with the Persian rugs on it, is a pair of red stretch-nylon knickers bought for a song at a Marks & Sparks sale.

    Summer is a-cumen in, all right! Lude sing cuckoo, as well.