Episode 4: Doctor In The Captain's Anything

Episode 4: Doctor In The Captain’s Anything

    Apparently nothing happens in London during July and August. Certainly Joanie was away, she went over to Spain, how Seve envisaged that’d work with his wife in the offing I didn’t ask. Bridget was staying with her family in Manchester, and Rupy was away, too. He sent me lots of postcards: he and Tony did a short tour of the southern counties, fell out over a Devonshire tea (postcard of a cottage with roses round its door), parted acrimoniously, fell into each other’s arms again at Stonehenge (postcard of the dolmens), and spent some time with Tony’s long-suffering sister and brother-in-law on a farm somewhere near a place called Beeminster (postcard of another cottage). Then they had a parting of the ways so Rupy went to stay with Maybelle for a bit (postcard of a third cottage). So I sent him a postcard of the Changing of the Guard, addressed to him there.

    People that have to work for a living at the rotten jobs that ordinary people have to do and can’t afford huge summer holidays were actually in London, however, like Jim and Alice Wu that run the Chinese takeaway nearest to the flat, and the sour Mr Machin from the corner shop, and his son Barry, having been told he’s lucky to have a job, not like most kids that haven’t bothered to work at school—there’s no Mrs Machin, she deserted them when Barry was about three, though which was cause and which effect would be hard to say. Raewyn and Sally that run the dry-cleaner’s gave it away around the first of August and took off for Boulogne, though: it’s a very hot profession and not all that many people want heavy coats or suits dry-cleaned even in London, in August. The Singhs from The Tabla didn’t go away, in fact Rhonda Singh reckons her Dad’s never had a holiday since he came to England as a boy of six. However, when old Mr Singh finally dies they’re all planning to go back to India for a big holiday, I didn’t gather if she meant with the body or not, and I didn’t like to ask. It can’t be long, now, he’s ninety-two.

    Mrs Singh asked me if I’d give Tiffany some coaching: she’s got to sit A-Levels next year, and while I didn’t mind, I couldn’t see what good I’d be to her, because of course since I left school I’ve never really done any subjects that you do at school except French and English, and she’s not taking French. Then I found out that her school’s much more progressive than St Agatha’s Putrid Academy for Putrid Young Ladies was and she’s doing all sorts of subjects like economics and communication. I thought communication would be all about computers but apparently not, it’s mainly social sciences, so I said I could help her with that. And maybe with English, but actually her essays are miles better than mine ever were. Mrs Singh was pleased but she said the English teacher reckoned that Tiffany never wrote what was wanted. In other words she’s got an original mind, poor girl. So I did talk to her about toeing the official line until you’d got the bit of paper and then being able to do your thing, but she got awfully cross, and said she didn’t want to wait until she was old and doing her Ph.D. before she could start to write what she thought. Oh, dear. Anyway, we agreed that I’d just help her with the social sciences stuff. Mrs Singh suggested history but I had to explain that we have different history in Australia. Equally white Anglo-centric, but focused on the history of Australia since the British invaded it. Which they quite saw.

    Mrs Singh wanted to pay me (far too much), but I said if they wouldn’t mind I’d miles rather have some free meals. Which worked out good, though they thought I might find the food too hot in summer. It isn’t, of course, it’s ace, though not having been brought up with it I couldn’t eat Indian food every day. As it turns out Greg Singh’s at uni, taking psychology with some sociology, so when they aren’t busy, which is most of the time, he comes over and chats in between waiting. His Dad doesn’t mind and fortunately old Mr Singh doesn’t come downstairs these days.

    Imelda Singh, she’s the youngest, and only fourteen, she found out I’d been tapping and been in Rupy’s show and then she got it out of me that I’d been down to the Festival and met Euan Keel in person and got all excited and tried to cite me as proof that a person could pass their exams and act, but after a bit I managed to make it sink in that it wasn’t acting, largely by doing the tap routine for them after hours. Mr Singh laughed till he cried. Greg and Tiffany were both horrified, not by the routine but because their Dad laughed, but Rhonda and Mrs Singh took it in their stride. And Imelda went into a terrific sulk, which lasted for nearly two weeks, but as her mother said, better that than star-struck.

    Admittedly when she was over the sulks she asked me for a large signed photo of Euan, but of course I hadn’t got one to give her. Then it was Could I possibly— but I couldn’t. I do know vaguely that he’s coming back to London for la rentrée, the Brits don’t call it that but they’re as bad as the French about it. But I don’t know exactly when, or his address. Though he’s got mine and my phone number and swore he’d ring me the minute he’s in town. Sufficient unto the day. I did manage not to sleep with him at Eddyvane Hall but only by persuading Joanie to take off for Maybelle’s first thing on the Sunday. She was glad to, it meant she was getting me out of J.H.’s vicinity. And Bridget didn’t mind leaving, she could see Euan was never going to look twice at her and unfortunately Freddy hadn’t managed to seduce her. So we had a nice few days at Maybelle’s, being spoilt rotten and looking at the albums, before Joanie went over to Spain and Bridget went up to Manchester and I came on home.

    Rhonda Singh and I have become quite friendly, she’s about twenty-five, a schoolteacher, and very bright. She was engaged at one point but the boy’s family found out the Singhs weren’t strict, and broke it off. She didn’t mind, she’d only met him the once. After that Mrs Singh persuaded her husband to give up the idea: after all, they’ve been in England for two whole generations, really. Three, counting their Richpal’s little Billy, he's only four months and the dearest little thing! All fat chuckles. Mr Singh gave in about the proper Punjabi suitors but he hasn’t had the guts to admit it to his old father, so every so often another name is brought up for consideration and Mr Singh has to make up reasons to reject it. In actual fact Rhonda’s sort of living with another teacher, not Indian, just white English, Jimmy Clarke’s his name. He’s terrifically easy-going, just as well, because she can’t marry him until her Granddad goes, though as I say it can’t be long. She quite often spends the night at his flat and as the old man always has his breakfast taken up to him he’s never realised she’s been out all night.

    I’ve also made friends with Miss Hammersley, she’s about Maybelle’s age but unlike her she hasn’t asked me to call her by her name. She’s got the flat next to ours, there’s four to a floor, two on each side of the lift, if you see what I mean. I helped her in with her groceries one day and we got chatting. The flat’s been in her family for two generations, it used to belong to her parents. Evidently the guy that’s the official tenant of Joanie’s flat was a real party animal, she was very relieved when Joanie moved in and she turned out not to be. Though confessing she was very worried at first by the hours she kept. So of course I explained who she is and the play she’s been doing and Miss Hammersley was overcome: working with Gaynor Grahame! She’s her biggest fan! Which she couldn’t be, Arthur Morrissey is, but I didn’t say that. I’ve been to tea (afternoon tea) with her several times now as well as having coffee several mornings a week. Finally I had to say I’ve got a lot of work to do, so could we make it a regular day or two? Which we do, Monday because she thinks Monday is such a blue day, and Thursday because it’s so characterless.

    I nearly didn’t go back after she showed me her family albums and revealed that they’re a naval family. Her next brother being Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Hammersley, R.N. (Rtd.) and her youngest brother being Vice-Admiral Kenneth Hammersley, R.N. Not Rtd., he's sixty-two: she told me that. One brother was killed in the war, Tom, she’s got a lovely picture of him taken in his uniform. Torpedoed. He was only twenty. She was just old enough to be a Wren for the last year of the War, and would have stayed with the Service but Mummy made her give it up, there was no need for it in peace time. Can’t you just see it? She wasn’t allowed to do anything: they were too nayce for that, she just had to attend tea parties for the officers’ wives and footling dances where you always met the same old crowd. After I’d been several times she showed me a picture of the young man she didn’t get engaged to. In a naval uniform, of course. His ship was sunk just before the fall of Singapore. He was Wavy Navy, at first her father didn’t think much of them but of course after a while he had to admit they more than pulled their weight. I didn’t understand, but she didn’t in the least mind explaining, she didn’t imply I was just an ignorant Colonial or ought to know more history. She lent me some books: The Cruel Sea and some others. I didn’t say that after Captain J.H. I wasn’t interested in learning anything naval for as long as I lived, I just took them home and read them avidly. The one about the dam busters was the most interesting, I think perhaps it got in there by mistake. I had seen the film but it was pretty weak, added to which it was on the year I didn’t have a proper aerial and couldn’t get the ABC tuned in properly, though funnily enough all the commercial channels were nice and bright and clear. Now she can tell me things with some hope that I’ll get fifty percent of the references!

    Although she’s terrifically refined she has got quite a sense of humour, and she thinks about things quite a lot, even though she hasn’t had much formal education. She went into the Wrens straight from school. And of course Mummy said a girl didn’t need to go to university. So she just picked up odds and ends from here and there, and gradually, after bloody Daddy popped his clogs and even more so when bloody Mummy went, started to read a bit more adventurously. Though all her standards are still terribly ladylike, I really, really like her. And actually, it’s a relief to meet a person who has got standards and isn’t ashamed to admit to them.

    She thinks Tony Blair is quite a nice young man and approves of his trying to do something for the poorer people, yikes! Though still belonging to the Conservative Party because of course Mummy and Daddy did. I got her onto the Falklands: I was really curious to see what her attitude would be; but I think all she took in was that our people out there were being persecuted by those horrid foreigners. So of course We had to go in. I didn’t say, yeah, all guns blazing, or try to put forward any different point of view. Maybe it was hypocritical of me but in the first place she’d only have been upset and in the second place if you’re thinking of doing a paper on nationalism in post-Cold War Britain you don’t comment, you only gather. She thinks it’s a good thing that those poor Black people have got their freedom at last in South Africa, and that Nelson Mandela’s a fine man, but it’s all mixed up with strong condemnation of “the Boers” for having introduced Apartheid, which was never Our policy. I think the implication was, the poor Black people would never have felt the need for freedom under our benign rule, but I didn’t dare to ask for clarification, frankly. Let alone ask her what she thinks of Winnie Mandela! Bill Clinton’s name did crop up once but she said very firmly: “That horrid man? My dear, in my day he’d have resigned at once. Look at poor, weak Profumo.” And changed the subject. Well, like I say: standards.

    Evidently “dear Kenneth” is due back in London for la rentrée, and will be sure to want to meet me. I’ll look forward to that, then…

    Mark Rutherford’s come round to the flat: he came back early from Santa Barbara: Norma and the kids have stayed on with his parents. After an initial period of glaring like inimical cats the kids are getting on really well with their cousins, and Norma loves it there, while acknowledging it’s wonderful for a holiday but she’d hate to have to live there, but Mark got bored, he’s a workaholic. Like some others I could mention.

    “What do you mean, Elements of Nationalism in Post-Cold War Britain? What about the BOOK?”

    “Don’t shout, I’m not a student or a gardener.” –Norma told me about that episode, with great relish. Mark shouted at the man who used to do the hard bits in the garden, like lopping branches off the old pear tree and mowing. So the guy told him he was an up-himself Yank bastard, words to that effect, and if he imagined he needed him as a customer he could tell him where to put it. Words to that effect. And walked out. Since when poor Norma’s moved heaven and earth but been unable to find another gardener who’ll come when promised, do what’s required, and keep coming. Possibly because the first guy’s blacklisted them, and possibly because it took her over six months to find the first guy in the first place. So she’s making Mark mow the lawn himself, hah, hah. Which he’d better do pretty quick, unless he wants to be in the dog-house till Christmas, because we had a lot of rain in July, not to mention thunderstorms, and it’s grown like mad.

    He stops shouting, but glares at me.

    “You’re the one that lent me that French book on nationalism, Mark.”

    “I didn’t expect you to take it seriously!”

    No, and actually he didn’t expect me to be able to read it, he thought the French’d be too hard for me. “I didn’t take it entirely seriously, it’s hard to take a rabid French Jew that grew up on Nietzsche entirely seriously. Not to mention the fact that for him nations don’t exist outside the boundaries of Europe. But it had some interesting ideas.”

    He changes tack and demands to know what sort of sample I’ve got.

    “It isn’t intended to be the definitive study of post-Cold War nationalism, Mark. Well—‘notes towards’?” I waggle my eyebrows at him. He doesn’t think that’s funny, he’s written lots of notes towards.

    After he’s shouted about how the preponderance of gays, particularly gay ballet dancers, in the sample will skew the results, and after I’ve pointed out again that it isn’t meant to be a representative sample—he mutters under his breath about statistical significance—and after I've pointed out that I’ve got some interesting ethnic groups in there, like the Wus from the takeaway and the Singhs, not mentioning they’re not strict because I don’t think he’d appreciate that (but I think it makes it more interesting), and Coming To Jamaica not to mention Heather’s Black relations like Verity, he calms down a bit and concedes grudgingly that there could be something in it. Well, a paper, yes. But I’ve gotta watch it, or I’ll be getting too popularist.

    Heroically I don’t say “Sunday papers, Mark.” And he calms down to the extent of listening to some of my Miss Hammersley tapes.

    His jaw drops at the fluting accent. “Jesus! What percentile does she represent?”

    “In the first place, the very large number of unmarried spinsters left in the wake of the War, which is interesting in itself, and in the second place, the blue-bloods that still dominate the City, the armed forces, a large section of industry, and one of the two main political parties. –Last time I looked,” I add rather unfortunately.

    He overlooks that, he’s getting interested in spite of himself. “Replay that bit, huh? Yeah… Shee-ut, not really?” He laughs a bit. “Gee, poor old dame! Uh—well, I guess if you want to do it, it’s up to you, Rosie. But watch it: you get too involved with your subjects.”

    Not to the extent of forgetting to put the tape recorder in the laptop bag every time I go out, I don’t.

    “You gonna interview this Admiral guy? Now, that’s a real Establishment figure!”

    “If I can get him talking, yeah. But I think he might be the sort of man that won’t broach any sort of serious subject with a blonde, nubile female of under thirty.”

    We’ve had this discussion before, and the fact that many English persons are reluctant to discuss any sort of serious subject with a rabid Yank in Buddy Holly specs sort of came up, so he just grunts, sort of sympathetically. And asks to see the notes.

    I have got the notes more or less sorted out, now. Each demographic cluster, I won’t go so far as to call them a group let alone a bloody percentile, is in its own folder, and they make quite a respectable pile. “Ye-ah… uh-huh. Yeah… Jesus, who was this?” The pages flap.

    “Mm? Oh: a very nice long-distance lorry driver who gave me a lift down in the southern counties. He’s been working in England this summer but he often drives all the way to Turkey.”

    “Very nice? The man’s a rabid Nazi!”

    “Yes, but at the same time he was very nice. I thought that was the most interesting thing about him, but if you insist, I won’t let that creep in.”

    “You better not!” Muttering about pure subjectivity, he reads on… “Yeah. Okay. You’ve got some good stuff, here. Only less of the gay actor and ballet-boy crap, huh?”

    “I have got several generations of them. Well, not necessarily gay.”

    He concedes that’d help and warns me I’d better start sub-sorting them by subject. Only what about the book?

    “I’ve sort of made a start. Well, I’ve worked with several groups of subjects, now, all more or less in production. The notes are pretty rough, though.”

    He grabs them, nevertheless. After a few moments it’s: “Jesus God, Rosie! You’re not writing Mrs Dane’s Diary, here!”

    “What?” I don’t get the reference, at first: I think it’s something to do with Poppy Mountjoy and her near-soap. “Oh! No, well, I said they were rough. But see, I managed to sit in on lots of the ballet rehearsals as well as Euan and Rupy’s play, and of course Daffyd’s skit. But there were only four of us in that, I dunno if it’s got the rôles you want.”

    He gives me the standard stern speech on not skewing one’s results by relating them to one’s expectations, but then goes on rapidly to apply his categories to the rôles taken by Daffyd, Freddy and Quentin. Pointing out that Freddy and Daffyd in fact frequently alternated the rôle of Leader and that sometimes Freddy played Devil’s Advocate as well as Quentin. Neither of which I’d spotted.

    “Yes, you’re right, Mark. Good.”

    It’s a start but I haven’t got enough depth, blah, blah. And Jesus! Stop seeing them as personalities! And have I been boning up on the psychology?

    “Yes, I read all the books you suggested. You’re right: they’re enough to make anybody stop seeing their subjects as personalities.”

    “Hah, hah. –Well?”

    “I still think the best thing ever done was that French study about twenty years back of the kindergarten kids.”

    Since I’ve let him believe that it was him who introduced me to that study—well, sleeping dogs, y’know?—he cheers up, and admits it wasn’t bad—but, hastily, not mainstream sociology by any means. But nevertheless advises me to aim at that sort of thing, if that’s what interests me. There was a team of them, and there’s only one of me, but I don’t point that out. Also our revered Head of Department may go rabid if he finds out that Mark’s encouraging me to sway towards the social psychology side, but I don’t point that out, either. Anyway, he’s due to retire in two years’ time and it’s pretty certain Mark’ll get the chair. And there’s several solid bods in the Department that are deeply into the statistical and demographic analysis bit, they don’t need another one. Not to mention the guy who’s deeply into the political sociology bit.

    “Yeah, okay,” he decides. “But you need to get in on a production from the ground floor and follow it through. What’s your cousin doing next term?”

    I admit reluctantly: “Another drawing-room comedy.”

    “TV?”

    “No, stage.”

    His face falls—the Sunday papers won’t go for that, ya see—but he admits it’s better than nothing. If I can follow it through. He flips through the reports from the Festival again. “Now, this guy: Euan Keel. He’s quite well known, isn’t he? How close did you get to him?”

    “Look, Mark, the only way I could follow through anything Euan Keel was up for would be to get engaged to the poor fish!”

    His eyes gleam through the Buddy Holly specs. “Has he asked you?”

    “Ma-ark!”  I sound just like Norma. His face falls ten feet.

    “No, I guess… But in the interests of research?”

    Yeah, right, in the interests of research. “What if it all came out? What would that do to our credibility?”

    “No-o… Well, no. But gee, you could follow through a film production, didn’t they film that last thing of his in Morocco?”

    “No, you’re getting mixed up. On one of the Hawaiian islands. But his bits were in the studio. On Gilligan’s Island,” I add meanly.

    Taken unawares, he sniggers. “Uh—yeah. Well, never mind that. A TV mini-series? Sometimes they film those all over the place!”

    Yeah, like at six different country houses that they stick together in the editing studio. I don’t point this out, I just say firmly: “There’s millions of people you could interview if you got a team together, if you’re really interested in the dynamics of a film production.”

    “That’d be useful background, but it isn’t the same as following through—”

    “And, I’m not gonna do anything so unkind to poor Euan!”

    “No, well, not get engaged, that’d be dumb.” He must spot something in my eye, like, red wrath, because he adds hastily: “But just go round with him a bit?”

    “No. If I can get in on a show by holding Joanie’s knitting, well and good. But I’m not gonna do anything that’d involve someone’s feelings.”

    He scratches his lean chin, talk about the mad sociologist! “Would his feelings be involved?”

    “He’s a very sweet, earnest young man who’s been through the one-girlfriend-after-another bit and is now in the percentile that’s consolidating the career and looking round for someone to make a nest with, whadda you think?”

    “Uh—yeah.”

    “Of course, I could lead him on, get engaged, marry him, and once the world-wide excitement over the book’s died down and no-one will suspect, quietly div—”

    “Okay! Don’t rub it in with a bludgeon!”

    I do. “Gee, I could even have two kids, get them past nursery school and then divorce him! Why not, the divorce statistics’d substantiate its verisimilitude.”

    “Shut up.”

    There’s a short silence. We’re looking guiltily at each another. I have to swallow loudly.

    “Gee, it’s tempting, huh?” he admits sheepishly, biting his lip.

    It sure is. “It sure is,” I admit, grinning sheepishly.

    “What a social document!”

    “Yeah.”

    “The Marital Relationship In Post-Cold War Britain, huh?” he says, grinning sheepishly.

    “Yeah.” I take a deep breath. “Come on. Let’s go and grab a beer.”

    “Warm,” he warns.

    “Oh—yeah. Well, I do know a pub where all the expatriate Aussies go, where they keep cans in the fridge, but it’s a bit of a way from here. Added to which, it’s full of expatriate Aussies ready to tell you stories about their trips round Europe in the campervan. Um, well, grab a couple of coldies out of the fridge and go up on the roof? There is actual sun up there.”

    “Okay, great.”

    We grab a couple of coldies and Mark grabs my Grauniad, bummer, I was saving that, so I grab my half-read TLS, and we go up on the roof of the flats. We don’t need to grab the trendy sun-loungers that belong to Joanie’s landlord, they’re already up there.

    After a bit Miss Hammersley joins us, complete with Doris Winslow from the second floor, a member of her own demographic group, by age, though less genteel, by class, and also single, plus Buster Winslow, also single, he’s had the op, poor little bugger. He’s all right, corgis are a bit like cats, aren’t they? A gleam lights up in Mark’s eye as they sit down on their floral swing seat with its own floral, fringed awning and Miss Winslow produces her thermos of Pimm’s. –Not at the sight of the Pimm’s, whaddareya, he’s a Yank! No, at the realisation that they’re subjects! Heroically he manages not to glance sideways at my laptop bag as I reach into it very casually for a hanky... The ladies are thrilled to meet one of my academic colleagues, and Doris is thrilled that he’s American. So we sip genteelly, and begin to chat…

    And a lovely time is had by all.

    Joanie’s come back from Spain, very tanned. It looks good with that very thick, straight blonde hair of hers—much paler than mine. Not to mention, very Up, because she reckons Seve really is serious about dumping the wife—yeah, yeah. I try very hard not to emanate total disbelief. It isn’t la rentrée yet but the new drawing-room thing’s gonna go into rehearsal because they want to catch the crowds of grannies in twinsets that flood back in September—yeah, yeah.

    “Oh, your agent rung the other day. I knew you were on your way so I didn’t try to send a carrier pigeon all the way to Spain.”

    “‘Rang’. What other day?” she demands suspiciously.

    “Your actual yesterday. While you were on the high seas.”

    “Stuck in the huge queue at the bloody airport, more like.” However, she’s mollified. “What did she say?”

    I’ve taken conscientious notes on the telephone pad, not that I’m not pretty good with the jargon, now, but better safe than sorry. Here is it is. Please ring Sheila, because Brian Herrick is about to cast for a new series. He’s looking for blondes. Somebody’s daughter.

    “Brian— Brian Hendricks, you ape! Um, did Sheila say what sort of a part?”

    “Somebody’s daughter. I wrote that down.”

    “So you did. I’d better ring her.” She rings her. I listen unashamedly, but don’t gather much.

    “Well?”

    “I think it must be that Fifties thing he was thinking about a couple of months back—when he went to your show, Rosie. Sheila’s sending me a script.”

    “Crikey, it must be a leading rôle!”

    Joanie looks dubious, she’s been through all this a million times. “Somebody’s daughter?”

    “Didn’t she say any more than that?”

    “No.”

    “Well, whose daughter? The leading man’s?”

    “She didn’t say, Rosie; it all sounds horribly fluid.” She makes an awful face, wrinkling up her nice straight nose, it’s rather like mine, thank God neither of us got Grandpa’s nose.

    “Is Brian Hendricks like that?”

    “No, actually he’s usually very cut-and-dried.” She wanders over to the window. I watch her dubiously. Finally she says: “If Brian Hendricks is playing it close to the chest, I think he must think it might be a hit. But they’ll probably be filming—well, some time during the next few months.”

    “During the day, though, won’t it be? You could fit it in with the drawing-room stuff!”

    “Ye-es… Well, the thing is—”

    The thing is, she actually believes that load of crap Seve hands out. The latest is about buying a bar somewhere on the coast that his cousin’s brother-in-law wants to sell, and developing it into a tourist trap for Brits: warm beer, fish and chips and English Spoken Here, along with the sangría that makes them feel they’re Abroad whilst not shocking their sensibilities or their digestions too much. It’s got a good location: there’s a big new tourist hotel just over the way, only the cousin’s brother-in-law’s had it: he wants to retire and enjoy his piece of the sun. Joanie will superintend the fish and chips, you see, while Seve— Yeah, yeah. A snug little bar on the coast won’t bring in the sort of dough that buys the sort of clobber he gets round in, I can tell ya. Nor the sort of watch, it’s a flaming Rolex, read my lips: R,O,L— Yeah, well. I don’t actually voice my disbelief, I just emanate it.

    “My career isn’t really going anywhere.”

    No, but it might, if she gets a part in a comedy series that really takes off. “No, but it might, if you get a part in comedy series that really—”

    With her luck, they’ll write her character out after the first episode’s screened. No, after the pilot. She cites several past instances of this. I’ve heard them before, I don’t listen. She decides to wait until the script gets here. I would, yeah.

    The script’s got here; so’s Rupy. He arrives just as we’re about to read it. Terrifically tanned, what in God’s name—? It turns out that while he was sulking down at Maybelle’s, he just happened to be wandering round the town and bumped into the most divine— Blah, blah. Most Divine having a sugar daddy with a palace on Jersey, like, where Gerald Durrell’s zoo is, they went over there. The sugar daddy being temporarily in the States having a few nips and tucks done, Rupy and Most Divine had the palace to themselves. Did you ever see that detective series with John Nettles? No, before that, the one where he was still young and sexy: great bod. Very blue eyes, maybe they were contacts. That was set on Jersey. Anyway, there was a kind of pink palace in it, it belonged to that nice older guy, I’ve seen him in loads of things, he wasn’t a sugar daddy, I think he was his father-in-law. Ex-father-in-law? Evidently the sugar daddy’s palace was pretty much a dead ringer for that. Except that it was pale yellow, not pale pink. But it had two pools, indoor and out, a spa, what sound like hibiscus bushes from the muddled description, umpteen fully stocked bars, and, judging by the gear, a closet full of designer clothes that sugar daddy’s gonna be wondering where the fuck they went to in his absence. That explains why the postcards dried up.

    After quite some time we settle down with stiff gins and a plate of yummy little savouries that Mrs Singh gave me—all right, Rupy, pukkorahs if you say so—and read the script. What there is of it. It doesn’t all seem to be there.

    “Is it Fifties, dears?” asks Rupy, very puzzled. So’m I, it doesn’t say “Enter Daughter wearing pointy bra” or anything like that.

    Joanie admits she doesn’t know. We read on. –We’re on the sofa, right? Me and Rupy one on each side of the poor woman, right? Right.

    Eventually, after a few new characters have entered and five thousand or so naval references have flickered past our rapidly-going-fuzzy eyes, Rupy says groggily: “Now, don’t all shout at once, dears. But if I was to say the words ‘Wonderful Dirk Bogarde before they found out he could be a serious actor’?”

    “That was Fifties, all right,” agrees Joanie groggily. She turns back and rereads the previous page. Lieutenant Hallett is making a heavy pass at the Daughter. He’s obviously a straight rôle, not a comic cameo or a villain, in fact he sounds like the juvenile lead and Rupy’s obligingly read a bit of him out to show that he is. “Why in God’s name is she giving him the brush-off?” she croaks.

    Obligingly Rupy reads Lieutenant Hallett’s lines again. Groggily Joanie reads Daughter’s. Feebly I croak: “Are you sure he isn’t meant to be creepy? Like, a comic cameo?”—“No!” they snarl. I shrink back into myself…

    “It is,” pronounces Rupy at last. “Darling Dirk Bogarde.”

    “Fifties,” agrees Joanne groggily. “There’s no other possible reason why she’s so… sickeningly coy?”

    “Prudish?” he offers.

    “Brian Hendricks has run mad,” she mutters.

    “Male menopause?” he offers delicately.

    They’re agreeing that the famous TV producer, famous in their terms, is suffering from the male menopause and mid-life crisis and all that jazz when it hits me and I collapse in streaming hysterics. Tears roll down my cheeks. “What?” they cry, getting crosser and crosser because I can’t stop. “What? Rosie, tell us! What?”

    I manage to utter: “Doctor In The Captain’s Anything!” Then I collapse again.

    Just for a minute Joanie and Rupy manage to be very superior and say: “Pooh.” And: “Silly.” Then their eyes meet. And Rupy is seen and heard to gulp. And Joanie is heard to clear her throat. And he admits: “One has to admit that those Fifties efforts were, rather, weren’t they? All white duck and doctors!”

    “Mm!” she squeaks. And their eyes meet again and they collapse in streaming hysterics.

    Because, believe you me, that’s what Brian Hendricks’s bloody script is, all right. Doctor In The Captain’s Anything. Too right. With brass knobs on.

    Imelda Singh’s come round, it’s almost the end of the holidays and I think her mother’s desperate, I do recall that syndrome from Joslynne’s and my school holidays in our St Agatha’s days, yeah. A bit unfortunately Rupy’s staying, he’s sub-let his flat to two nice Polish girls who are possibly here illegally—I mean, they got out of Poland legally, now that you can, but we’re not absolutely sure they’re here legally. Or that they’ve got legal work permits. So we go and expose her to him. Oops. I’ll have to get on round to The Tabla and explain. Mind you, if Mrs Singh’s as desperate as Mum used to get she probably won’t care.

    Imelda’s all excited about the Part. Much more so than Joanie herself, me, or Rupy, actually. First we have to read through the whole script, what there is of it, fifteen times, her and Joanie alternately taking Daughter’s part, both of them are rotten, Rupy doing Lieutenant Hallett and Captain, and me taking Admiral and Yeoman. Until Rupy tells me sternly I’m camping it up too much and does Admiral himself. Not managing anything like the bass I managed. Then we have to spread out poor Joanie’s entire wardrobe on her bed and try things on and decide what she ought to wear for the audition. Somehow Rupy’s entire wardrobe gets involved in this, too, but never mind, Imelda doesn’t object. She tries to involve my entire wardrobe and is very dished when she finds I haven’t got one. Then she has an inspiration, so we go next-door to ask Miss Hammersley very nicely if she’s got anything left over from the Fifties—just managing to stop Imelda from saying the Olden Days—that might do for Joanie’s audition!

    Miss Hammersley by this time has been exposed to Rupy on the roof top in nothing but his white Panama with a new ribbon, pale jade, his G-string, bright jade, and the tan, so she’s able to take it with fortitude. And fortunately she seems to like plump little stage-struck fourteen-year-olds, and not to mind if they’re rather Brown, in fact she tells the puzzled Imelda a long story about dearest Daddy being an aide-de-camp before the War, and the halcyon days of the Raj, not to mention the time she and Mummy went out to see dear Lord Louis hand over to “your people, dear.” And then she lets us loose in the Dresses! Wow! I don’t think she’s ever thrown anything away in her life. Not to mention all of Mummy’s gear that she’s still got!

    I don’t think there’s any way Imelda’s mum is going to let her actually wear a pale yellow, full-skirted, low-necked satin creation heavily embroidered with seed pearls and tiny crystal beads, in fact there is no situation in which one could envisage a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl being required to wear such a garment—unless Rhonda gets married and wants a pale yellow bridesmaid or the school lets them put on The Reluctant Debutante with a multicultural cast? However, I don’t raise any objections when Miss Hammersley insists on forcing it on her. It came to just below the knee in its heyday but it’s full-length on Imelda. Not that this stops either of them.

    The suits, to the chagrin of some, are mostly like the ones in the dreariest Fifties British films, and nothing like the pastel creations Rupy was envisaging. Heavy wool, some of them actual hairy tweed, ugh. There is one very smart one, however: black and white houndstooth with a grosgrain trim in black. We peer at the label, and gulp. Miss Hammersley admits wistfully that dear Mummy had it for a rather special occasion. –Not a garden party, English ladies didn’t wear suits to garden parties in the fucking Fifties even if it was forty below, whaddareya? No, it was someone’s wedding, a morning wedding, of course—we nod groggily—to Lord Something. We nod groggily, and Rupy looks eagerly for the Hat. She can’t remember which it was. Finally he settles for a nice little black feather cap, and makes Joanie get into it all. It’s an overpoweringly smart Look, but even the optimistic Rupy can see Joanie’s soft blonde looks will never pull it off. Not even with the hair in a French roll—no. Miss Hammersley’s found the album in question and shows us the picture of Mummy. We gulp. Overpoweringly smart and then some! The hat’s wrong, but we can’t find the right one, and she thinks Mummy might have let it go to a bring-and-buy sale, when they still had the house. The photo’s B&W, of course, but we can still identify her in the background. In a really drecky suit: authentically Fifties it might be, but it’s got a gathered skirt under one of those little round-collared, short, nipped-waisted jackets, and the fabric’s far too heavy for that style. Yes, Rupy, we agree: it would look nice in pale yellow, not an acid yellow, no, a soft buttery yellow, in a much lighter fabric. She hasn’t seen it for years, perhaps Mummy let it go to the bring-and-buy, too. Good riddance, we’re all thinking, it’s written on our faces, loud and clear. She thinks it was grey-blue, that figures, she’s got one of those sallow skins that no way—no way!—can wear blue and by now it’s obvious even to little Imelda that Mummy was not prepared to put up with an instant’s competition to her gracious corseted self. And who’s this? Isn’t he a dish? That’s dear Lord Louis, of course, Joan, dear. My cousin subsides, smiling weakly.

    Rupy then finds The suit and makes Joanie get into it. Severe black, let’s hope Miss Hammersley didn’t have it for darling Daddy’s funeral. Nipped waist, rounded lapels, skirt of the jacket not too short, and a pencil skirt, in short, the Marilyn Monroe look. Talking of short, it’s too long for Joanie, it belonged to Miss Hammersley herself, for a wonder, not bloody Mummy, and she’s more the type of that actress who played the lion lady. I’ve seen her in another film where she went out to Africa, too: much earlier, I think it was Fifties. Was she married to the Peter Finch character or am I mixing about three different films up? No, five, there’s The Sundowners and the original film version of A Town Like Alice in there somewhere, too. It was English, but colour, I do remember that. Boring print dresses and saving the natives, I think, but I can’t remember from what. Cholera? Democracy? Yeah, all right, I’ve stopped. All I was trying to say was, it’s a very English type, tallish, slim, rather bony, and Miss Hammersley’s It. What with the boniness in her case and the well-roundedness in Joanie’s, the jacket fits very well and the skirt’s just right over the hips, but as I say, too long. Miss Hammersley looks anxiously at the bottom but then looks relieved: I can’t see why, actually the skirt looks a bit loose. She tells Joanie that of course the suit would have had a nice blouse under it, my dear, just as Rupy’s telling her it’s the Marilyn look and fab, and all it needs is a string of pearls and a black beret! Jaunty, y’know? Imelda supports him in this stance and finds The shoes: black platform soles, suede, really groovy. Good gracious! Miss Hammersley hasn’t seen those since the War! Quite unsuitable for that nice suit. We ignore that, and Joanie puts them on. The added height greatly improves the skirt and Imelda concedes that maybe a mini look wouldn’t be better, no. Very helpfully Miss Hammersley finds a nice blouse, sort of yicky cream, with that kind of Chinese embroidery on the front, but is then distressed to find that the underarms have gone. Tolerantly Rupy lets Joanie get into it. Immediately the suit manages to look poisonously dowdy and Miss Hammersley announces proudly that that looks much better! –Virginia McKenna. Right.

    Rupy then finds something that must have been a summer two-piece? Powder-blue, do we remember that outfit of Audrey Hepburn’s in Sabrina where she got off the train and was picked up by the younger brother, one of those rather macho puddings? “William Holden?” I scream. “Honestly, Rupy! –Um, yeah, I do, actually,” I admit shamefacedly as it dawns that Miss Hammersley, Rupy and Joanie are now all smiling tolerantly at me. It was black, for heavens’ sake! And terrifically smart and nothing at all like—

    He makes me get into the poisonous thing.

    It’s a bit tight round the hips and Miss Hammersley looks at it anxiously but doesn’t say anything. The bust’s about right, it must’ve been bloody loose on her. Rupy discovers it’s just like that outfit of Marilyn’s in Let’s Make Love! The last scene, dears, where she goes to his office. It’s nothing like it. Nothing like it! For a start, it was black, and it had sort of rude bits where she showed through the black lace bits. I don’t say anything, as even Joanie’s now telling me I do look like her. I don’t think she ever wore powder-blue in any single film she was in. For why? Powder-blue is nau-se-at-ing, that’s for why! The nearest she got to it was that big blue jersey she wore in her first scene in ditto, and it was not powder-blue. I don’t say so, Miss Hammersley’s telling Imelda with a sentimental sigh it was one of her favourite frocks.

    Rupy’s found the hat, hooray! It’s weird, a sort of large crescent of very fine powder-blue straw. Imelda thinks it’s a bit like a visor? Yeah, right, Imelda. You put it on a Borg and I’ll assimilate him out of Federation Space. Happily. She finds the shoes and I get into them. Sandals, actually, very strappy. More sighs from Miss Hammersley. She adjusts the hat, Rupy quickly pins the hem up about a foot, and we all admire Marilyn me in the mirror. Ye gods and little fishes!

    Eventually we exit from Miss Hammersley’s flat, laden with goodies. Rupy’s scored four fab evening shirts of Daddy’s, one genuine Nehru jacket in heavy cream silk which was presented to Daddy Over There, so kind, but of course one couldn’t wear it, one peasant blouse, kind of gypsy style, with heavy embroidery, that Miss Hammersley’s assumed he wants for a friend, she could be right but we don’t spell out the sex of the said friend, one good-as-new canary yellow sweater that we might think was a bit much, but of course Daddy bought it for golf, one actual pair of plus-fours which I for one am betting he’ll never have the guts to wear, one pair of white Naval uniform trousers which Miss Hammersley was astonished to find still there, she thought Daddy’s uniforms had long since gone, five floating scarves which some of us are silently hoping she’s assumed he wants for a friend, a lavender pink fine-knit sweater which Joanie’s pointed out crossly is still good but Miss Hammersley’s disclaimed all interest in, that lacy style is so old-fashioned, my dears, the most divine boxy shoulder bag in real crocodile, and a fur coat. It’s so old-fashioned, she can’t imagine what— It’ll be just right to huddle into after the show on freezing winter nights as he dashes into his taxi! Right, and as he strolls into the You-Name-It Club with his latest pickup. And don’t blame us if he gets mugged by the Animal Rights types.

    Joanie and I between us have scored the black suit, the powder-blue outfit, eight more hats, two stiff petticoats, and four totally fabulous evening dresses with the promise of more any time we like to pop over. And Imelda, of course, has scored the lovely pale yellow satin one.

    We spread the booty out on the sitting-room furniture and look at it guiltily for a bit…

    Then we all fall on it and start trying it on again. After considerable swapping, trying, and re-trying, Joanie ends up in the white Naval trou, belted in tightly with a crocodile belt we didn’t notice Rupy scoring, the lavender pink sweater, and the cream Nehru jacket. I end up in Joanie’s pink full-length satin evening gown with DIOR on the label and Rupy’s fur coat. He ends up in my adorable white tight-skirted strapless evening gown with the black embroidery on it, plus the little black feather hat, plus the platform soles. And Imelda ends up in my powder-blue.

    After that we’re so exhausted we have to have a round of stiff gins. It’s only when Imelda’s gone into an ecstatic giggling fit that we remember she’s too young for gin, and probably the wrong religion, though we’re not sure about that, and in fact too young for any of it. We snatch back the gin and give her an orange juice, but as for the rest of it— Oh, well, what the heck, it’s holidays. And Miss Hammersley was thrilled to be part of it all.

    Bridget’s come back, she rings up to say Hi, and did we all get back safely? She doesn’t ask after Euan, this is just as well, because he is back.

    We went out the other night, for dinner: he said he’d take me somewhere nice so I wore Miss Hammersley’s white satin evening dress with the black embroidery. It’s done with black silk and little shiny black beads, it’s fantastic, a sort of snaky pattern all over the skirt and up the bodice as far as the nipples. Did I mention it was strapless? Boned, and everything: it’s beautifully made. I wore the little black feather hat with it just for fun, set on the back of the head with the curls fluffed out all round it. He went a funny greenish colour when he copped a gander at it, so I said what was up, had he planned to take me to McDonald’s? He’d thought a nice Indian restaurant and then a club? I had to reveal the awful truth that I’d been more or less living at a nice Indian restaurant for the last two months. And I know clubs are the In Thing but I can’t stand the loud noise. Not to say the associating with the puerile under twenty-fives. He smiled feebly but admitted he doesn’t like loud pop music either and would I like to come to a very nice Early Music concert next week? I set myself up for that, eh? So I weakly agreed. We ended up at the Ritz, at first I thought he’d suggested it for a joke.

    The dinner was great but I hate to think what it set him back. Then he said he was sure we could get in at a very nice supper club. Not a disco, jazz. So we went, it wasn’t too glitzy though they did have a chucker-out on the door. I’m not terribly fond of modern jazz, especially not played by white people, which these all were except for the trombonist. But it wasn’t too bad. After all that dinner I didn’t want any supper but we ordered a couple of drinks. I could feel him pushing his thigh against mine, it wasn’t a very roomy place and our chairs were really close together. He kept giving me these really soppy looks—y’know? That usually makes me want to scream. I did sort of want to scream, only he’s really very nice, so at the same time I sort of felt quite warm and as if I wouldn’t mind. Mind you, gin always does that to me. So then he put his hand over mine and said I looked fabulous in the dress. I knew that, he’d already told me that and actually so had Rupy and Joanie. And Miss Hammersley, she was there when he rang up, she’d come over for coffee because it was a Thursday, so of course she popped over later to see what I was wearing. Anyway I just smiled at him—I mean, what can ya say? “Thank you so much?” Or “You look fabulous, too?” I think enough people have told Euan Keel that in his lifetime. Or “Yeah, I cleaned up good, eh?” Then he said would I like to go back to his place? I didn’t say “And do what?”, after all he’s pretty much of a wimp, it might’ve flattened him. I just smiled at him and said: “Yeah, why not?” He blinked, but pretty obviously decided it was just my Australian way. And we went.

    He’s got a fabulous flat, I shudder to think what it must be costing him. Very modern, down near the river. You can see the lights and that. The furniture’s pretty horrible, but I didn’t say so. Nineties dinky with tubular bells, sorry, steel. And far too much spindly wrought iron, he must’ve got a gay decorator to do it for him, that’s for sure. At first we sat down on the sofa and he tried to get another drink into me, but honestly! I'd’ve passed out with any more. So we had a coffee instead, he can’t make decent coffee, he might just as well have stuck with brown dust like me and Joanie.

    So then he put his arm round me and gave me a soppy look and said he was really fond of me, dear wee Rosie. Which shows he has a total misconception of the real Me. But I pretty much knew that. Then he kind of gave me that Look in the eyes that means, Let’s kiss; do they learn it off the Silver Screen, or off their peers, though the mind boggles at how, or what? But they all do it. So I obligingly gave him the corresponding look that says: Yes, let’s, and we kissed. He’s quite a good kisser. One of those rather full, squashy tongues, y’know? Only after a bit he started mauling at the dress. So I pushed his hand away and said very clearly: “Euan, I’d be happy to go to bed, so long as you use a condom, but if you maul this wonderful dress of Miss Hammersley’s I will kill you.”

    At which he went very red and gave a sort of laugh, not knowing whether that was a put-down or not. So I stood up and said: “Come on, let’s do it in the bedroom.”

    At that it dawned I did mean it, so he scrambled up and took my hand and we went into the bedroom. Then dumb Rosie says: “Hang on, I have to go to the toilet first.” That always dampens their ardour, at least, it does of all the ones I’ve met: no matter how macho they are they take it as a personal insult and look all sulky. Which he did. So much for the Rising Star of British Theaytre, eh? Not that I didn’t know he was wimpy. But I genuinely had to go: well, count it, I’d just had a coffee, and a drink before dinner and all that wine with the dinner, and a drink at the club, and I did go while we were at the Ritz—boy, you oughta see their Ladies’ room!—but heck, that was once in a whole evening. So I went. His ensuite’s the epitome of vile, all black slate and black marble with sort of greyish streaks in it. With black towels, what poor slave does his laundry? I bet they bleed like billyo! You couldn’t wash anything else with them, that’s for sure, except maybe black socks.

    Anyway I came back and he’d had the sense to get undressed and get into bed. I couldn't see if he was wearing his underpants still. If they do, I dump them, because I’ve had prior experience of those blushing violets and believe you me, it isn’t worth the effort. No matter how dishy they are.

    The bedroom’s pretty vile, too, a black wrought-iron bed-head and everything else white except the curtains, they’re floor-length black velvet. I took off the dress very carefully and put it on a big white chair. I haven’t got many undies so I was only wearing a pair of tights and a really nice pair of lacy pants that Joanie brought me back from Spain, wasn’t that sweet of her? Pale blue, they didn’t show at all under the dress, it’s fully lined. I could’ve worn my red stretch-nylon pants, really. So then I turned round and he was very flushed and sort of grinned at me. If they’re very, very naïve or very sophisticated (I’ve only done it with one of those) they say: “You look great” or words to that effect, in very different tones, as you can imagine. But he didn’t say anything. Which was about what I’d calculated. So I took the tights and panties off and put them on the chair and then got into bed. He wasn't wearing his underpants, I don’t know if I was more relieved or disappointed. Well, I could’ve dumped him with a clear conscience, ya see.

    I have to admit he was miles better than most of the Aussies I’ve done it with, except Mr Sophisticated, but given that he was more than twice my age and a racing acquaintance of Dad’s— Anyway, I was afraid that Euan might just plunge it in, because I knew he’d been wanting it for a while. And according to him, hadn’t done it with any other girl since meeting me. Yeah, maybe. But he didn’t, he kissed me a lot and then sort of mumbled his face between my tits. I adore that, so I sort of squeaked and squirmed and gurgled a bit, and he was very pleased, and went on doing it for a while. Then he sort of mumbled his face lower—you know. But when he got to the bush he stopped and said “Do you like this?”

    Not being mad or unnatural I gasped: “Yes, please!” And he said: “Oh, good,” you could hear he was laughing just a bit, starting to feel a lot more confident, see? So he got down to it and I started really squirming and gasping. Then he hopped up and kissed me sort of hungrily, which usually means they want a sixty-nine. And said: “Could we no’ turn round for a wee while, Rosie?” Which is polite Scotch for Let’s have a bit of a sixty-nine, you see. So we did. I did my special thing of rolling my tongue round the tip, that went over really big. In fact after only a little bit of it he had to push me away and sit up, panting like anything, and admit he was just about coming, it was too good. Which shows he’s got a bit of nous, not to mention decent instincts, because I have known them as would just have gone ahead, one way or the other, regardless. Then he said he’d never be able to hold back, and could he give me a come, strictly speaking a wee come, that must have been his Scotch vernacular, with his tongue? I can always come like that, whereas missionary-style I couldn’t say yes or no with ninety percent certainty, there’s a lot of factors there, especially if it's someone you haven’t done it with before. So I said Yes, please, and so he turned round again and did it. I yelled my head off, I always do. I think it gave him a bit of a shock, maybe all his girlfriends have been politer or managed not to yell, though I don’t see how, exactly. But he was very pleased. In fact it turned him on terrifically and he had to pull a condom on straight away and do it. Sometimes when they plunge it in straight away like that I can come a bit more, which I did, and he yelled, and exploded right away without being able to go on. So whether or not it was true about not doing it with anyone else for several months, he certainly wanted it, all right.

    Luckily I didn’t bet against him pulling my head onto his shoulder afterwards, because he did. Still panting like anything. I must say, I do like his chest, it’s just furry enough. Then he turned his head and smiled, and kissed me, very tenderly, but very wetly as well. Which if I’d had a bet on that, I’d’ve lost it, I was quite surprised. “You were verra loud, wee Rosie,” he said.

    “I always am.”

    “Aye. And always verra wet?” he said with a smile in his voice.

    How should I know? A person can’t measure it! Jesus, why do they say it? “Um, I suppose.”

    “I suppose so!” he said, grinning like anything, and pulling me tightly against him.

    After that of course he had to get up and dispose of the condom, which can be somewhat of an anticlimax. But he wasn’t sheepish about it and he didn’t cover himself up with his hand, coming or going. So I decided that as long as he doesn’t get too serious I don’t mind going on with it for a bit. And maybe it’ll dawn of its own accord that we haven’t got anything in common. Um, except Early Music.

    But of course I don’t tell Bridget any of this. Or that, thank God, he wasn’t in the least athletic like in his bloody silly Robinson Crusoe film.—It was a flashback, geddit?—Not that people really are athletic. Not in real life. Because actual sex itself is quite stimulating enough, in my experience. Not to say too urgent to think about being boringly athletic. Not to say takes it out of ya. Well, it took it out of Mr Rising British Star, he slept like a log until eight in the morning. Though we were pretty late getting to bed, of course.

    In the morning he was terribly cuddly and sweet and didn’t mind in the least that I had to dash off to the bog before doing it again. We did it missionary fashion, they usually do in the mornings unless prompted otherwise or unless the thing’s been going on for a while, and he came too soon. So then he gave me a come with his finger. He was awfully apologetic, wasn’t that sweet?

    When I got home—he’d insisted on calling a taxi and putting me tenderly into it—Joanie said: “Ten out of ten?” I don’t think I was imagining the hopeful note, she must think he’d be a nice boy for me to settle down with, yikes.

    “Six.”

    Her face fell like someone had just told her she’d lost the part of Beatrice to Adam McIntyre’s Benedick. But what’s the point of lying about these things? They either are or they aren’t.

    “All right, six and a half, max.”

    “You can’t just go off to Spain, Joanie! What about your audition?” –Seve’s rung up, he wants her to fly over and look at the bloody bar, Joanie’s over the moon.

    “Oh, never mind that! There’ll be hundreds of other people up for it, anyway: I wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

    “What if this bright idea of Seve’s falls through? Or the wife reminds him that it’s her money that buys that fancy clobber and those watches of his?”

    That was a bow at a venture but she’s gone very red, ouch. “It’s not entirely her money, he’s been earning a very good—” Yeah, right.

    Eventually she admits she’ll always have the drawing-room thing to come back to.

    “But Doctor Up The Captain’s Anything”—Rupy’s renamed it—“could be much, much better for you!” I urge.

    “Oh, pooh!”

    Rupy’s been out, a rehearsal for another juvenile lead, not in the same play as Joanie, this time, but something very similar. When he comes back he urges the same thing. Not to say, urging her to put Seve off, change the day or something. But she can’t do that, the cousin’s brother-in-law has got another offer, blah, blah. We try to tell her that people who want to sell property—or bars—always claim to have another offer—no go.

    Eventually she says drily: “If you’re so keen, Rosie, you go instead of me.”

    I’ve been quite genuine about it up to this point, believe it or not, but now it suddenly occurs that if she doesn’t get it, bang goes my chance to follow through the production of a TV series! I stare at her with my mouth open whilst several unlikely scenarios whirl in my head. Only one of which includes Mark’s reaction when he finds Joanie’s pushed off to Spain.

    Rupy urges me to go, I’d be brilliant! The point that I haven’t been asked to go does forcibly occur at this point. But I could go as Joanie! he urges.

    Joanie’s gone into a silly mood: she collapses in giggles, pointing out that we look alike! –We don’t: similar noses, both fair-haired, but my mop’s much yellower and curlier. Also, my face is squarer than hers: hers is a lovely oval. Not to mention the good two inches shorter and several inches rounder factors.

    Rupy urges that all I have to do is get in as her! They won’t compare me to the pics Sheila’s sent! Not much. And it’s quite on the cards they’ll know her, she has been around the acting scene for something like eighteen years, now.

    Eventually Joanne stops giggling and admits it’s only a first round, they won’t do much more than check for the Look they’re looking for and make sure you can actually read lines. Very weakly I point out that whether or no my look’s what they’re looking for I don’t look like her, and I can read, but not lines, I’m not an actress.

    Oh, that doesn’t matter, in the second round they always completely ignore anything they decided on in the first round! And very often the people who interview you in the second round are totally different, anyway!

    Well, I always thought Show Biz people were potty, but that proves it. Imagine doing your pilot study and then completely ignoring it for the real— Um, on second thoughts, never mind.

    But it has begun to sound slightly more feasible. “Um, well, all I’d have to do is show up,”—“In the suit, dear!”—“Shut up, Rupy. Show up and, um, read?”

    “Didn’t Sheila mention something about legs, last time she rang?” he asks Joanie.

    “What? Oh, that! I don’t know why, it’s not a musical. Well, perhaps they want Daughter to parade in front of Admiral and Captain and Doctor and—um, I forget what those other ones were—well, them, in a bathing-suit?”

    “Yeoman, Coxswain, and Commander,” I remind her helpfully,

    After Rupy’s explained that it’s pronounced “Cock’s-un, dear” and she’s weakly ratified this, Joanie orders me to wear sheer black tights and rehearsal pants under the skirt, and to practise raising and lowering it smoothly. And that seems to be that.

    I look at them pathetically. “Your legs are longer than mine… Whaddaya mean, rehearsal pants?” She rushes off. And comes back waving them. Plain black stretch-nylon knickers? Could wear my own red— Unprofessional, huh? Oh, over the tights?

    Determinedly they undress me and re-dress me. Boy, that Marilyn suit’s tight on me! But at least I can get into it, which I couldn’t’ve six months back, so all that tapping’s paid off. Rupy thinks I’m going to be too hot with the red stretch-nylon knickers under the tights under the black stretch-nylon rehearsal pants. Added to which, dears, calculated to give one the itchy horribles.

    “She’s been wearing the things all summer and she hasn’t come down with them yet,” my big cousin notes drily. “No, all right, Rosie. Wear those blue scanties I got you in Spain. –No!” she withers him as he tries to correct this to “thong”.

    And it seems to be settled. Yikes.

    It’s The Day. Rupy’s come with me, I think he doesn’t trust me to get to the right place and then actually go in once I get there. Actually I don’t trust me to get to the right place and go in once I get there. It’s a rehearsal-room place but I could’ve guessed that. He thinks the second round may be in the TV production studios, but some of the companies just hire them— Yeah, yeah. We go in. He doesn’t have to actually hold my hand, but he does anyway. We must look a treat, I’m in the Marilyn suit, the skirt taken up to mid-calf, with the tiny black feather hat on the Shirley Temple curls, but wearing a pair of Joanie’s own black courts, I couldn’t walk in the clumpy platform soles, and Rupy’s in the cream Nehru jacket over a very dark navy shirt with a glorious pair of dark navy pants originally the property of a certain sugar daddy not a million miles away from Gerald Durrell’s zoo, and a very sharp light grey fedora with a dark navy ribbon on it, once the property of Guess Who. Plus a cornflower in the ribbon of the said fedora, because Nehru jackets don’t have revers.

    Nobody checks my face against a photo or anything, they just mark off Joanie’s name against a list and tell me to wait over there. It’s a lady in a severe dark grey trouser suit, not that much different from the one Rupy wore in The Country Wife. With a draggled straight, shoulder-length hairdo, sort of after the waif look, that looks dire on her. She doesn’t ask who Rupy is, or stop him. We sit over here; there’s rows of seats with ranks of blonde or blondish or frankly blonded actresses on them, it’s like that bloody audition of Bridget’s, except there’s no judges’ table in this room. Most of the actresses are dressed in the waif look, that is, black or dark grey jersey-knit slips, some of them with arms in them but a lot not, it’s not la rentrée yet. Some of them are in black slacks and skinny-rib jumpers. The hairdoes range from the waif look itself, it looks vile with fair hair, to shoulder-length, straight and draggled, like the lady on the reception desk. Except one actress has got a French roll, a bit like Joanie was going to do hers for the part.

    After a while I hiss in Rupy’s ear: “Isn’t it gonna be Fifties after all? None of them are.”

    And he hisses back, his long and, let’s face it, rather malicious hazel eyes sparkling: “No, dear! Inside information! Remember, we saw B.H. and D.D. at the tap show!”

    Actually Sheila’s secretary rung, sorry, rang, in a panic two minutes after Joanie had got into her taxi for the airport and Spain to say Sheila’d just heard, they want someone who can tap a bit! Luckily Rupy took the call and he assured her with complete aplomb that that would be no problem, “Miss Marshall” could tap superbly. I’m a Marshall, too, of course, but heck! Talk about presence of mind! It comes of years of coping with on-stage emergencies, you see. So he’s put my tap shoes in my laptop bag, isn’t it lucky I had it? It’s just the thing!

    The fact that D.D. and B.H. were at the tap show may prove that Sheila’s last-minute panic was right and they do want someone who can tap, but it doesn’t prove the thing’s gonna be Fifties, does it? And all of those actresses are slim.

    “Stop pouting!”

    I stop pouting.

    … Hours have gone by, and personally I’ve lost all interest in the thing. I’ve kindly given Rupy the E.F. Benson that was in my laptop bag for dire emergencies and he’s gasping and giggling over it. I’m re-reading Sartre’s L’Age de raison, we did it at uni. Gee, it’s tripe, what a load of up-themselves wankers, what they all need is to have to work for a living, why did I ever decide to go back to it? Let alone bring it all the way from Oz. Maybe I’ll have a little celebration after this thing’s over and go quietly down to the river and biff it in the Thames. Somewhere out of range of ruddy Euan’s up-market windows, yeah.

    “That’s you!”

    Eh? Oh, so it is. Well, Joanie, so to speak. The trials are being held in the next room, that’s where I’ll find the judges and the pegged-out slope and the sheep pen and the five bloody-minded merinos. Pity I can’t bring my shepherd in with— Oh, I can. At least, he’s coming anyway.

    We go in. Never seen any of them before in my— Um, no, that burly man with the thick silvering brown curls and the creased tan linen suit is Brian Hendricks, come to think of it. No sign of Derry Dawlish, this is probably a Good Thing, though he did appreciate my tapping. Well, my bottom. Rupy’s greeting “Brian, darling” rapturously, a pre-emptive strike. I think B.H. recognises him. A man at the near end of the table congratulates him on his Sparkish. A total trendy: black shirt and white satin tie, with—I squint under the table—black slacks, right. And Blues Brothers’ shades, deary, deary me. Whether or not the congratulations are a factor they let Rupy stay. Him and the smirk.

    It isn’t a man with a clipboard this time, it’s a thin, cross-looking lady in brown horn-rims. At least she isn’t in the waif look, just ordinary fawn slacks and a washed-out green tee-shirt. With a nice little necklace in real gold just to show she’s not one of the hoi polloi after all. There’s another lady, she looks even crosser, she’s sturdier, with light brown hair in a bad French roll that’s gone all wispy and a maroon blouse that doesn’t suit her and cream slacks. And steel-rims, those oval ones that are In this year. They don’t suit her. She’s got a great pile of scripts and writing-pads and God knows what in front of her. Brian Hendricks has got a scratch pad and a Parker in front of him, boy, that’s pecking order for you. Between this lady and B.H. there’s a thin, superior-looking man in shades of grey, up to and including the carefully back-combed implant job. I’ve never seen anything quite like the gear, but if forced, I’d class it as very expensive casual wear, quite probably Armani. Yeah, and oval steel-rims, right. On B.H.’s other side there’s a man with a great pile of manila files, what’s the betting they’re candidates’ folders with photographs in them? He’s young and dark, rather a round face with round brown eyes and short black hair. He’s wearing an actual suit, cor. Pale grey. With a tie. Rupy’s trendy acquaintance is next to him. That makes six, right.

    After a few weak jokes about Rupy being here to read Daughter, they let me read. No intro or nothing, right. The thin lady with the clipboard’s about to do the cues but Rupy bounces up, grabs the script off her, and offers himself. How cringingly embarrassing. What a good thing I’m not me, I’m Joan Marshall, actress. I recite the bloody thing. I could recite it in my sleep, up to and including Yeoman, Cock’s-un, and bloody naval Captain. Just to spite Rupy—we’ve had a row over guess what, the interpretation, him and Joanie maintaining she’s just a sweet Fifties nullity and a feed for the other parts, and me maintaining she’s a Marilyn character and the female lead—I give it the works: pouts, little breathy gasps, and a sort of breathy, cooing voice. The Dumb Blonde, geddit? I can see him, under cover of being Lieutenant Hallett and Yeoman, looking daggers at me.

    When I stop there’s a thoughtful silence.

    Then the man in grey drawls in a horribly up-himself voice: “I’d say, Yes, but does my poor vote count for anything, in the face of Big Business and the possible, or is that putative, interest of Double Dee Productions?”

    Brian Hendricks has gone a bit red: that’s interesting, maybe I had the pecking order wrong. “Don’t be ridiculous, Varley, of course your opinion counts.”

    “Do we want a dumb blonde?” says Blues Brothers Shades from the end of the table.

    “She has got the Fifties look,” notes the middle-aged lady in the maroon blouse.

    The young man with the round face starts to open a manila folder, help! But fortunately Brian Hendricks interrupts him with: “Can you tap dance, Miss—Er?”

    “Marshall. Yes.”

     There’s a short pause.

    “Well, do it,” says the middle-aged lady in the maroon blouse in a very bored voice.

    There is a piano but no accompanist. The thin Clipboard Lady starts to go over to it, but Rupy’s in there like a shot. I get out of my skirt, not the jacket, there’s nothing under it except a very nice black lacy bra that I got in a sale, really cheap, it’s underwired and everything, you usually can’t get a D cup in black lace in Australia, it’s worth coming to Britain for the undies alone. Meanwhile they’re having an argument over whether or not Rupy would be ideal for the parts of either Lieutenant Hallett—Blues Brothers Shades yes, the rest no—or Commander Hawkins. Maroon Blouse Lady maybe, B.H. maybe, Young Dark Round-Face yes, Blues Brothers Shades, switching tack, definitely! and Silver-Grey Varley uninterested. By the time he’s sorted out the music and I’m out of the skirt and in my tap shoes, they decide to ask him to come and read for Commander tomorrow. Rupy’s thrilled, but keeps his head and plays the intro to the agreed Britannia routine very nicely. So I tap.

    Eventually Silver-Grey Varley drawls in that up-himself voice: “Is there something wrong with your bust?”

    I stop. “No. Why?”

    “Then take that bloody jacket off,” he says in a bored voice.

    I shrug, and take the jacket off.

    “Good God,” he says, mildly surprised. “I thought they died the death in the Fifties.”

    “We all thought you wanted Fifties, Varley,” says the maroon blouse woman in a sour voice. –Hers are pretty flat, this is true.

    Brian Hendricks is looking, I think, marginally happier. “Well, go on, dear.”

    I finish the routine.

    “Put her on the list of possibles,” Silver-Grey Varley orders young Round-Face.

    He looks uneasily at Hendricks but gets The Nod, so he says to Clipboard Lady: “Yes, go on, Mandy.” –Gee, I’m glad we got that piece of pecking order sorted out!

    And I scramble back into my skirt and jacket and the sallow-skinned Mandy, she sure doesn’t look like my idea of a Mandy, makes an appointment for me, I mean Joanie, to come to the second round of auditions; and after Rupy’s made quite sure she’s got his name, address, both phone numbers, the Polish girls speak good English and are quite reliable about passing on messages, and his agent’s name and number, both numbers, his mobile as well, we give way to the next unhappy candidate. And make quite sure that the reception lady knows we’re both short-listed and has got all our contact— Etcetera.

    “In like Flynn!” he says rapturously in the passage, giving me a rapturous kiss. (’Tisn’t his vernacular, it’s mine, but he’s adopted it, funnily enough.)

    “You are, yeah. I’m not me, remember?”

    “Oh, we’ll sort that out later, dear! –Little celebration?”

    Aw, gee: there was something I was gonna do after this period of slow torture was over. “Yeah, so long as it’s near the river.”

    “Er—South Bank, darling?” he offers dubiously.

    “If you can promise we’re not gonna run into Mel-vyn.” After he’s over that I concede: “Anywhere by the water.” He grabs a taxi, and we’re off.

    I dunno where it is, but he’s pointing out this, that, and the other: haven’t I been, what’s Joanie been up to all this time, blah, blah. Anyway, there’s the water, hooray. Yes, we’ll go to that trendy coffee bar in a moment, Rupy—

    Biff!

    “What was that?” he gasps.

    “Eh? Not the Lucia book, you nit! No, it was goodbye to le temps perdu, or vestiges of a wasted life, words to that effect.” The fucking thing’s not sinking! …Yes, it is. We wait while the vestiges of my past life sink into the black, oily waters of the Thames.

    Right, done. Cappuccinos, here we come!

    Now it’s la rentrée and Vice-Admiral Kenneth Hammersley, R.N., is back in town, and has asked Miss Hammersley and me to tea. Not at his house or flat, whichever, but at the Ritz. Shades of Euan. Miss Hammersley admits it’s a lee-tle extravagant, my dear, but so nice to be taken out somewhere nice by a man, isn’t it? I knew she was indoctrinated but to actually hear her come right out and say it—! I have to go home and make a revivifying mug of brown dust.

    La rentrée or not, it’s actually quite a warm day, well, warm in their terms, pushing 25 Celsius, too warm for the Marilyn suit, really. But even I can’t face fronting up for tea at the Ritz in my jeans. Um, help. The powder-blue two-piece? No, too sweetly-pretty; I can’t face another outing in a disaster-associated sweetly-pretty frock: and I have to admit it, ever since the words “naval family” were mentioned I keep having fits of the horrors at the thought that someone in the up-market Hammersleys is bound to know the up-market Captain John Haworth and one of these days I’m gonna walk slap into— No. It’d be asking for it.

    Rupy comes galloping to the rescue. He ferrets frantically in Joanie’s drawers. Ah! This! I dunno what it is, but it’s the underwear drawer, so NO! We have a shouting match and then I get into it. Jesus, it’s indecent. Even over my black lacy bra it’s still indecent. Because it is black lace, well, stretch-lace. Then he adds the black skirt and the two-piece’s little powder-blue bolero jacket with the three-quarter-length sleeves, and even I can see that it’s ace, it’s completely Marilyn, the rudeness of black stretch-lace over black lace bra is completely toned down and— Yeah, all right, Rupy, you were right all along. He forces me into the black suede platform soles: I won’t need to walk, it’ll be in and out of taxis. A little black hat with a tiny black-spotted veil gets the nod. I put it on and refuse to pull the veil down at all. He droops. But wait! He rushes out… To come back with a giant powder-blue silk rose. It looks suspiciously like the ones on Miss Winslow’s best hat. “Did you nick—”

    “No! I asked, and Doris was thrilled! And she’s coming up to see you in it.”

    “Oh, go on, then.”

    He pins it to the front of the little black hat. “Ador-a-ble!”

    You’re right, Rupy, I won’t look like any of the waify hags in the Ritz’s tea room. (Or anyone, with the new millennium in sight.) I’m losing my nerve but fortunately old Miss Winslow then pants in to assure me I look lovely, and to lend me a very special black patent handbag. Fortunately it’s big enough, so I excuse myself coyly and vanish into the bedroom. There I hurriedly transfer the tape recorder to the black patent job and return trying to look like a girl that’s just put her private feminine necessaries in her handbag…

    Some people’s brothers, dare I say, normal brothers, just order one to meet them somewhere obscure and then turn up half an hour late, but the Admiral comes and collects us, cor. I think I said he’s sixty-two: one of those rather chunky figures. I expected him to be like her, only the male version. But he takes after Mummy’s side. Yeah, he’s got those very curved black eyebrows, we thought they were painted on. And the rather square face, only he’s a lot stouter than Mummy ever got. Well, sturdier, the bluff sea-dog look, y’know? Rather a reddish face and the hair, very receded and silver, brushed back very neatly. Gee; he could pass as he stands for the Admiral in Up The Captain. –Rupy’s renamed it again, largely because, although his audition for Commander was technically the second round, they didn’t immediately leap on him, instead they’ve called him for a third round.

    Admiral Hammersley appears delighted to meet me and thrilled to know my younger brother’s name is also Kenneth. And we go. Him in his killer of a dark navy admiral’s suit, no doubt the calendar is dictating that they now swelter in their winter uniforms regardless of the actual weather, and Miss Hammersley in her best lightweight grey wool coat, pale grey silk dress, pale grey silk hat, sort of gathered, not quite a turban, with a few loops of the stuff on it, one of the most depressing hats, take it for all in all, I’ve ever seen, and a to-die-for set of matching pale grey shoes and handbag which she’s had for at least twenty years, but they’re still good. That’d be because she only wears them to get in and out of taxis for tea at the Ritz, right.

    Rupy’s warned me to expect a spread, so I haven’t had any lunch. It’s that, all right. Mind you, the famous herb scones look foul to me. Wholemeal flour? Geddouda here! The Admiral thinks that all us modern young people like them, they’re very nouvelle cuisine, so I have to take one. Strewth! Yeah, um, very unusual, Admiral. I manage to get out of Gentlemen’s Relish on anything, and the cakes are yummy. The actual tea’s okay, too.

    I’m probably not imagining that wistful look in the bloke’s eye that’s saying “If you and me were alone, Pet, it’d be a different story.” I think there’s a bit more to Admiral Hammersley than his doting older sister realises, but I’m trying quite hard to pretend I haven’t noticed, and he’s chatting happily about all sorts of things, like was he in the Falklands War, and Britain’s strategic rôle in the New Europe, and why NATO is more relevant than ever... And I’m listening happily. Miss Hammersley’s just saying kindly that it’s all very interesting, Kenneth, dear, but Rosie might like to talk about something brighter, when he looks up and catches the eye of something tallish, broad-shouldered and very naval that’s just walked in with a lady in an Armani suit and a hen-pecked brother-in-law. Oh, shit! Shit, shit, shit!

    She’s gone all fluttery. “Oh, look, Kenneth, dear: isn’t that that delightful Captain Haworth? I thought you said he was in Bosnia, dear?”

    “Not in Bosnia, Tuppence!” he says with a jolly, patronising laugh. –Her name is not Tuppence, but Penelope. Penny—Tuppence (twopence), geddit? It dates back to about 1925 and of course is a family joke. He adds something rapid and technical about support for the ground troops and raises a hand.

    They’re just about to join two overpoweringly elegant ladies, you can smell the Madame Rochas and Arpège coming off them from halfway across the room. Not in the waif look nor anything like it, you better believe it. They all look round, he says something to them all, his relatives sit down, and he comes over to us.

    Us yobbos thought the lesser ranks had to call an Admiral “sir”, but we had that one wrong, it’s first names all round. Then it’s You remember my sister, blah, blah—Delightful to see you again, John, blah, blah— Miss Hammersley doesn’t quite ask him how was Bosnia, but you certainly get the impression it was a little jaunt in the yacht with the champers and the Fortnum’s hamper. She’s just introducing their little friend when he does that not-quite-smile and says: “We have met, actually. How are you, Rosie? What a delightful hat.”

    Wanker. I’ve carefully observed her behaviour so I don’t get up: I just hold out my hand languidly, which means he has to come round the table and bend over to shake it. No, I hadn’t forgotten that warm, firm hand. I don’t pass out, and I do manage to croak, to my own astonishment, I didn’t think any sound was gonna come out: “Hullo. Fancy seeing you here.”

    “Yes, quite a coincidence, isn’t it?” he agrees smoothly over Miss Hammersley’s excited and delighted cries. Then explaining smoothly that we met at his sister’s neighbour’s party, and again quite recently down on the south coast. Oh, of course! she cries. The Mountjoy Midsummer Festival! Rosie’s told me all about that! I avoid his clear blue eye at this point.

    “Um, what? Sorry, Miss Hammersley. Yes, it was exciting, they fired off their big guns. They were terribly loud, though.” –Gee, that struck a chord, the admiral’s beaming fatuously.

    He just says: “Big guns are apt to be, I’m afraid.”

    Miss Hammersley’s exclaiming happily that it’s such a coincidence! Yeah, isn’t it. He agrees, smoothly, of course, and hopes we enjoy our tea, blah, blah, and finally pushes off.

    There’s a half-eaten piece of what about five hundred years back I foolishly believed to be yummy chocolate éclair on my plate. And that’s where it’s gonna stay. Hell, am I actually gonna throw up? No, maybe not, but I totter off to the bog in any case, it’ll give me a breather. After I’ve been, why waste a very up-market toilet when it’s right there, I splash cold water on my face and then sit down on a dinky little chair that’s presumably there for the purpose. The Ritz’s toilet guardian comes over and asks me if I’m all right, but I am, so she goes back to her little piles of clean towels. Bummer, that means I’ll have to tip her extra, and I’m a bit skint.

    Eventually I gather the strength to comb my hair, put on a bit more lipstick, replace the hat, and tip her. I hope the Admiral plans on taking us home again, I haven’t even got tube fare left. I go out. John Haworth’s standing in the passage, Hell’s teeth!

    “Are you all right?”

    “Yes,” I reply grimly.

    “I thought you looked a bit pale.”

    After I’d looked a bit red, yeah. “Well, I’m perfectly okay.”

    He doesn’t look convinced. “Mm. How in God’s name do you come to know the Hammersleys?”

    Rub it in, Captain Hah-with, I’m too down-market for you and your set. “Miss Hammersley’s my flaming next-door neighbour, and do you mind letting me past?”

    “Oh, Good Lord, yes! I thought I’d seen that block of flats before!” he says with a laugh, not moving.

    “Look, let me past.”

    “That really is a delightful hat,” he murmurs, the lips twitching.

    “It is not, it’s total bullshit, this whole get-up’s total bullshit, as you very well know! And if ya wanna know, the blue rose belongs to an old lady from downstairs and the whole thing was dreamed up by a gay actor with time on his hands!”

    “You do surprise me,” he murmurs, looking at the bits of black stretch-lace with bits of me showing through them.

    I try to push past him but the bloody platform soles betray me and I wobble madly and have to grab at his gold-braided Navy sleeve. “Shit! Sorry!”

    “Not at all. Do let me take you back in,” he murmurs, putting his hand under my elbow.

    My whole arm feels as if it’s on fire, not to mention the rest of the bod attached to it. “For your ruddy sister to stare at like I’m something the cat left on the back porch? No, thanks!”

    He raises his eyebrows slightly. “Er—I don’t think she will, Rosie.”

    “Not flaming much.”

    He shrugs, very slightly. “Or we could go back separately. Odd though it might look.”

    “That’d do me,” I reply grimly in my low-class Aussie vernacular. “I’m going back right now. You can come in looking odd if you li—Ooh!”

    The Admiral’s just come out of the tea place. “Everything all right, Rosie, my dear?”

    “Yes, thank you, Admiral Hammersley.”

    “Good. Going back in, John?”

    He says he is, the wanker, so we have to go in together while the Admiral toddles off to the Gents’. He takes my elbow again and I don’t say anything at all. In fact I’m incapable of saying anything at all.

    Miss Hammersley’s drinking tea placidly. “There you are, my dear.”

    I collapse onto my chair wondering if I’m imagining that he’s just given my elbow a warning squeeze. And if so, wondering what it was meant to warn me against. Giving her cheek? Giving him cheek in front of her? Giving her the impression that we fancy each other? No, it couldn’t be that.

    She’s saying that he must come to tea some time. I’m past working out whether this is just a meaningless upper-class British pause-filler, or a real invite. He makes polite noises, notes that it was good to see me again, and pushes off.

    “Such a charming man,” she says, looking innocent.

    By now I know her pretty well so I know that, though in many ways she is innocent, she’s not that far gone. So instead of pretending anything I admit sourly: “An absolute dish.”

    Miss Hammersley sips tea and tells me about his wife, rather a sad story, because of course everyone thought it was so suitable, she was from a naval family— Evidently they split up ages ago. I wait, but she doesn’t say he’s remarried.

    “Um, did they have any kids?”

    “One son, my dear, a nice boy, but rather a disappointment to dear John.”

    Oh, yeah? Didn’t want to jump into a fucking naval uniform and start shooting at defenceless Argentineans or defenceless lumps of wood, that it? I don’t say so, I just look politely enquiring, and she explains that Matthew Haworth wanted to be an actor and went to California. I’ve never heard of him, so he can’t have made it. She wouldn’t say they were estranged, exactly, but poor John doesn’t see very much of him. Well—his duties, of course.

    Of course! Shooting at silly bits of wood off the south coast of England for the delectation of the upper classes! “Yes. Um, what was all that about Buh-Bosnia, Miss Hammersley?” –I dunno where that wobble in the voice came from, I certainly didn’t put it there.

    Oh! Well, Dauntless was sent there as air support: the helicopters and the vertical take-off— Jesus! He could’ve been killed! I goggle at her with my eyes on stalks as she sips tea and explains placidly, Admiral Hammersley coming back as she’s doing so, that of course he was in the Gulf, too, air support for Desert Storm— The Admiral adds a lot of corrections and technical bits.

    “Wuh-was he in the Falklands War?” I croak.

    “John Haworth? Yes, of course, my dear.” Happily the Admiral tells me all about the ship John commanded there, he didn’t have Dauntless then, he had his first command, etcetera, etcetera and a lot of technical details about those rocket thingos and air-cover and stuff. Jesus! He could’ve been killed!

    “What is it, Rosie, my dear?” asks the old lady.

    “Nothing. I suddenly realised.” I gnaw on my lip. “None of it was real to us, I suppose. At—at the other side of the world. Just—just seeing it on CNN and—and like that.”

    She gives me a sharp look. “Mm. Well, people who don’t have family or close friends in the forces often don’t realise, Rosie.”

    I nod numbly.

    Cheerily the Admiral orders us to cheer up, and changes the subject to the shows: Tuppence has told him I know lots of show people! I don’t think he means polite drawing-room comedies or effete little pseudo-intellectual efforts in black rehearsal clothes, but I do my best to reply to his questions with answers that’ll please him.

    We leave before they do. Or, put it like this, one of the overpoweringly smart ladies has left, so that leaves his sister and her husband, and him and the other overpoweringly smart lady. The younger one, but I think you could’ve guessed that.

    The Admiral has to get back to the Admiralty—gulp, it was just a word, to me, but I suppose it does have admirals in it, yeah—so he puts us in a taxi.

    After quantities of London and its traffic have been passed in dead silence Miss Hammersley says: “Would you like to stop at a pub, Rosie? You could have a brandy.”

    “No, thanks. Um, unless you want to?”

    “No, my dear, I merely thought you seemed a little shaken.”

    After a moment I admit grittily: “I didn’t expect to see him. Though I might have known it was his stamping ground.”

    She doesn’t smile at the choice of phrase. “No? I believe his sister likes it.”

    “Yeah. Doesn’t he—doesn’t he have to be on his ship?”

    “I think he must have business at the Admiralty, Rosie. Kenneth wouldn’t say, of course.” I’m giving her a puzzled look. “Well, it is the defence of the realm, my dear,” she murmurs.

    “Uh—yeah.” Not that they they’re at war, but— No, fair enough, especially if he’s been to Bosnia. “It’s a big boat,” I say inanely.

    “Dauntless? Yes, she is a big ship.”

    She—ship. Not that she’s correcting me on purpose, the usage is native to her.

    There’s a short pause.

    “Rosie, my dear, did you see very much of John when you were down in Cornwall?”

    I look blankly at her for a moment. “Oh! At the Festival?” I can see she’s trying not to wince, poor, polite old thing. “Um, sorry, I'm hopeless at geography, and the maps only had roads and stuff, not—not counties.” One of them had walking tracks and badgers and copses and hedgehogs and crap, I think it was one of Arthur’s, but I refrain from mentioning that. “No. Um, only a few minutes.” Lamely I tell her about being rescued from Daffyd. She beams, it’s right up her alley: real gallantry, you see. “He hurt him, and what’s more, he enjoyed doing it,” I add, scowling. She lodges a faint protest. “He did it because he said he was a bully, but in my book that doesn’t excuse it,” I admit with a sigh.

    “No, I see. You are different generations, aren’t you?”

    She’s sharp, all right. No, I mean it; that’s precisely the trouble. Not only he won't take me seriously, we’ve got completely different sets of values. I mean, for God’s sake, defence of the realm? Killing people for a few freezing cold, wind-swept lumps of rock in the South Atlantic, when all they needed to do was offer the colonists bits of fucking Prince Charles’s useless organic farm in fucking England and give the dump back to Argentina? Or failing the farm, bits of the bloody Balmoral estate, they’d have felt right at home there with the rocks and the howling gales and the freezing snow for the eleven months of the year when the Royals don’t grace it with their presences. Nationalism? Raving jingoism, more like.

    “I didn’t realise he was in the Navy. Um, because he was only wearing ordinary clothes, um—mufti,” I say uncertainly. “He did have a big black car but I didn't realise it was a Navy car. Only in the afternoon we went to the display with the guns and the band, and—and he was there, in his uniform. With, like, the official party. He—he made a speech.”

    “I see, my dear.”

    “He did come up to me and say hullo: that was later on, after lots of the—the vertical take-offs and that. Only his Commander came and—and took him away again.”

    “His commander? Not Admiral Beaton? Was he there?”

    “No, um, his Commander, Miss Hammersley. Commander Corky Corcoran.”

    “Oh, I see! You mean he was a commander, Rosie! Er—took him away?”

    Glumly I admit: “He had two fashionable ladies with him, and the thing is, John could’ve chosen not to go, only he let him take him away.”

    She thinks that one over. “Yes, well, it might have looked just like a party to you, but of course he was on duty, my dear.”

    “I know that. Plus and, it would have looked odd if he’d stayed. Mind you, I wasn’t wearing my jeans, I had one of Joanie’s floral frocks on.”

    She gives me a distressed look. “My dear, of course it’s none of my business, but he is a very attractive man, and—er—well, the age difference…”

    “It’s all right, Miss Hammersley, I know there’s no point in hankering after him, Joanie and Rupy and everyone have told me that.”

    “Mm.” After a moment she says: “Did you notice the attractive woman in the puce and black at his table this afternoon? With the large hat.” The one that stayed, yeah, funnily enough I did. I nod grimly. “Yes. A Mrs Wadham-Smythe. Er, well, I’m quite out of touch, these days, but they say the husband isn’t very much in evidence…”

    “I get it. She’s his Camilla Parker-Bowles, right?”

    She winces, but concedes: “Something like that. Though he hasn’t known her for very long.”

    I dunno if that’s good or bad. Well, good, I suppose, only if they’re still in the first flush of it…

    The taxi crawls on. I stare glumly at the traffic. Miss Hammersley looks serene.

    Eventually I admit glumly: “I should’ve asked you if you knew him. Then it might not’ve been such a shock.”

    “Yes, perhaps you should,” she murmurs.

    “Only I was afraid the answer might be No. Um, well, I suppose I was afraid it might be Yes, too.”

    “Mm.”

    “How old do you reckon he is?”

    “About fifty.”

    “Yeah. And how old is she?”

    “Mrs Wadham-Smythe? I suppose she’d be about forty. A little more, perhaps. I believe the sons are still at school.”

    In that case maybe they’re waiting until they grow up to get the ruddy divorce. After a moment I admit sourly: “I’m twenty-seven.”

    “Yes? You look younger, Rosie.”

    “Yeah, right! That doesn’t help!”

    “It is still a gap of over twenty years… Though not impossible.”

    No, right. All I have to do is get him to take me seriously, and dump the Wadham-Smythe hag. Gee, easy, so after breakfast—? Shit.

    “What about that nice Mr Keel, Rosie?”

    “I can’t help not being in love with him, Miss Hammersley! And I dunno why I fell for John Haworth like a ton of bricks the minute I laid eyes on him, but I did! And when you come right down to it, I’ve got less in common with him than I have with Euan!”

    She just looks thoughtful. Finally she says: “If I invite him to tea, and he makes an excuse not to come, I think that will indicate—well, not that he isn’t interested, my dear, but that he's decided he doesn’t wish to be. Some men can be very stubborn about these things.”

    And about everything else, you’ve only got to look at him.  “Yes. Thank you.”

    The taxi grinds on. Neither of us says anything else.

    Rupy’s had his next round of auditions, and he’s got the part! He’s over the moon. Even though the whole thing may fizzle out after the pilot. We have to go out and celebrate, of course. Personally I’d rather sit at home by the phone willing Joanie to ring from Spain, it’s my second round very, very soon and I’d quite like to know if I’ll have to do it instead of her, and if so, will Brian Hendricks put me up against a wall and shoot me for impersonating an offic—actress? Not to mention Silver-Grey Varley, ugh.

    Euan comes round looking hopeful just as we’re deciding what to wear, so we say he can come. He looks a bit thunderstruck at the eventual gear: I’m in black tights, not sheer, with one of Miss Hammersley’s stiff petticoats over them, you won’t remember them, heck, my Mum can barely remember them, they were made of stiff nylon net until something else came in, this one’s definitely nylon net, white, gathered onto bands of white satin ribbon. The black stretch-lace thing above that with the black lace bra under it, plus and the little black hat, with the veil but without Doris Winslow’s powder-blue rose, I made him give it back. Rupy’s in a pair of royal blue evening trou with a ribbon down the seams, I’m silently hoping he didn’t score them from Jersey sugar daddy’s pad, the silver waistcoat he wore for the Britannia number, and a rather nice turquoise linen-look jacket that’s actually the property of Miss Joan Marshall, it looks better on him. No, I haven’t forgotten about the shirt, there isn’t one. Touches of turquoise may be glimpsed in the region of the eyelids. If you’re not prejudiced he looks totally dreamy, but Euan, though trying not to be, clearly is a bit prejudiced. Not to say, about my get-up: he says in my ear as the door-phone squawks and Rupy rushes to answer it: “Do you have to wear that?”

    “Yes, gotta look the part,” I reply with a leer.

    “Rosie, are you drunk?”

    “Not yet, but I may be.”

    “Well, could you at least wear a coat?”

    “‘Certainly!” I rush out and return with the huge brown fur thing of Miss Hammersley’s. He blenches, he’s a supporter of Animal Rights and Badger Watch, though he doesn’t go so far as to refuse meat at the Ritz. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s just that very common refusal to let the right hand know what the fork hand’s just put in the gob. There is quite a lot of about, in the last year of the 20th century, yeah.

    “You can’t wear that!”

    Rupy comes back from letting Rhonda Singh and Jimmy Clarke in. “No, you can’t, I am.” He grabs it off me. After introductions—Euan’s clearly relieved to see that they look normal—he fetches me The Cloak. Miss Hammersley urged it on us, she won’t get any wear out of it again. Ankle-length white fur. Not your total ermine, no, though it most certainly gives the impression of it. In particular as the large collar, more like a cape effect, is edged with the genuine little tails. Euan chokes. Yeah, it does make ya wanna spew the first time ya catch sight of it. Defiantly I put it on, as the door phone squawks again and Rupy rushes over to it, it’ll be Tony, he’s back in London, they’re doing a divine show! It is, he looks a total nong, he’s wearing a pale pink silk dinner suit. Yeah, groovy, ace, whatever, can we go? We go.

    Given that Rupy chose the venues the night proceeds as you’d expect. Rhonda and Jimmy, though grinning and thanking Rupy very much for the opportunity, give it up about one-thirty and grab a cab home to his place. Euan also wants to give it away but I refuse. We party on… Finally I get too drunk to object, so he takes me back to his lair. It isn’t late! Only four o’clock. I’ll just have a dri— I won’t. He pulls me into the bedroom.

    I wake up without the petticoat but still in the lacy stretch thing and the tights.

    Euan’s over by the window, fully dressed, day clothes, oops, scowling at the view. “I bet you’ve got the mother and father of all hangovers.”

    “Ow—yeah. Ow.” I manage to stagger out to the flaming ensuite in search of Panadol and a piss. It’s like the Black Hole of Calcutta, you have to have the—ouch!—light on.

    “Are you going to throw up?” he asks sourly when I come back.

    “No. You don’t have to stay here and guard me, I’ll be okay.”

    “I’m no’ guarding you, you daft wee hinny!

    “Is that your native vernacular?”

    He glares, but offers coffee.

    “Yeah, thanks. –Hang on.” He hangs on. “Put three times as much actual coffee in this time.”

    “Aye, I will that, you’ll need it!” he says bitterly. He goes out before I can say Not for that, but because I’ve decided that’s what’s wrong with his rotten coffee, his Scotch meanness.

    Aye, it is, aye, hoots mon, because the result is five thousand times better than his usual brew. Even through the hangover. After it I feel a lot better so I have a shower. He must be feeling a lot better, too, because after a bit he comes and joins me. Fortunately the shower compartment’s roomy enough. It’s fun, but I’m not claiming it’s the sensual experience to end all sensual experiences, because, the Silver Screen to the contrary, doing it in the shower is actually quite tricky, especially if you want both parties to enjoy it. Eventually we go back to bed, even though it’s now not strictly morning at all, as he points out.

    I end up staying the whole day and the next night and for breakfast the next morning and forgetting to ring Rupy at Joanie’s, but gee! That doesn’t matter! Because when I get home there’s no sign of him, but this message on the answering machine:

    Giggle—noises off—giggle, Hullo, Rosie, darling?—Stop that, naughty! S’me. Giggle, I may be rather late ’s’morning. –Is it? Oops! Giggle. Expect when seen, darling! Noises off, fade giggle.

    There’s also this message on the answering machine:

    Mr Hendricks’ secretary calling for Miss Marshall. Second auditions are scheduled for Tuesday of next week. –Etcetera, details of time and venue and please be on time.

    And this:

    Penelope Hammersley here. Rosie, my dear, I’m so sorry, but Kenneth tells me John Haworth’s been sent back to you-know-where.

    And Defence of the Realm, Top Secret, and Double Oh Seven to you, too! BUGGER! I rush into my bedroom, throw myself face down on the bed and bawl my eyes out.