Bunburying

10

Bunburying

    Maybe Laurie would have run away, only when Jack drove them up the steep clay drive of what he described as “the old MacMurray place” Antigone Walsingham Corrant was waiting for them on the verandah of the freshly painted old bungalow. She didn’t recognise her, of course, any more than Jack had. Poor Ms Walsingham Corrant had been completely swamped by the pseuds and wrinklies that evening after the concert at the B&B, and Laurie had just been part of the woodwork. There was no reason for Jack to recognise her, either: she’d never dealt with him at RightSmart, and that evening he’d been handing round plates of nibbles and of course she’d been too full of dinner to want any.

    “Here we are, love!” Jack announced, getting out. “—Lemme give you a hand, Brenda.” He helped her down the steps of the minibus.

    Laurie thanked him breathlessly and after that she didn’t have to say anything much at all, because Ms Walsingham Corrant had completely taken over. Laurie wasn’t surprised that Jack introduced her as Nefertite, she already knew she called herself that in private life, though she didn’t know whether she might have started using it when she did that concert performance as Nefertite in that new opera in Sydney some years back. Laurie hated modern music, so she hadn’t gone, but Gail and Fee had, at enormous expense, the verdict being that the opera was unoriginal and derivative but Antigone Walsingham Corrant had been marvellous. Laurie was a bit overcome at being asked to call her Nefertite. Just as well Gail had no idea she was here, or she’d be having to tell her that the famous contralto wasn’t gracious, again. Well, she wasn't! Just very nice and friendly.

    “Jack’s put new reverse-cycle air conditioners in here and the bedrooms for Daffy,” Nefertite explained, showing her the lounge-room.

    “That one Andy had in here was on its last legs,” added Jack. “Left most of his furniture, see?”

    Laurie looked numbly at a strange assortment of lounge-room furniture sitting on a strange assortment of ancient rugs over, oddly enough, a beautiful varnished wooden floor. Well, it wasn’t strange if you considered what ordinary people shoved in their weekenders, but very strange for a holiday house that Daffyd Owens was about to occupy! There was one big old sofa covered in a rug. Not a nice handmade crochet afghan, no: an ordinary checked woollen rug, like people used to take on picnics when she was a kiddie. Fawn and greyish-brown. It looked as if it had been washed so often it had forgotten it was wool, it was more like old felt. The sofa underneath it could probably have been sold for a bomb if it was done up properly, because it looked like genuine Thirties: not quite Art Deco, but the sort of thing that ordinary people of the time had in their lounge-rooms. The ends of its arms had been patched in dark brown vinyl but just discernible beyond that was a greyish-fawn rubbed plush patterned in brown curlicues. That was it for the Thirties, sadly, and the easy chairs were a later mixture: one huge, saggy, possibly Fifties square and chunky, or even possibly Forties, badly re-covered in a sad tan and black check, one motel wooden-armed, its original square seat cushion replaced by a squashed black and cream round vinyl one but the back cushion in place in all its nubbly nylon mustard glory, ugh, and one sagging, squashy tangerine corduroy armchair that must’ve been the pride of someone’s lounge-room circa 1970 but gave the very strong impression that it had been jumped on by a growing family for the next twenty years. And then rescued off the verge—yep. There were two coffee tables. One was a whiskery, unsafe-looking object in a woven openwork of, um, strips of bamboo? Not cane, the strips were thin and flattish. The sort of thing that suckers bought from garden centres, only to discover it wasn’t sturdy enough to hold pot plants and it wasn’t weatherproof enough to go on the patio or the verandah. The other offering was the sort seen in large middle-of-the-road furniture shops throughout the Eighties. Huge, chunky, round wooden legs, poorly finished and badly stained, these were black but Laurie had also seen them in dark brown, with a really heavy glass top sort of slung between all the legs, this one had six of the things, on small yellow metal plates.

    “That bamboo coffee table isn’t safe,” said Nefertite kindly.

    “Um, yeah. That other one looks as if it might attack, too,” replied Laurie incautiously—she was now feeling slightly light-headed, possibly because it was well after ten and she hadn’t eaten anything solid since a sandwich yesterday lunchtime.

    To her astonishment Nefertite went into a gurgling gale of giggles, almost as gorgeous to listen to as her singing, actually, finally gasping: “Yes! It is all awful, isn’t it? I’m afraid we couldn’t think what to do about it, I’ve got no talent at all for interior decorating. We did think of asking Deanna Springer—she and her husband run the B&B just up the road—but she’s far too busy at this time of year, and besides, she’s expecting a baby, it wouldn’t be fair.”

    “No, well,” said Jack with a grin, “she came over and told us what was what, couldn’t stop ’er, but no way ’ud we let ’er pitch in.”

    “No, of course not,” agreed Laurie, smiling at him. No wonder he was ruddy Gail’s pet, wasn’t he nice? Lucky Nefertite! No, well, never mind the famous opera singer bit, if you were an exotic-looking creature with a skin like ivory velvet and ruby-red lips and huge black eyes with enormous long curly black lashes, perfectly natural, and a really voluptuous figure that had looked fantastic in that dark crimson low-cut evening dress she’d worn to sing in and didn’t look at all bad right now in a bright pink singlet under a long lime silk blouse, rather worn and frayed as to the rolled-up cuffs, and tight jeans that showed the tummy but it was a good look on her—if you looked like that and were a lovely kind person too, you ended up with a really nice man like Jack Jackson, who was terrifically good-looking as well! Whereas if you were boring, dull Laurie Hanson, not exotic or voluptuous, just overweight, and pretty much of a misfit all your life, you ended up doing something really silly like masquerading as a temping cook-housekeeper just to be near the famous bloke you had an almighty crush on. She’d undoubtedly lose her job if Gail found out.

    —Laurie hadn’t meant to do it, at all. True, she’d felt that she’d pay RightSmart for the privilege, but she hadn’t seriously thought about it—well, thought about it, yes, but not seriously—until the point at which Brenda Worthing, who was a real person, had suddenly pulled out. Her son had unexpectedly got engaged up in Darwin and he was bringing the fiancée home for the long weekend. Maybe if her name hadn’t been Worthing Laurie wouldn’t ever have considered pretending to be her, but heck! It just seemed meant! There were certain obstacles when you took on a job as someone else, not least defrauding the Tax Office, but Laurie happened to know that Gail’s last brilliant tinkering with the accounts and wages databases had resulted in the Tax File Numbers, which of course were unique, becoming the drivers in the wages database which generated payslips, bank payments and eventually the PAYG forms and the annual returns to the ATO. There had been hopeless confusion the time they’d had two James John Robertsons on their books, so Gail had decreed that Kathleen, who ran Accounts, could use the TFNs instead of the contractors’ names, and had redesigned the timesheets so as each employee was required to put their TFN on their timesheet. Of course half the time they didn’t, and Kathleen had to look it up in the personnel database, but so long as Laurie made sure that she put hers on the timesheet, the wages would be paid into her account and eventually generate a PAYG form with her name on it. And as their database was set up to handle contractors who were doing more than one job, all that would happen at the end of the pay period was that both sets of wages would be quietly added together by the software and the PAYG taken off the total. If anyone did look up Brenda Worthing’s personnel record it had her own TFN in it, not Laurie’s, so that was quite legal. And Laurie had helped Kathleen’s dim assistant, Alysse, with the enveloping of the payslips often enough to know that nothing was checked: she just folded and enveloped automatically. Nobody was going to notice that Laurie’s wages had mysteriously gone up, let alone that there was no payslip for Brenda Worthing.

    It had been a horrid shock when that cheeky Iain Ross had come out with that crack about her knowing about Blum Gums Ecolodge’s arrangement for collecting him, he must have recognised her from RightSmart, though she’d never actually dealt with any of his jobs. But that last crack about not losing her nerve had seemed to indicate he was on her side, and anyway she was here now, and, well, it was all going smoothly and Jack and Nefertite had accepted “Brenda Worthing” without question. She’d just have to avoid the B&B in case Bob and Deanna Springer recognised her. And she had had a few chats with David Walsingham, the chef, though he’d hardly remember an obscure female guest who’d admired his baked salmon— But she definitely wouldn’t go over there.

    “The stove’s fairly new,” said Jack kindly in the kitchen, “and I bunged an air conditioner in here for old Andy, used to sit in here a lot, ya see. It’s all been repainted, couple of years back: me and George did it up for him. The vinyl’s brand new, too.”

    “George is Andy’s son: he’s a friend of Jack’s,” explained Nefertite kindly.

    “I see. It’s really nice, Jack,” said Laurie shyly.

    Nefertite beamed at her what time Jack, looking very pleased, said: “Nobbad, eh? His ruddy daughter wanted new Melamine cupboards, but Andy put his foot down. These are the original ones, see?”

    “Yes,” said Laurie, looking admiringly at the cupboards’ narrow vertical boards, painted a soft, glossy cream, and the doors’ little brass handles. Behind them the walls had clearly been relined in plasterboard, painted a very pale blue, and the vinyl was a nice pattern of blue Spanish tiles. The trims around the windows and doors were all a high-gloss navy. “It’s a lovely colour scheme.”

    “It’s not actually deliberate,” admitted Jack: “just kind of happened. I mean, old George Kelly down Barrabarra Hardware, he had all this navy blue high-gloss on special, ya see—they’ve used loads of it over at Jardine Holiday Horse Treks, too—and he’d had the cream high-gloss for years, let us have it for practically nothing, nobody wants cream high-gloss these days. That pale blue’s one of them washable acrylics, it’s not a popular shade either, got it on sale. Well, started off with the navy and the cream, ya see, spotted the pale blue when me and George were in town doing the rounds of the hardware places.”

    “Serendipity!” said Nefertite with a low, gurgling laugh. “But you saw that the pale blue would work, Jack: you have got taste, you see! –Andy took his big chest freezer, I’m afraid, Brenda. But the fridge works very well, even though it’s old. David’s got one just like it.”

    Jack grinned at Laurie. “Her brother. Wouldn’t say his is just like it, it’s lilac.”

    Nefertite collapsed in giggles, gasping: “Well, yes! –It came with the house he bought in Adelaide, Brenda: the kitchen had been done up in the Sixties in shades of orange and lilac and being David, he didn’t bother to change it.”

    “Liked it, more like,” said Jack, winking at Laurie. “Just as well Dot doesn’t care what colour the fridge is, eh?”

    “No,” said Laurie faintly. “His wife? Doesn’t she?”

    “Nope.” Jack put his arm round Nefertite’s waist. “There are some women like that,” he said on a proud note.

    “I’ve never met any,” said Laurie dazedly. “I mean, heck! Even the gay ones I know are really particular about that sort of thing.” She thought of Gail’s and Fee’s pristine white post-Y2K kitchen, and gulped.

    “Of course, yes: Robina Livingstone!” remembered Nefertite.

    “Musical mate, was she?” said Jack tolerantly.

    “Only an acquaintance, darling. I mean, she was gay, and her kitchen was positively terrifying! Rather like that awful German minimalist one that Daffy and Karen had. She asked some of us round for supper after the performance at the Met.”

    “That’s in New York, Brenda,” Jack explained. “She’s sung all over the world. Only half the time she never even had time to see the sights: not much of a life, really.”

    “Um, yes, the Metropolitan Opera,” said Laurie feebly.

    Nefertite nodded the mop of black curls. “Yes. Robina’s English but she was based in New York—still is, I suppose. It was a nice flat, but terribly sterile, and the kitchen was entirely white! Not even any handles on the doors. José wanted to do one of his omelettes for us, and of course Robina had all the equipment, she’s that sort of person, but he said to me it was enough to addle the eggs!”

    “No handles on the cupboards?” said Laurie dazedly. “Heck, even—um, the gay women I was thinking of—even they’ve got door handles. Very slick stainless steel ones, kind of smooth curves, they’re pretty inhuman, you can’t hang a tea towel off them, but at least they’re handles. Surely the doors’d get into a sticky mess if you didn’t have handles?”

    “Mine would,” agreed Nefertite simply.

    “Yeah, but then you’re human, love,” said Jack, squeezing her waist a little. “Doesn’t sound to me as if this Robina ever cooked in her kitchen.”

    “No, that’s what José said,” she agreed. “Well, I’m a hopeless cook, Brenda,” she added sunnily, “but at least I use my kitchen! Or try to!” she added with a gurgle. Beaming, she plunged into an account of her recent black-sauced squid disaster.

    “Did taste okay, when we finally got up the courage to eat it,” allowed Jack at the conclusion of the narrative. “And see, David reckons there are some recipes where you use the ink.”

    “Yes,” said Laurie weakly. She’d have thought all Greek people—well, half-Greek, in Nefertite’s case—knew about ink sacs. “Um, I have cooked squid, but mine always goes tough. Have you ever had grilled octopus? I had that once at a Greek restaurant, it was lovely.”

    “Of course!” Happily Nefertite plunged into an account of the grilled octopus she’d had in Greece.

    “See, the blokes are allowed to grill a bit of octopus or squid—only on the barbie, mind you, they don’t call ’em that, but it is—or singe a bit of lamb on the huge great spit outside,” said Jack kindly at the conclusion of the narrative. “Some of those’d be her actual uncles, and some of them are her aunties’ husbands, or great-aunties’. All well under the thumb; if anybody tries to tell you Greece is a patriarchal society, ignore ’em. David’s got a big spit up the B&B, sometimes does a side of lamb or a pig on it, it’s really bonzer.”

    “Yes. In Greece it’d often be goat, too. He does know a butcher in Sydney who can supply a kid, if you place an order, but he doesn’t bother doing that for the restaurant,” said Nefertite placidly.

    “I didn’t know you could get it in Australia,” said Laurie numbly.

    “Get anything pretty much in Sydney, if ya know where to go—that’s the secret, see? They keep it to themselves,” said Jack on a dry note.

    Nefertite freed herself from his grasp without haste and opened the fridge. “Just ask David if you want to buy anything Greek, silly one. You, too, Brenda. We’ve got some basic supplies in for you, just milk and bread and stuff. David thought you might like to come over to the B&B for dinner tonight instead of cooking.”

    Laurie looked at her in horror.

    “On the house, of course,” said Jack. “David can really cook.”

    “No, I mean, I—I can’t take advantage!” gasped Laurie desperately.

    “There’ll be stacks. Anyone with Greek blood takes the attitude if they’re not feeding an army they’re not actually cooking, ya know,” he reassured her. “But actually some of us did try to tell ’em ya might feel like that. Daffy’s the same: he let David give ’im one dinner last winter and then he insisted on paying. Tell ya what, come over to our place. We’re just having roast lamb with salad. Well, might bung a few potatoes in with the roast, eh, love?”

    “Yes. We manage it together, Brenda!” beamed Nefertite. “Jack checks what the oven temperature has to be and measures out how much rosemary and garlic to put on the lamb, otherwise I overdo it terribly, and works out the right cooking time and when I have to put it in, and then I get it ready and pop it in, you see! And if we’re having potatoes he puts out the right number, and that stops me doing enough for an army!”

    Laurie smiled weakly. Lucky, lucky them.

    “So whaddaya reckon?” said Jack, smiling at her.

    “Yes, I’d love to—if you’re sure?” she faltered.

    They were sure, and they’d expect her about half past six. Nefertite then recalled she hadn't yet shown her exactly what provisions they’d bought, so she did that, incidentally explaining that the dinner set was a new one that they’d got for Daffy, as Andy hadn’t had one—Jack going into a muffled spluttering fit and admitting that thereby hung a tale—and decided she’d make a cuppa while Brenda unpacked.

    So Laurie went dazedly into what had been George’s bedroom and unpacked, wondering dazedly if the world-famous baritone Daffyd Owens (a) liked cheapo willow pattern dinner sets from Kmart, (b) was gonna be able to put up with that awful shabby lounge-room and (c) had had any idea at all of what the old MacMurray place was like before he acquired it. She had a very strong feeling that the probable answer in all three cases was “No”. She felt so stunned by it all that she actually stopped wondering if the world-famous baritone Daffyd Owens (a) would be satisfied with her cooking, (b) could put up with her company and (c) would take a blind bit of notice of her, cooking or not, and fearing that the probable answer in all three cases was “No”.

    They’d left her to settle in after the cuppa and some very ordinary supermarket biscuits, just like anyone’s. Laurie didn’t need to settle in, really: she hadn’t brought much with her, though she had brought her favourite non-stick pan, just in case she might be required to fake up an omelette or some pancakes. The house was spotless, never mind its shabby furniture, so there was nothing to do there. She inspected the laundry, which was across the small back porch, but it revealed exactly what Jack had said: a new front-loading washing-machine and a drier that they’d put in for Daffy, and an old tub. Next-door to it was the old toilet, perfectly clean and useable, but Jack and George had remodelled the bathroom and put one in there when they were fixing up the house for George’s father. This did mean that she’d have to share Daffyd Owens’s bathroom, but Laurie wasn’t gonna think about that.

    She wandered outside but there was nothing much out there: no garden at all, just a flattish area at the back with a bit of scruffy grass and a new-looking Hills Hoist—it would be: Laurie was without any doubt whatsoever the only person in Australia that couldn’t make the flaming things go up and down—and over to one side a sort of carport, well, free-standing, not attached to the house, but as it only had a roof and metal legs you couldn’t call it a garage—which also looked quite new. Maybe Mr Owens was gonna hire a car. In which case he’d probably expect her to use it to do the shopping, ugh. They asked their contractors as a matter of routine if they had a current driver’s licence, why hadn’t she asked herself? Although the little township of Potters Inlet was within walking distance, Potters Road was quite steep, especially the lower bit, and completely unpaved.

    She’d seen the lower part of the property, which consisted of the rutted clay drive and a fairly precipitous slope sparsely covered in rocks and low scrub, with one or two taller eucalypts. At the top of the drive the land flattened out a lot, though the vegetation was unchanged, and then rose much more gently behind the house. Presumably she couldn’t get lost if she didn’t go too far from the house. Prudently Laurie went back inside, anointed herself with sunscreen and put on her hat and sunnies; then she headed off into the bush. Not completely untrodden: there was, she saw as she went up behind the washing-line, a kind of track. The track headed more or less upwards, skirting such obstacles as large boulders, well grown eucalypts, and a strange flattish rocky outcrop. You might have expected this outcrop to be just the place for a lizard to be sunning itself, but either it was too late in the day, the lizards would all have warmed up by now, or like all forms of animal life they’d run away the minute they caught wind of Laurie Hanson. Even Fee’s two Burmese cats—indoor cats, poor little brutes—had gone and hidden under the bed that time Gail and Fee had her over to show her the new townhouse. In the depths of the bush you could hear a very occasional bird call, but birds usually shut up and fled at the sight of her, too. Her mother, who’d come into a lot of money from Granddad and was living in a retirement unit on the Gold Coast in circumstances of the greatest comfort, had a pair of cockatiels, famed for their ability to whistle the introductory bars of God Save the Queen—Mrs Hanson was a confirmed Royalist, Queensland was a good place for her—but any time Laurie came to visit, which wasn’t often, she was hardly ever invited and Mum didn’t appreciate uninvited visitors, neither of them would utter anything except piercing shrieks, and one always went and cowered in a corner of the cage. True, Mum would’ve been capable of training them to do this at the sight of Laurie, but Laurie didn’t think the cockatiels were capable of learning it.

    She was just thinking she’d come too far, she’d better go back before she got lost, when the scrub in front of her thinned and she caught a glimpse of rolling blue hills. Not noticing she was stepping off the track, Laurie headed eagerly towards the view... Crikey! A huge vista had opened out before her. She just stood there and gaped for ages and ages and ages...

    Maybe this was what Daffyd Owens had bought the old MacMurray place for? Well, it’d be enough to make her buy it, if she had any money, or even any prospect of raising a mortgage, Laurie recognised groggily. There wasn’t much shade, the sun was almost dead overhead, but she found a big old gum tree that was wide enough to cast a bit of dappled shadow and, first checking carefully to see if the one snake in Australia that hadn’t hit the road the minute it caught wind of Laurie Hanson was lurking ready to bite her amongst the dead leaves and bits of bark, sat down under it, propped her chin on her knees, and just drank in those ranks of steel-blue hills, row after row of them, to the distant horizon.

    ... “I think we are lost, Uncle Dan.”

    “We’re not lost, ya nana!”

    Oh, Hell! Laurie cowered. Maybe whoever it was would just go past, not realising she was there. ...No. Bugger. Two tanned men carrying large backpacks emerged from the scrub. They didn’t look like tourists on a backpacking holiday, they were just in crumpled old shorts and grimy tee-shirts, and their sunnies looked just ordinary, but that didn’t mean she wanted their company.

    “Hullo!” said the younger man with a startled laugh. “Are we glad to see you!”

    “We would be if we were lost, yeah,” noted the older man drily.

    He sounded like an Aussie but the younger one had an English accent: that was weird, hadn’t he called him uncle just now? Well—come out to see his rellies and get in a bit of backpacking and his dumb townee of an uncle had got them both lost? He didn’t look much like a townee, but then if they’d been backpacking for a while—

    “Hullo,” said Laurie weakly.

    The younger man grinned at her. “Uncle Dan reckons we’re not lost, but can you tell us where we are?”

    Laurie might not have said it, if there’d been more inside her tummy than a cup of tea and two Arnott’s Scotch finger biscuits, but as it was she returned drily: “Here.”

    “Serves ya right, Vern,” noted the older man, grinning. He took off his floppy camouflage hat to reveal short, iron-grey hair, and wiped his forehead with the back of one tanned, wiry hand. “We’re heading for a place called Blue Gums Ecolodge.”

    In those clothes? Laurie’s jaw dropped.

    The younger man had been grinning, too, albeit sheepishly, but at this he said in dismay: “I think we have come the wrong way, Uncle Dan.”

    “Rats, followed the creek, should take us straight there, or can’t you read a map?”

    “Um, yes, the creek’s just down below us,” said Laurie limply. “You are sort of headed in the right direction. I mean, um, well—no, don’t show me the map,” she said feebly as the young man produced one and unfolded it.

    The older man grounded his pack. “Can’t you read a map, then?” he said in friendly tones.

    Laurie awarded him a glare. “No. I can’t drive a car, either, and if ya want the full gruesome details, I can’t ride a bike, and I can’t even stand on a chair to change a flaming light bulb! And as matter of fact, you’re trespassing! Um, if this is still the old MacMurray place,” she added conscientiously.

    Grinning broadly, the man said: “Gimme that flaming thing, Vern!” and grabbed the map off his nephew. “Now, I’m not asking you to read it, I’m showing you, see?” he said, sitting down beside her.

    Laurie swallowed hard. He smelled awfully good. Not sweat, exactly—well, maybe it was fresh sweat. And he had a really great figure, slim but very wiry—strong-looking. He wasn’t exactly handsome, not like Iain Ross or Jack Jackson, but very attractive, with a lean, brown face with nice creases in the cheeks. In other words the sort of bloke that’d never look twice at Laurie Hanson, not to say had been married for twenty years to a really slim, pretty, immensely capable woman who managed his house superbly whilst bringing up his kids and holding down an interesting job with both hands tied behind her. Blonde, probably. Blonde and slim. “It won’t help,” she said in a small voice.

    Ignoring this, he spread the map out carefully. “North,” he said, pointing. “This is the creek, see? Now, look. We’re up here somewhere.” He put his finger on the map. “This side of the creek, geddit?”

    “Um, ye-es. Sort of south, then?”

    “Yeah. See, it runs down to the head of the inlet, here.” His finger traced a slow path along the side of what even Laurie could see was a sort of um, point or, um, bump. “Blue Gums Ecolodge is supposed to be right at the end of this promontory.”

    “Is it?” said Laurie weakly. She cleared her throat. “I mean, it is up the top of the road. Potters Road. I was up there this morning. I mean, I wasn't going there as such, the man who drives the ecolodge’s minibus gave me a lift and he took the other person up there first. But I didn’t see any water up there.”

    “Right, then we are on the right track, because this is Potters Road, here,” he replied pleasedly, putting his finger on it.

    Laurie peered. “Um, is it? Um, we drove straight up from Potters Inlet.” She looked in dismay at the blue bit on the map marked “Potters Inlet”. “Not the water, the township, I mean.”

    “Back here,” he said, putting his finger not where Laurie had been looking at all.

    “Oh, yes,” she said limply.

    The young man had come to peer over their shoulders. “There’s only the one road.”

    “That’s right, Vern, and we’re not lost,” he said calmly.

    A startled giggle escaped Laurie. “Um—no,” she said feebly. “I don’t think you can be. But I’m not sure whether you can actually get all the way along there except by the road. Um, well, further along there’s a B&B and a crafts centre, they’ve got a bush ramble track.” She looked at the map but they certainly didn’t seem to be marked on it. “Don’t ask me where. They’d be huge landmarks to the human eye, but presumably not to the Aussie cartographic Establishment.”

    “Yeah,” the older man agreed drily, folding the map up. Just as Laurie had expected, he was the sort of person who could fold up a huge folding thing exactly as it had been folded, with the right bit showing as a cover on the result. She gave it a bitter look.

    “Whaddaya looking like that for?” he drawled.

    Going very red, she snapped: “If you must know, because folding up stupid maps and pamphlets and crap the right way is something else I can’t do, and now you know you’re headed in the right direction, could you kindly push off?”

    “Thought we might boil the billy for lunch, first,” he replied, completely unmoved.

    Laurie scrambled up and glared at him. “No, you flaming well won’t! You’re trespassing, and I’m responsible for this property, and I’m not gonna have you starting a bushfire on it!”

    “That’s presuming it is still the old MacMurray place, is it?”

    “It has to be, there were no fences,” said Laurie grimly.

    “Often aren’t, out in the boo-eye. Well, okay, how’d you get up here?”

    “On Shanks’s pony!” replied Laurie angrily.

    He laughed. “Gee, haven’t heard that one for years! My old granddad used to say it!”

    Okay, that dated her nicely. The bugger must be at least as old as she was, too! Laurie didn’t bother to say that her granddad had also said it, she just glared.

    “Um, I think he means is there a track back to the road?” said the young man uneasily.

    “Oh,” said Laurie feebly. “Um, sort of. I mean, I came up from the house.”

    “We are trespassing, Uncle Dan,” said Vern in agonised tones.

    “Exactly,” agreed Laurie with grim satisfaction. “Um, it’s that way. Hang on. I think—um, no, hang on. I came over to this tree because there was no other shade. Um, well—stop staring at me, I can’t think!” she said angrily.

    “Don’t get excited, if all else fails we’ll just head down to the road and then find your place,” said the older man calmly, getting up without any puffing, huffing or scrambling.

    “Where were you before you decided to sit in the shade?” asked the young man nicely.

    “That’s what I can’t remember,” said Laurie grimly. “I think—” She looked at her hands in despair. “Over to the right, I think. Um, well, I— Hang on.” She stood facing the hills and shut her eyes. “Um, yes, I came out of the bush and saw all the hills... Did I sit down then? Dunno. Um...” She made little movements, half turning from side to side. “Yes,” she said, opening her eyes, “I turned right—I mean left!” she said quickly. “Left!”

    The older man turned and began to walk very slowly along the top of the cliff above the creek. “Did you come far?”

    “I dunno, I don’t think so,” said Laurie glumly.

    “Work it out, there was no shade except that tree!” said the young man in an excited voice.

    “Shuddup. And just stand back.” He walked on very, very slowly, staring at the ground.

    After a dazed moment Laurie realised what he was doing. “It’s too dry here for tracks,” she said feebly.

    “That’s what you think. You stood here,” he said definitely. He turned round to face the bush. “Came through there somewhere. –Will ya get back!” he snapped at his nephew.

    “You’re—you’re muddling the tracks, Vern,” said Laurie in a small voice.

    “Yeah.” The man called Dan walked very slowly towards the trees. “No, lost it, too rocky,” he said, turning round and smiling at Laurie. “But you came through here somewhere. Come on. We’ll just head down the slope.”

    Had anybody said she was going with them? On the other hand, if she stayed up here by herself there was every chance that she’d never find her way back. You could well say that Springer House’s crafts centre and the B&B would be hard to miss, and come to think of it the horse trekking place was down there too, between the old MacMurray place and Bob and Deanna Springer’s property. But in between their driveways there had been an awful lot of nothing. Laurie swallowed, and followed them in silence.

    “Hullo, horses been along here,” said the irritating Dan after a couple of minutes.

    Laurie couldn’t see any horse droppings, how the Hell did he know? “Along where?” she said crossly.

    He waved his hand to right and left. “Along this track.”

    There was no track! The ground was just dusty clay, with a few pebbles and larger rocks here and there. Laurie peered, trying to make it look as if she wasn’t.

    “Look,” he said, coming up very close and taking her arm, ooh! He pointed.

    Laurie took her sunglasses off and peered at the dappled shade under the sparse bush foliage. “Bullshit.”

    She felt him shake slightly. “These are horse tracks. Coming and going.”

    She wrenched her arm out of his grasp. “Coming and going yaself. I suppose someone told you about the horse trek place next-door.”

    “No,” said the young man.

    “Look, would he let on to you? It’d spoil his impersonation of the Great White Tracker!”

    “Aw, Boney at the least!” said the infuriating Dan with a laugh. “I imagine if we followed these tracks they’d lead us to the horse trek place, but I suppose it’s no use asking if it’s to the left or the right of this property?”

    Laurie was now dying for a pee, it was the flaming cup of tea on top of an orange juice in Barrabarra and no breakfast. “No. If you’re the leader of this flaming expedition, Burke, could you kindly lead?”

    “That,” he said with precision, leading, “was one of the best puns I’ve heard this many a long year. Congratulations.”

    “What do you mean?” asked his nephew limply.

    “The Burke and Wills Expedition to the inland of Australia, you right royal Pommy birk,” he replied genially. “1860-61. The expedition started out from Melbourne, looking for a route for the overland telegraph. Burke and Wills, with two other men, King and Gray, went all the way up to the Gulf of Carpentaria. King was the only one to survive; the other three died on the way back.”

    “Yeah. It was a bit of a fizzer, actually,” admitted Laurie. “Neither of the two leaders knew what they were doing.”

    “Uh-huh. No experience as explorers and no knowledge of the native bush, let alone of bush tucker. It’s generally acknowledged these days that if they’d been better bushmen they would have survived.”

    “Well, we’ll be all right with you in charge, Bush Tuckerman,” returned Laurie nastily.

    “I wouldn’t say that,” he said mildly.

    “He did shoot a kangaroo for meat when we were in the Outback last summer,” admitted Vern.

    “That’s about what I’d have expected,” she agreed cordially. “Look, I came up a track and we’re not on it!”

    “No, but we are going downhill,” replied Dan calmly.

    Laurie breathed heavily but managed not to say anything.

    Vern had just decided they must have come too far and his uncle had just calmly informed him he was talking through that little hole in the back of his neck again and Laurie had just bitten her tongue in an effort not to tell him that her granddad used to say that, when they emerged from the bush to a view of the house, the carport and the Hills Hoist.

    “My White Tracker and Bush Tuckerman skills tell me that that’s a specimen of Hillius hoistius,” said Dan, poker-face.

    “Yeah, hah, hah,” returned Laurie feebly. “Well done, ya led us downhill and didn’t miss the house by a mile like I freely admit I’d’ve done.”

    “It would be quite easy to miss it,” Vern conceded, looking at the expanse of bush on either side of it. “It’s funny, isn’t it: the bush looks so sparse, only when you’re in it you can't see far at all.”

    “No doubt the original British Burke discovered that too, too late,” said Laurie tiredly. “Do you mind if I go inside and have a pee, now?”

    “Be our guest,” said Dan, his shoulders shaking.

    “It’s not FUNNY!” she shouted, suddenly losing it. “You try being a woman with flaming periods that go on for forty years!” With this she rushed inside.

    There was a sheepish male silence on the unkempt apology for a back yard behind the old MacMurray house.

    “Um, forty years?” ventured Vern uncertainly.

    “Not continuously, you nana,” said his uncle tiredly. He removed his hat and ran his hand through his short, iron-grey hair.

    “No—um, not that.”

    “Approximately twelve to approximately fifty-two, that’d be about right,” he said drily. “Poor cow.”

    “Fifty-two! Christ!”

    “Now do you understand why Judith wasn’t too keen to come with us?”

    Vern bit his lip. “Um, well, she was looking for an excuse to give me the push, Uncle Dan, she’s fallen for the new guy in Venture Capital... But, um, I do see she had a point when she said she wouldn’t come unless we had a nice campervan with proper facilities, yes.”

    “Mm. Have to squat to piss, too,” said Dan, looking thoughtfully at the house.

    “Um, yes, that as well!” he gasped, very red.

    Dan eyed him drily. “The human race is composed of two sexes, laddie, and if the party of the first part never makes an effort to understand what the other half has to put up with, it’s gonna be sex followed by kids followed by going our separate ways for the next eighty millennia same as the last—or until we blow ourselves up or choke in the pollution.”

    “Something like that,” agreed Vern feebly. After a moment he noted: “You are divorced, yourself.”

    Dan made a face. “Mm. Thought I was doing me best to understand her point of view, too. Just didn’t realise that her point of view included me giving up the job.”

    Vern’s mother was Dan’s sister: an Australian who’d married an Englishman. “Um, but Mum said you did give it up after a few years.”’

    “Yeah. Well, gave up the globe-trotting, yeah. Didn’t work, did it?”

    “No,” he said uncomfortably.

    Dan sighed a little and patted his shoulder. “Si jeunesse savait, si vieillese pouvait, eh?”

    “You’re not that old!” he protested, very  red.

    Not that old, or, ancient—mm. “Tell you what, let’s go inside and make her some lunch.”

    “We can’t do that!” gasped his nephew in horror. “I mean, for Christ’s sake! She could have us up for harassment or stalking or something!”

    “Bullshit.” Dan walked over to the house, mounted the porch steps, crossed the porch in one stride, opened the back door and went in.

    Vern had been working in Australia for five years, now, and he knew damn well that, country or no, you did not just walk into someone else’s house in the twenty-first century. He hesitated, but finally went after him. The back door opened straight onto the kitchen.

    “Look, this is illegal!” he hissed.

    His uncle had dumped his pack on the kitchen floor and was rinsing his hands at the sink. “Knock it off. Get those smoked eels out, wouldja?”

    “She won’t want smoked eel!” he hissed.

    “She might not, but I do.”

    Vern grounded his own pack slowly and went to investigate Dan’s. “They pong,” he pointed out on a sulky note.

    “Be because they’re smoked eels. See if there’s any butter.”

    Looking sulky, Vern investigated the fridge and found a pot of marg.

    “Butter,” said his uncle.  “B,U,T,T—”

    “There isn’t any, and what about your cholesterol level?” he hissed.

    “Never heard of it. Boil that jug.”

    Sighing, Vern went to fill the electric jug.

    Laurie had been so cross and flustered and fed up that once she’d gone into the bathroom and had had a pee she’d decided to have a nice lukewarm shower. There seemed no point in getting back into a pair of tight jeans and a horrible bra after it. She did have plenty of clean pairs of panties, she’d bought several packets so as not to disgrace herself if Mr Owens looked at the washing on the line, not with any idea that he might want to do a more personal inspection, but she wasn’t gonna waste them: she just put on a pair of blue and white cotton striped pyjama pants that were men’s but quite respectable, she’d sewn the fly shut. And a shoestring-strapped top that she never wore in public because it was too rude and she didn’t have the guts to wear it either without a bra or with one, with the straps showing—the latter only partly because she didn’t own a fancy coloured one with attractive straps. It had originally been too tight for her, another good reason for not wearing it in public, but by now it had been washed so many times that it was quite baggy. It was a faded red. Laurie never wore red to work, she didn’t think it was her colour and it was too conspicuous, but she really liked this top, it made her feel happy. She was actually feeling quite hungry, too: she might have some lunch after all! She’d got over her nervousness about coming up here, since Jack and Nefertite were both so nice, and Mr Owens wouldn’t be here for another couple of days, she didn’t have to be nervous about that yet, and the diarrhoea that had been plaguing her for the last three days, what with the nerves, the guilt over the masquerade as Brenda, and the flaming period that had decided to start up again just when she thought they might really have stopped for good, seemed to have dried up. So had the period, thank God. They only seemed to last two days now, but they were stinkers when they struck. Laurie went down the passage to the kitchen feeling happy and hungry.

    She opened the door, gasped, and backed off. “What are you doing?”

    “Getting you some lunch; apology for behaving like a pair of thick-headed male drongos,” said Dan, not sounding apologetic.

    “You can’t just walk into someone else’s kitchen!” she gasped.

    “It’s quite easy if they’ve left the back door unlocked. Don’t panic, Vern’ll show you his ID, if you like.”

    “Stop it, Uncle Dan. Look, we’ll leave you to it, if you’d rather,” said his nephew.

    Laurie hesitated. The young man was very nicely spoken, and the uncle did sound like the more educated type of Aussie—well, not a yob off the streets likely to attack you. And they had set out what looked like a very nice lunch. “Um, no, it’s okay, only why didn’t you ask first?” she said feebly.

    “Please, sit here,” said the young man, looking very relieved. “I’m afraid that was Uncle Dan. He does tend to take charge—added to which he’s still living in the nineteenth century.”

    “Mm, when no-one locked their back doors,” said Dan very drily indeed. “I would’ve asked, only I could hear you were in the shower.”

    Limply Laurie sank onto the chair that his nephew had pulled out for her. “I’m used to a Yale lock, at my flat,” she said limply.

    “I see, so you don’t normally live here?” said Dan, lifting the jug. “What’ll it be, tea or coffee?”

    “What? Um, well, what sort of tea is it?” she asked feebly.

    “There seems to be a selection. Twining’s English Breakfast, Twining’s Queen Mary or Twining’s Earl Grey. Up-market tastes, you have,” he murmured.

    “No! It’s not my house! –Anyway, you see them in all the supermarkets these days.”

    “For a price—yes. Which?”

    “Well, um, I really love Queen Mary, only could you make it very weak, please?”

    “Of course. In fact I’ll share a teabag between us.”

    Laurie watched numbly as he did so.

    “Whose house is it, then?” he asked baldly, setting a mug of tea in front of her and one of instant coffee in front of Vern. “A MacMurray’s, still?”

    “No, it belongs to Daffyd Owens.”

    “Really? And may one tactfully enquire whether you’re Mrs Owens?”

    “Me? No!” she gasped. “Um, I’m just gonna look after the house for him.”

    “I see,” he said nicely. “I’m Dan Sutcliffe, by the way, and this is my nephew, Vern Halliwell. Doing a bit of backpacking.”

    Vern was nodding and smiling hopefully, so Laurie said weakly: “Good to meet you, Vern.”

    Dan sat down. The table was against the wall, and he’d placed himself at what you could have called the head of it—though on the other hand you could have said Vern’s end was the head, so possibly it was only a coincidence. “Are we to have the privilege?”

    “What? Oh—sorry,” said Laurie lamely. “I’m Luh—uh—Brenda!” she gasped, turning puce. “Brenda Worthing.”

    “Glad to know you, Brenda. Try some home-smoked eel,” he offered mildly.

    Anxiously Vern began: “Most people don’t like—”

    “No, it’s okay, I love it,” said Laurie, taking some. It had been skinned and was very nicely presented, on some lettuce leaves—the lettuce would be the one Nefertite had put in the fridge for her—with a little olive oil drizzled over it. “Did you smoke it yourself?”

    “Yes; I occasionally get them fresh down at the fish market in Sydney and get the old smoker going.” He passed her a plate of brown bread, already spread with marg.

    Dazedly Laurie tried the smoked eel and a bit of lettuce on the brown bread. Crikey Dick! “That,” she said reverently, having swallowed, “is the best smoked eel I have ever had.”

    “Thanks. The bread’s not bad, either; make it yourself?” replied Dan, grinning.

    “No, it’s some they gave me. –Friends of Mr Owens’s.”

    “Presumably Mr Owens has friends who bake their own bread, then,” he said lightly.

    “It is awfully nice,” agreed Vern.

    “But she can’t cook and I’m pretty sure from what they said that he can’t, either— Oh, heck!” realised Laurie.

    “What?” said Dan mildly.

    “Her brother must’ve made it, he’s the chef at the restaurant up the road. Oh, dear.”

    “Why shouldn’t he pop in an extra loaf for you?” replied Dan with a smile.

    “Yes, but it’s his work,” said Laurie on an anxious note. “And the restaurant’s not very big—it belongs to the B&B, you see. I don’t think they should be giving away whole loaves of bread, it’ll cut into their profits.”

    “Wouldn’t have done it if they couldn’t afford it, would he? Eat it and be thankful.”

    “Have you ever eaten there?” asked Vern with interest.

    Help! Why had she ever started this thing, it was getting too complicated! True, she hadn’t envisaged two perfect strangers invading her kitchen and asking probing questions, but—

    “Um, no. It’s supposed to be very nice,” said Laurie in a squashed voice.

    “Just shut up and eat,” advised Vern’s uncle. “Know anything about Blue Gums Ecolodge, Brenda? –Earth to Brenda!”

    Laurie jumped. “Sorry. Um, the ecolodge, did you say? Um, well, not much. Um, the man on the bus this morning was their new butler. Um, temporary. –I think!” she gasped.

    “And?” prompted Dan, helping himself to more eel and passing her the plate with a smile.

    “Um, I have read an article in a magazine about it,” she recalled with some relief. After all, anybody could read a magazine! “It’s, um, it’s very expensive and, um, very select,” she ended faintly. Above his crumpled khaki shorts Dan was wearing an awful old tee that might once have been brown—Laurie didn’t usually like brown but this thing was so old it was quite bearable—and Vern was in an awful saggy grey thing. Well, you saw young men in even the more affluent suburbs wearing that sort of thing, didn’t you, but usually with very expensive sneakers and those knee-length baggy shorts with silly pockets on them that might look daggy but actually cost the earth. Vern’s shorts were just like his uncle’s: old khaki work shorts, the sort worn by Aussie blokes ever since Laurie could remember. And longer, judging by Granddad’s family albums.

    “Very eco-friendly, is it?” asked Dan, poker-face.

    “Yes,” said Laurie weakly. “You know: solar panels and, um, I’m not sure whether it was it or another one that the article said recycled its wastes, but it’s all built of recycled materials. And the meals are supposed to be organic.”

    “Uh-huh. Any idea of prices?”

    Laurie looked at him limply. Whatever it was he did for a crust in between smoking eels, he’d never be able to afford it! “I think it was two thousand a head. Per day, not week.”

    “In that case,” he said to his nephew, “it must be the right place.”

    “Yes. –My cousin Helen’s going to be working there over Labour Weekend,” he explained. “I’m not sure whether she’s started or not. I was going to phone her, but by the time we were halfway here I discovered my mobile wasn’t getting a signal. So Uncle Dan said we might as well just head for it.”

    “I wouldn’t do that, Dan, I think it might get your niece into trouble.”

    Dan looked wry. “That or get us into trouble, the family’s been ordered not to check up on her.”

    “She meant my aunt, really,” said Vern on a weak note. “I wonder if I could use your phone to ring her, Brenda?”

    “Of course you can, Vern, but my mobile wasn’t getting a signal when I tried it before.”

    Vern looked uncertainly at the phone fixed to the wall at the end of the kitchen bench.

    “I think he means the landline, which presumably belongs to Mr Owens,” noted his uncle.

    “Oh. I dunno if it’s connected, he’s only just bought the house, but go ahead and try it.”

    Vern got up and tried it, but it was dead.

    Feebly Laurie suggested: “Try your mobile again.”

    “The answer’ll be a lemon. You’re going to have to bite on the bullet,” noted Dan. “Just leave it. Eat your lunch and stop jumping up and down like a yoyo, it’s bloody irritating and I'm quite sure it isn’t doing Brenda’s digestion any good at all.”

    It was very disruptive, actually: maybe eighty millennia of squatting peacefully round the campfire had trained the human psyche to expect to just eat at mealtimes? Nevertheless Laurie gave him a good glare and said: “Rubbish. Give it a go, Vern, it’ll set your mind at ease.”

    Looking defiant, he got up and fished his mobile out of his pack.

    “Funny, that,” noted his uncle as he reported sheepishly: “Still no signal.”

    “Um, you could go to the back door, Vern,” said Laurie kindly. “When you get up to the top of the drive it looks as if you can go left or right but there’s lots of windows over to the right—um, yes, right,” she said, looking at her hands, “so I think that’s, um, for the guests, but if you go left it takes you past the carpark and the garage and round to the back door.”

    “Servant’s entrance,” drawled Dan.

    “The staff entrance,” said Laurie grimly.

    “That sounds like a good plan,” he said mildly, passing her the plate of eel. “Come on, there’s two bits left, have one and we’ll split the other.”

    Laurie gave in and took a piece of eel. It was irresistibly yummy. “Do you smoke it outside?” she asked on a cautious note. Was he gonna say his wife’d kill him if he tried to smoke it inside, or squash her flat for being so dumb as to need to ask, or— Cripes, no, he wasn’t, actually, it had been the right thing to say! He looked very pleased and launched into one of those involved male speeches where all you had to do was nod and look interested. It had taken Laurie years to latch on to that one: you just had to find the right cue and they’d be off. And they never seemed to think you were being nosy if you asked about their job, they usually plunged right into it, apart from the ones that did something so technical that they were sure the little woman wouldn’t understand a blind word and answered you monosyllabically, thus letting the embarrassed silence prolong itself and dooming forever any slightest notion of a relationship, a mild friendship or even a conversation. Since she started working for Gail, which hadn’t been until she was well into her thirties, Laurie had begun to get more of an idea of how to draw people out, especially people of the opposite sex, but it had been uphill work. She had long since realised that to the vast majority of her compatriots normal conversation consisted of a string of personal questions, but that didn’t mean she could manage it with ease. Either the asking or the answering, actually.

    “Sorry! Clear as mud!” finished Dan with a laugh.

    “Um, no, I’d love to see you do it!” she gasped, pinkening.

    Dan looked at the pink cheeks with amused interest and at the unrestrained boobs under the red thing with a lot more interest and a lot less amusement. Didn’t know what the Hell she had, there, obviously. What a Helluva waste. “It’s easy once you get the knack of it. That’s hot smoking, of course. Cold smoking’s a lot different, need a proper smokehouse for that.”

    “I see,” said Laurie in mystification. “Um, no, hang on, I’ve seen it on TV, only I don't think they called it that. But it was like a, um, a wooden barn or something, with rows and rows of fish hanging up. Haddocks? Um, no... English, anyway.”

    “Kippers?” asked Vern.

    “Bloaters?” asked his uncle.

    “I can’t remember. Um, I think it was on that series about the Englishman who cooks fish, but I wouldn’t swear to it. I think it was an example of a dying art, or something.”

    “It would be,” agreed Dan. “It’s practically a dead art, here. Back when my dad was a young man every amateur fisherman could smoke his catch, but these days they go into the esky and then straight into the freezer.”

    “Yes,” agreed Laurie, nodding. “You said ‘fisherman’,” she added, smiling at him.

    “Uh...”

    “It’s not trendy. Haven’t you noticed? The media always say ‘fisher’, these days, Personally I think that makes them sound biblical, not non-sexist at all, but then, they’re illiterate,” she said calmly.

    “‘Fishers of men’, that’s right,” agreed Vern. “Yes, they do, Uncle Dan.”

    “If you say so. Remind me to watch even less television, in future.”

    “He doesn’t watch much, anyway,” Vern informed Laurie.

    “Don’t you? Good on ya,” she approved.

    “Thanks,” said Dan feebly. What with leading her home on his own initiative and making her lunch on his own initiative both being all wrong, he was beginning to wonder if there could be anything at all about him that she approved of. Well, apart from his ability to smoke aquatic life. “Was that enough, Brenda? Or shall I slice some more bread?”

    “That was loads, thanks. The eel was lovely, thank you.”

    Yes, well, there you were. “Glad you liked it. –I was not asking you,” he said firmly as Vern admitted he wouldn’t mind some more bread.

    Laurie’s brain had now had time to get back into more or less working order after the shock of having her kitchen invaded by two perfect strangers, and two points had occurred about this bread, the first being that if they ate it all up she’d have to hike all the way to the Potters Inlet shops and back, but the second being that if she ate too much of it it’d probably give her the runs again: it was lovely but wholemeal bread frequently had that effect, especially if she’d been suffering anyway.

    “No, go on, Vern. Hang on, I think there’s some jam in the cupboard.” She got up and investigated. Ordinary strawberry and a very expensive brand of American grape jelly which must be for Mr Owens’s benefit. She awarded Vern the strawberry. His uncle gave in and had some, too, so sucks!

    “Vern, why don’t you go on up to the ecolodge and see if you can find Helen, while Brenda and I do the dishes?” suggested Dan with immense cunning as the last of the bread and strawberry jam vanished down his nephew’s gullet.

    Vern gaped at him—the effect, his uncle reflected drily, was rather of that of a shag that had just gulped down a fish and was about to dry his wings in the sun.

    “I can do these, there’s only a few,” said Laurie quickly.

    “Nonsense,” replied Dan calmly. “Well?” he said pointedly to his relation.

    It must’ve sunk in, because Vern replied weakly: “Well, okay, if you think so.”

    “I do think so. The sooner we find out if she is there the sooner we can find a place to camp tonight.”

    “Oh—yes. Right-ho.” Vern got up obediently.

    After the expected fluffing around, deciding he did need to use the facilities and deciding he would take his pack, he finally slung his hook, leaving Dan alone with Brenda’s extremely desirable boobs in that skimpy red thing and extremely—extremely—desirable bum in those cotton pyjama pants as she bent to look under the sink. He’d have put her down as verging on a size eighteen, and none the worse for that! When he’d first met the unlamented Serena he’d had a jolly girlfriend called Molly, verging on a size sixteen, and in the same line of work as he was. Molly hadn’t given any indication that she expected anything more from him than a bit of uncomplicated sex, possibly because, an older and wiser Dan Sutcliffe had realised, he fancied himself as Dan the Lad and she wasn’t the only pebble on his beach, by no means. More a fallback if something more glamorous and likely to be envied him by his cretinous peers wasn’t offering.

    Serena had been much, much more glamorous, in fact employed by a fashion magazine, and his cretinous little mates’ eyes had all been on stalks when he turned up with her on his arm at some bloody do—someone’s engagement party, had it been? He’d dumped the intelligent, undemanding, plumpish Molly without a second thought. Ten years down the track, never mind he’d changed his job, the marriage was on the rocks and they were only sticking together for the sake of Rowena and Vivienne, and Dan had given nice Molly quite a few second thoughts—but as she’d long since married a very pleasant fellow from their once mutual place of work thoughts were all he was ever gonna get to give her. He had also given quite a few other ladies something more tangible, largely because Serena had decided that after two kids his sexual demands were unnecessary. Maybe they were, for her, but they certainly weren’t for him. And sex only on Saturdays, dwindling into once a month, dwindling into never was bloody unnatural! Her incessant nagging was certainly unnecessary, and never mind sticking together for the girls’ sakes, she didn’t hesitate to scream at him in front of them. Not about his sexual wanderings, of which she remained sublimely and, Dan decided much later, deliberately unaware, no: about anything else under the sun, ranging from that eternal blister, forgetting to put the dustbin out, through failing to do his share of chauffeuring the girls to their sports fixtures, aerobics and ballet classes—difficult when these fell at four o’clock of a working afternoon, yes—to spending all evening in at work. Not that she desired his company of an evening. If he was home she’d put the TV on and tell him that if he didn’t like the programme he could do the other thing. The night she tore a strip off him in front of half a dozen of her bloody friends he packed his bag and walked out. Well, it was that or stay and become an alcoholic, he’d starting drinking far too much—and of course Serena had started screaming at him about that as well.

    He’d let her have the bloody house, though several mates pointed out that he had a right to a share in it. He didn’t give a fuck about it, it was all her taste. He bit on the bullet, sold the launch and used the proceeds to pay off a large chunk of the mortgage. He couldn’t pay it off entirely, there was nothing in the bank, they’d always lived pretty well up to their income—well, Serena had lived as if there was no tomorrow, but then almost everyone they knew was the same. But he spent the next several years paying it off as fast as he could. What with this and the girls’ child support he could only afford the scungiest of flats and although he nominally had joint custody the bitch soon decided that it wasn’t a fit place for the girls and had them convinced of it as well. Likewise his old banger of a car. Rowena was now twenty-four, earning a fortune in event management, whatever that was, and Vivienne was twenty-two and employed, though not particularly gainfully, in one of the glossiest of the downtown art galleries, and he’d have been hard put to it to recognise either of them on the street.

    “I like the pyjama pants,” he murmured.

    Laurie straightened, very flushed. “Hah, hah. If you stayed behind just to be funny, you can push off.”

    “Uh—no, I do!” he bleated, very startled.

    “They cost a fraction of anything in the women’s department and funnily enough when I decided to get into them I thought I had the house to myself,” she said grimly.

    “If that implies you don’t favour the general populace with ’em, all I can say is, poor general populace! –I’d better wash,” he said, taking the washing-up brush off her, “because I don’t know where anything goes.”

    “I don’t know where anything goes, either, I just got here this morning!”

    “Then this’ll be your opportunity to learn,” replied Dan smoothly, turning on taps. “What’s the hot water like?’

    “Hot water,” said Laurie flatly.

    His shoulders shook slightly. “No, I mean is it continuous, or one of those tanks that run cold if you’ve done a load of washing? Separate little tank for the kitchen, maybe?”

    “Don’t ask me.”

    “You were just looking under the sink.”

    “It just looked like under the sink, I'm not a plumber,” said Laurie feebly. Was he gonna— Yes, he bloody was! She watched feebly as he opened the cupboard and bent into it.

    “Yes,” he reported. “Electric, not gas—don’t think it’s reticulated up here. Means if there’s a power cut you’ve really had it. No hot water and no chance of boiling the jug.”

    “I’m not planning to be here over winter,” said Laurie with a sigh as he squirted what Mum would have said was far too much detergent into the sink. As she always used far too much herself she didn’t bother reproving him. At least he was human to that extent!

    “How long are you planning to be here for?” he asked.

    “Up to the end of next week. Unless Mr Owens gets fed up and pushes off, I suppose.”

    “And then what?” he asked, dumping all the plates and mugs in at once.

    “Eh?”

    “Well, presumably you don’t turn into a pumpkin like Cinderella. What’s next?”

    Laurie swallowed. She’d nearly said “Back to RightSmart,” help! “Actually, I do turn into a pumpkin, not that it’s any of your business. And it wasn’t Cinderella, it was the coach.”

    “So it was. –Did you know that the glass slipper was actually fur?”

    “Yes. Old French,” said Laurie tiredly. “I’m not as ignorant as I look, in fact back in the Dark Ages I did a degree in— Forget it.”

    Dan looked at her thoughtfully. She hadn’t struck him as precisely thick—no. So what was she doing up here acting as cook-housekeeper? “Helping out Mr Owens as a favour, then?”

    Laurie took a deep breath. “No.”

    “Holiday job?”

    “Call it that if ya like.” Defiantly Laurie grabbed up the mug that she was quite sure he’d put there as a leaner and dried it.

    “I was gonna lean the plates on that,” he said mildly.

    “Just get on with it, if you’re doing it.”

    Silently Dan got on with it. He wasn’t entirely crushed—well, those tits were definitely not a deterrent, and she might not be giving him any encouragement but she hadn’t slung him out yet, had she?—but he was beginning to wonder, just a bit, about Brenda Worthing. Would there be any harm in telling him what she’d be heading back to? Uh—had a row with the hubby, taken the job up here to spite the poor bugger? She didn’t strike him as that sort, and she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

    “Is there a Mr Worthing?” he murmured, letting the water out and giving the cutlery a last rinse under the hot tap.

    This perfectly normal question elicited a very, very odd response. First she looked blank and then she turned scarlet and gasped: “No!”

    “Uh—sorry if that was a tactless question. I’m divorced, myself,” said Dan on a limp note.

    Laurie’s heart was hammering with fright. Talk about stupid! Why hadn’t she prepared herself for that sort of question? “Are you?” she replied faintly.

    “Yeah. We busted up—shit, getting on for fourteen years back, my eldest girl’s turned twenty-four, and she was only ten when Serena decided my sexual demands were becoming unbearable.”

    Laurie gaped at him.

    “I was demanding it at least once a week, you see,” said Dan mildly. “Just ordinary sex, didn’t even insist on varying the missionary position. –Well, wasn’t allowed to insist, actually. You know: ordinary sex,” he repeated kindly, as she was still goggling at him.

    “You mean she didn’t want to?” gulped Laurie.

    “You got it,” he drawled. “A few mates have told me it’s not an uncommon syndrome.”

    “What do these women get married for?” she croaked.

    Dan propped his back against the bench. “I’ve often asked myself that. It may merely be conformity to the social norms combined with a strong inclination to be looked after for the rest of their natural, but I think it’s more fundamental than that. For one thing, she didn’t want to be looked after: she wanted to take all the decisions. Um, no, I think there is a biological imperative there—the need to reproduce. Once it’s satisfied the male’s sexual rôle becomes redundant. I’m not claiming it’s like that for all women, of course, but it certainly was for Serena. For quite a while I thought that she just wanted something more up-market, less given to slopping round the house in old shorts and smoking fish in the back yard, not to say to not bothering to put a towel under her bum on the rare occasions when she let me have some, but she hasn’t remarried, or even had a relationship.”

    “I see,” said Laurie limply. Had she needed to hear all that about his sex life? “I think some of them imagine it’s gonna be like a fairy tale, too—you know, ‘and they lived happily ever after,’ without realising that that doesn’t just happen, you have to work at it. That’d be true for the husbands as well, mind you.”

    “Yeah. Well, certainly for some. Personally I did work bloody hard at it for quite a while,” said Dan drily. “Then I started burying myself in my work and drinking too much and eyeing up other females like the rest of the male half. Had something to do with only being human.”

    “Yes,” agreed Laurie feebly. Why on earth was he telling her all this? “Um, it doesn’t seem fair to me to marry a person if you’re not going to have sex with them.”

    “I’m tempted to say you’re unique amongst your sex in that, but maybe it’s only the Aussie ones. Make that the Aussie middle-class bitches,” said Dan with a shrug.

    “Well, it’s easy for me to talk, I’ve never been married.”

    “Er—right. Does this imply that if you did get married you’d turn it off like a tap, too?”

    “I dunno. I don’t think anybody can know, actually, before it happens. –That’s the last of the dishes,” said Laurie pointedly. If he’d push off, she could—well, not tidy the place up, it was spotless, but maybe, um, well, at least get back to concentrating on Daffyd Owens and working out a few menus and maybe writing out a shopping list, not to say figuring out how the Hell she was gonna lug the shopping home up that bloody road.

    “So it is. Fancy a peaceful cup of coffee in my nephew’s absence?” said Dan easily, grinning at her. –Those tits made it bloody hard not to grin, actually.

    “No. Hadn’t you better go and see what he’s up to?”

    Bugger. Dan made one more desperate effort. “What are you gonna do this arvo?”

    “Check what’s in the fridge and the cupboards, make a shopping list and work out some menus. And maybe pick some nice foliage, if I can find any jam jars to put it in, to brighten the place up a bit. The job I’m being paid for, in other words.”

    Sighing, Dan gave up, collected up his pack, and went on his way. He did threaten to see her later, getting no response except the conventional “See ya.” Bugger! What the Hell was wrong with him? Well, pretty obviously he wasn’t a muscular Welsh opera singer with a worldwide reputation as a lady-killer. What a bloody waste of a juicy-looking woman. Bright, too. Oh, well, just his luck.

    Laurie locked the door after him and sat down at the kitchen table, muttering to herself: “Mr Worthing? No, I’m not married.” Unfortunately it didn’t sound airily natural, it sounded stilted and unconvincing. Help.

    By teatime she’d worked herself into such a state of nerves that she might have run away after all, but nice Jack came and collected her and well, heck, she might as well stick it out. Not that she expected anything to come of it, she wasn’t that mad. Just mad enough to decide to do it, ’cos she was bloody sick of having nothing in her life!

    Unfortunately for Dan Sutcliffe, it didn’t occur to her for one instant that maybe she could have him.

Next chapter:

https://temps-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/falling-apart.html