Sorted And Settled

20

Sorted And Settled

    Laurie accepted a biscuit from the tin she’d brought in for Gail in her bed of sickness, with the proviso that it was just one, and munched happily, reporting: “It’s all sorted, you see, so there was nothing to stop me coming down to help out at RightSmart.”

    At the precise instant its CEO, alas, was far more interested in the biscuits—homemade—than she was in RightSmart. “Uh-huh,” she agreed indistinctly.

    “Gail, those look to me as if they’re about a million calories per,” warned her life-partner.

    Gail swallowed. “Per bite!” she corrected cheerfully. “Yeah. Have one.”

    “No, thanks,” said Fee firmly.

    “Where are you staying, Laurie?” asked Gail kindly, taking another. “Have these got golden syrup in them?” she asked before their inspired creator could speak.

    “Yes, it’s an old recipe.”

    “Golden syrup and butter,” noted Fee grimly.

    “Yes, of course, David says there’s no point in making lovely afternoon teas unless they’re fattening!” replied Laurie with a merry laugh. “I’m staying with Deanna’s Aunty May, actually. Did you know she’s Lily Rose Rayne’s mum?”

    “No,” said Gail indistinctly through the biscuit. At the same time Fee said blankly: “Who?”

    “Honestly! The actress! You know, she was in that lovely English series, The Captain’s Daughter, and then they made a film of it!”

    Fee shrugged. “Nope.”

    “Sometimes I wonder what world you live in,” said Laurie with kindly, tolerant scorn.

    Gail swallowed the last mouthful. “I was under the impression that you didn’t spend all your evenings glued to the box.”

    “I don’t, but I usually watch the good British shows. And the film was lovely: it had Adam McIntyre in it as well as Euan Keel!” she beamed. “I thought everyone knew that Lily Rose Rayne was an Aussie?”

    “I’ve heard of Nicole Kidman,” offered Fee, since Gail was absorbed in choosing another biscuit.

    “Lily Rose isn’t nearly as skinny as her,” said Laurie dismissively. “Anyway, May, her mum, is really nice. And she’s a great cook!” she beamed.

    “Swapping recipes, are you?” said Gail kindly.

    “Yes, of course. She’s got a lovely apricot chicken recipe.”

    “Dates back to the Seventies, doesn’t it?” said Fee in a bored voice.

    “Muh Uh-y— Shorry. My Aunty Di’s version dates back to time immemorial, but you could be right,” replied Gail. “You started off telling us about things being sorted up at Potters Inlet,” she reminded Laurie.

    “Yes: Bob’s bitten on the bullet and ordered a kitset house for him and Deanna: they’re siting it just behind the B&B and they’re going to have the phones connected through, so that if there's an emergency at night all the guests have to do is pick up the phone!”

    “Sounds okay,” Gail conceded. “How long will it take to put it up, though?”

    “Well, not very long, I don’t think: Bob said Jack put Nefertite’s house up in no time!”

    “There’d have been an ulterior motive there, though, wouldn’t there?” asked Fee drily.

    “Don’t be silly! There's no romance in your soul at all, is there? You oughta loosen up a bit!” advised Laurie cheerfully. “Of course he was keen to live in it with her, but he’s not like that.”

    “Alone of the male half,” noted Gail, swallowing the last delicious, lingering crumbs and running her tongue hopefully round her teeth. “She’s right, though: he isn’t. Wouldn’t know what the phrase ‘Pull your finger out’ meant, because no-one’s ever had to say it to him in his life.”

    “That’s alone of the male half, all right,” Fee acknowledged drily. “But how long did it actually take him, Laurie?”

    “I’m not sure, but Deanna said the structure was up and the roof was on before you could hardly turn round, she thought they’d only just poured the slab. The walls come in huge bits, you see. It sounds a bit like an American early settlers’ barn raising.”

    “Early American barns weren’t—” Fee caught her partner’s eye and subsided.

    “Say three weeks to get the basic structure up, then?” said Gail.

    “I don’t think it would be more than that. And the fitments just slot in, too, if you go for the standard readymade kitchen cabinets and robes. Well, Jack did say there was a fair amount of work to do after the windows went in on theirs, stopping up the gaps, but they come with the glass already in the frames, so a lot of the fiddly stuff’s already done. The roof’s colour-steel, he said you need at least two working on that, but there’ll be him and Bob, and young Scott’s very keen to help, too. See, they’ve just about finished Blue Gums Ecolodge, and the two other men that were working on it have gone, now.”

    “Pardon my indelicacy, here,” said Gail, licking her fingers, “but is Bob proposing to pay Jack for his labour?”

    “He was, but Jack told him not to be mad,” said Laurie comfortably.

    “Laurie, it could have been a RightSmart job!” said Fee crossly.

    “I’m not a RightSmart consultant now, Fee!” replied Laurie with a giggle.

    “You are, technically,” noted Gail drily.

    “Only temping!” returned Laurie happily.

    “Mm. –Give it up, Fee, Jack’s not the type to charge a mate for three weeks’ hard yacker.”

    Fee subsided, though looking unconvinced, and firmly put the lid back on the biscuit tin.

    “Oy, that’s my dose of solid cholesterol and refined sugar masquerading as ambrosia!” Gail objected loudly.

    “You’ve had enough.”

    Gail sighed. “Well, in that case nip downstairs to the machine and grab me a packet of salt and vinegar chips, for the love of Mike: they gave us frozen peas with fawn slime and yellow slime for tea tonight!”

    “You’re getting out tomorrow.”

    “Yes, and if I manage to get something with some taste in it down me I may even survive that long! Go on, I haven’t had salt and vinegar chips for at least six months!”

    Fee got up, looking sour. “It’ll be salads till Christmas, in that case, and don’t come moaning to me when you can’t get into that new trouser suit!” With this, prudently putting the tin of biscuits on the small chest of drawers well out of Gail’s reach, she vanished.

    “Have you get a new trouser suit?” asked Laurie with interest.

    Gail sighed. “Newish. End of season sale, last March. Silver-grey. Linen look.”

    “Ooh, that sounds nice!”

    “I won’t be wearing it this summer, though, will I?” She directed a filthy look at the cage over the leg.

    “Oh, dear. No, I suppose you won’t. Well, maybe by the end of summer,” said Laurie kindly. “And you’re not strung up in those awful strings any more, that’s a big step forward!”

    “Traction,” said Gail heavily. “Yeah. Of all the stupid—! Oh, well.”

    “Everyone has accidents. You’re just too efficient to have had many.”

    Gail had the grace to gulp. “Mm. Um, listen, Laurie: you are settled, are you? I mean, Potters Inlet’s proving what you’d hoped, is it?”

    Laurie laughed. “What you and Leanne hoped, I think! Yes, it’s really great, Gail. I’ll be grateful to both of you for the rest of my life.”

    Gail sagged on her pillows. “Oh, good! So, let’s see, if Bob and Deanna get into their new house by, well, realistically it won’t be much before Christmas, I suppose, but let’s say mid-December, would you be planning to take the overflow from the B&B?”

    “That’s right, yes. Would you and Fee like to come up and stay?” she asked eagerly.

    “Uh—well, I won’t be up for that waterskiing holiday she’d planned, will I?”

    “No. –Heck, had she? She's awfully athletic, isn’t she?” said Laurie in tones of awed admiration.

    “Mm,” agreed Gail wryly.

    “Where were you going to go?”

    “Somewhere near The Entrance. Her cousins have got a weekender down there. Anyway, that’s out. I’d love to come up to the hills, actually, Laurie; thanks.”

    “Good! Just let me know when you’ve decided when!”

    “I will. –By the way, is Veronica still with you?”

    “Um, no: she’s come down to do the RightSmart accounts.”

    “What? Do you mean to tell me that bloody Kathleen—”

    “Now don’t get excited!” said Laurie quickly. “Iain said you’d blow your top unnecessarily, that was why he didn’t tell you. She had quite a bit of leave owing, you see, so she gave in her notice and just came back down to pack her stuff, and had a week showing Veronica the ropes. Well, it was almost a week,” she amended feebly.

    Gail breathed heavily for some time.

    “They’re all like that at that age,” said Laurie mildly. “It’s biological imperatives.”

    “It’s something, all right,” she muttered. “So how’s Veronica coping?”

    “Fine, of course: she is a qualified accountant—actually she’s far more qualified than Kathleen, she’d only done a bookkeeping course, hadn’t she?”

    “Yeah—no, I didn’t exactly mean was she on top of the work, Laurie,” said the CEO of RightSmart in a weak voice. “Um, well, office life, I suppose.”

    “She’s used to it.”

    “Yes, but is she happy?”

    “Of course she’s happy, her and Iain are engaged!” replied her temporary placement consultant with a merry laugh.

    Gail had the strong feeling, glad though she was to know that Laurie was happy up at Potters Inlet, that if she heard one more merry laugh this evening she’d leap out of bed, plaster an’ all, and strangle the woman!

    “I dare say, but we were all under the impression—in fact Drew bent my ear at length on the topic—the impression that she didn’t want an accounting job in a boring old office and that she stayed up there in the hills helping you paint your lounge-room walls a tasteful pale lime interspersed with William Morris wainscoting precisely because she didn’t want a boring office life!”

    “That wasn’t really it. –Not pale lime, it looked too sicky when we saw a whole wall of it. And the William Morris bits are the wallpaper and the curtains, you twit! It was really because Iain hadn’t asked her to marry him.”

    Gail’s jaw dropped. After quite some time she said faintly: “I won’t ask you to run that by me again, because I don’t think my enfeebled metabolism can take it.”

    “Have another biscuit, then!” gasped Laurie, collapsing in splutters. “No, honest,” she said, wiping her eyes. “That was why.”

    “Did she actually tell you that?” she croaked.

    “No, of course not,” replied Laurie mildly.

    Gail drew a deep breath. “Right. And now he has, so she doesn’t mind returning to—” Laurie was nodding serenely, so she gave up. “Good. Um, look, I know it’s none of my business, but wasn’t there a bloke that was keen on you? About this time last time year, if memory serves,” she prompted, as Laurie just looked blank. “He certainly rang us and tried to get your phone number out of us, and then Jack tried on his behalf.”

    “Oh—him!” said Laurie dismissively. “That was ages ago! Well, he was nice, but, um, you know what I said about Daffy Owens?” she said, going rather pink.

    “Uh...” Which bit, in amongst all the garbage? Oh! “Relentlessly cheerful? That it?”

    “Yes, but not only that: he made you do things for your own good. Well, nice things, on the whole, but the sort that pushes you into things, see?”

    Gail did see, all too clearly. Of course what Laurie needed was to be pushed into things, but— “Mm.”

    “Dan was that sort of man, as well. Would you believe, he walked right into my kitchen and got the lunch behind my back without even asking! And what if the mere sight of smoked eel had made me want to throw up? It stinks, you know: lots of people can’t stand it.”

    In that case it would have been the mere smell of it, not the— Never mind. She was convinced, for whatever obscure psychological reasons, that she couldn’t take the man. Whereas Jack had said— Though blokes always stood up for other blokes, come to think of it. “I see,” she said kindly.

    “I couldn’t cope with that. You’re such an energetic go-getter yourself you probably can’t see it,” said Laurie kindly. “Don’t worry, I’m really happy! And I’ve got loads more friends than I’ve ever had before!”

    Yes. Good. Gail left it at that.

    Daph handed Iain a brimming glass. “There you go, love.”

    “I need this, do I? Thanks, Daph! Cheers.” He sipped, and choked.

    “It’s bourbon,” said old Bert helpfully from his position on the couch in front of the TV.

    “So it is. Who the Hell bought it?”

    “Cotty. I tell a lie, this bloke Cotty’s met,” said the old man heavily. “My fault: ’e was a mate of Ben’s: long-distance lorry driver, when Ben was doing it, too: had ’im round for a barbie one weekend and that’s how she met ’im. Not that anything came of it back then, only she bumped into ’im again down the mall two weeks back and since then he’s hardly has ’is feet out from under ’er table!”

    “Ignore him, Iain,” Daph advised placidly. “There’s nothing wrong with Todd Collier, and he isn’t doing the long-distance runs any more, he’s got quite a good job doing local deliveries for one of those courier firms. They’ve got quite a few contracts with those online shopping places, they’re doing quite well. –He is divorced, Dad!” she said loudly as Bert tried to tell them that he claimed to be. “I didn’t realise it at first, but that Wendy Simmonds, it was her he used to be married to. –She was in Ben’s class at school,” she said to Iain and Veronica. “She belonged to some weird sect—forget what they call themselves. Anyway, no booze and no lipstick were what they mainly believed in, far’s we could see. Aw, yeah, and Sunday School for the grownups as well as the kids, you ever heard of that?”

    “Nope!” said Iain cheerfully.

    “No,” agreed Veronica faintly.

    “No, well, there you are: weird. They don’t believe in divorce, of course, but it’s not like the Catholics: you can if you want to, so after they'd been separated for about five years she found this other weirdo that wanted to marry her and gave poor old Todd the divorce. And a bloke that hands out bottles of bourbon can’t be all bad!” she said loudly over Bert’s objections. “But it does taste a bit like varnish, Veronica, love, so you better have a glass of wine instead.”

    “Um, yes, lovely, Daph.”

    “SCOTT!” she bellowed.

     After a moment Scott appeared in the doorway. “What?”

    “Go and open that bottle of white wine: Veronica can have a glass now.”

    “Mum, I bought it to have with the fish!”

    “That’ll do: get it,” she said in an iron voice.

    Scott winked at Iain and departed.

    “He’s come on,” said Iain in a shaken voice to his fiancée. “A year back that would have resulted in at least a twenty-minute sulk.”

    “Yes: growing up a bit at last,” said Daph with a sigh. “—It’s swordfish steaks: don’t look at me, he chose them, and I just hope I don’t ruin them,” she said to the guests.

    “You won’t ruin them!” replied Iain with a laugh.

    “No, of course you won’t, Daph!” agreed Veronica eagerly. “Could I have a look?”

    “They’re just sitting there in the oven, but come on, if you wannoo,” said Daph tolerantly. “He got the recipe off that David bloke up at the B&B.”

    “Then it’ll be lovely!” said Veronica, accompanying her eagerly to the kitchen.

    “’E did give us a bonzer meal over New Year’s,” admitted Bert.

    “Mm, so Scott reported,” Iain agreed.

    “Not Greek.”

    “Mm? Oh—no, he doesn’t often do Greek food.”

    Bert gave him a shrewd look. “All right, out with it. What’s she gorn and done now?”

    Iain sighed and leaned his head back in the big armchair by the fireplace that he was occupying on account of he didn’t quite know why. Because Bert had steered him into it, literally, but as to why— “Mummy, is this?”

    “’Oo else?”

    Quite. Very recently Ellie had, firstly, bought a Renault because Jacqueline had advised her to—it was just like the one Rudi had had that she’d usually refused to drive: she could drive, that was, she had the basic skill, but Iain hadn’t known her ever to do so—and, secondly, bought a shiny townhouse near the harbour on an old warehouse site because Jacqueline had advised her to, regardless of the fact that the extortionate price had included a marina slot that she’d never use because she didn’t like boats, and, thirdly, taken a quick trip to the Cook Islands because Jacqueline had advised her to, returning therefrom with a solid tan and a genial American called Marty. Marty was divorced, according to him, was very interested in settling in Aw-stralia, according to him, and, according to him, was sixty-six. It had taken Jacqueline all of three days to prove that he was married, that he had a permanent home in Florida and had no intention of moving from it, that he was not as rich as he had given Ellie to believe, and that he was, at a conservative estimate, in his mid-seventies. Ellie had thereupon taken to her bed for a solid ten days. In Bert’s house, unfortunately, as the townhouse had no furniture in it.

    “She’s decided to invest in a wellness centre for Jacqueline. A giant— Hang on, see for yourself.” Iain produced a wad of paper from his breast pocket and unfolded it.

    “Cripes.”

    “Exactly.”

    “This’ll set her back a fair few bob. Where’s she imagine she’s gonna plonk it?”

    “Somewhere in the suburbs. They’ve found a local council that’s really keen on upgrading its facilities—don’t ask,” he sighed. ”Nominal rates for the first year, I think is the story. It seem to be a mix of affluent semi-retirees in their fifties and sixties—”

    “Took the package,” Bert elaborated.

    “Something like that, mm—and affluent young mothers in tiny townhouses with pocket-handkerchiefs of lawns that are going to be bursting at the seams by the time the one point seven offspring hit primary school.”

    “Kindy,” Bert corrected.

    “Something like that, mm,” he sighed. “In any case, affluent enough to pay for the services and keen enough to actually use ’em. Jacqueline’s got it all sussed out.”

    “Nothing for you to worry about, then, is there?” said the old man cheerfully.

    ‘Only the several mill’ that Mummy’s chucking— Oh, well, it’s her money, after all, and if it makes her happy—”

    “Yeah. ’Ow much she get for that Russian icon thingo in the end?”

     Iain looked wry. “In Aussie dollars? About one and a quarter mill’, it didn’t go for as much as Sotheby’s had hoped.”

    “Enough, though!” said Bert with a laugh. “Wish somebody’d leave me somethink nicked from the Tsar’s palace! Well, you don’t need to worry about ’er going broke in the near future, that’s for sure! Settling into ’er townhouse, is she?”

    “Spending a fortune on furniture for it, it would have been cheaper to ship Rudi’s crap out, really, but never mind, she’s happy and busy.”

    “Right. And setting up a wellness centre—that’s not a word, by the way—setting it up in the suburbs is a much better bet than plonking it on twenny acres up the boo-eye at Potters Inlet miles from all them fancy shops she likes, eh?”

    “I’ll say. Oh, well. It’s not what I envisaged for her, but then life’s like that, isn't it?”

    “Too right.” He eyed him sideways. “Not pissed orf because she’s not slinging the dough your way, are yer?”

    “No, of course not. I’m just a bit stunned that—well, that I don’t have to organise her, actually, Bert.”

    The old man gave one of his sniffs. “That Jacqueline, she sounds like she could organise ten like yer mum with both ’ands tied behind ’er. Chased orf that Yank joker all right, didn’t she?”

    “Too right!” said Iain with a sudden loud laugh.

    “There you are, then. ’Ave another belt of varnish.”

    “Er—no, thanks all the same.”

    “Yer go on tasting it,” said the old man ruminatively, licking his lips.

    “Yeah.”

    “Ever ’ad swordfish steaks before?”

    “Nope.”

    “Me, neither. In for a treat, then, aren’t we?”

    “Don’t start,” warned Iain unsteadily.

    “Mind you, Daph can cook anythink.”

    “Shut up,” warned Iain unsteadily.

    Their eyes met and they both exploded in snorting hysterics.

    Iain hadn’t seen Blue Gums Ecolodge for a while, what with the crisis at RightSmart, and Veronica, miracle of miracles, actually giving up the B&B crap and coming down to live in the flat with him. He shook all over for some time.

    “It’s not that bad,” said Jack on a tolerant note.

    “Don’t!” he gasped, breaking into fresh fits. “It’s the shutters, Jack,” he said weakly at last, mopping his eyes.

    “The verandahs are good, too,” agreed Gil Sotherland, grinning.

    “Yes,” he said weakly. The final structure—why was it that it hadn’t looked so silly on the plan?—the final structure was a series of stepped bungalow-like units, set out in the shape, loosely speaking, of a boomerang—well, appropriately Dinkum Aussie, yeah—with the angle pointing towards the inlet: due east, more or less. Each unit had its own front verandah facing the inlet and the two end ones also had a side verandah. Both the verandahs and the sides of the units were lined, there was no other word for it, lined, with rows of shutters. Shutters on the French doors, shutters on all the windows... If you looked hard it became apparent that the bottom metre or so of the outer walls was sandstone and the top part brick, but you had to really look. The deep verandahs were all in one with the roofs—it made for quite elegant lines, true—the whole being clad in colour-steel of a particularly null green, something between sage and olive. The verandah posts and the shutters were not painted.

    “Jack,” said Iain unsteadily, swallowing, “what have you treated all that woodwork with?”

    “Tung oil.”

    Gasping: “Not lanolin!” Gil collapsed in splutters.

    “Well, yeah,” said Iain weakly, grinning. “Can we expect it to go up in flames within the year?”

    “Don’t look at me, matey,” said Jack stolidly. “They told me to do it out in tung oil, so I done it. They do decks with it, and marine surfaces, dare say it’ll be all right. It’s a waterproofing agent.”

    “Uh-huh. Next question: is that walkway affair, whatever you like to call it, at the back, deliberate?”

    “Shuddup, ya bugger. It isn’t as silly as the last do, with them rammed-earth arches holding up nothing, that’s for sure!” said Jack on a huffy note,

    “Nothing could be,” Gil admitted. “However, to address the honourable speaker’s last question, semi-deliberate.”

    “Yeah—pretty much. Well, turns out,” Jack admitted, “that the original plan was for a thing half the size, only they just doubled it. Well, um, more like a mirror image, strictly speaking.”

    “Which is why the overall shape is that of the boomerang,” explained Gil sweetly.

    “Er— Oh, yeah, I get it. So it was originally just a handful of little units, stepped, Jack?”

    “Apparently, yeah. Their architect, he does a lot of designs for the health services—Mr Letherby, he showed me some pictures of two places he’d designed, one was a crippled children’s home and the other was an office complex for a big industrial site—this was back when ’e was still keen. They were both separate blocks linked by walkways.”

    “I see,” said Iain weakly. The walkways at the back were straight concrete paths topped with colour-steel roofs (supported by steel posts, not tung-oiled wood). They ran from either side of the large central block, which contained the dining-room, the guests’ lounge, and the service area, to the outer corners of the boomerang, each unit being linked to them by a miniature walkway of its own. The effect was very, very silly. Though as Jack had pointed out, it’d mean that if you were delivering trolleys of breakfast there wouldn't be as far to walk as there would if they’d put verandahs all along the back walls—and it had been much cheaper to build.

    “Come and sit down, Iain: there’s a much better view since the trees were coincidentally cleared,” said Gil, taking his arm.

    “Er—yes, been through all that, Gil,” he admitted feebly.

    “Leave it out, Gil, half of it was the fire,” said Jack in a bored voice. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

    “Okay, Jack. Thanks for the tour!” said Gil with his nice smile.

    Replying drily: “Heck, bring as many blokes up here for a good laugh as ya like, it’s no skin off my nose,” Jack ambled off.

    “Er—sorry, shouldn’t I have laughed?” said Iain feebly.

    “No. no! It’s just that Jack’s been taking all the flak for the dump, and he was merely the instrument, poor chap.”

    “Right—shooting the messenger. He’s done a really nice job on it, though.”

    “He’s incapable of not doing a nice job!” Gil led the way to the palatially wide front verandah of the main block, which held two very seedy basket chairs and a foam hamper.

    “Where did these chairs come from?” said Iain feebly as they sat down.

    “Off a verge. Hard rubbish collection,” replied Gil succinctly. “Phil and Jen plan to reclaim them and paint them white to match our verandah furniture,” he added, less succinctly.

    “I see. Er—I admit the soft impeachment, it’s a glorious view—thanks,” he said as Gil opened the esky and handed him a cold one—“but if Letherby’s trying to sell the dump to unsuspecting punters, should they be defacing it?”

    Gil cleared his throat. “Er—well, that's the point I was coming to, old man.”

    Iain eyed him suspiciously as he then drank beer. “And?”

    “Drink up.”

    Shit, what was coming next? Iain drank up.

    “As I think you know, I owe Jack rather a lot,” said Gil slowly. “I’d never have got our bunkhouse up without him—pretty useless with the bloody shoulder, y’know—and if I’d had to pay for the labour I wouldn’t have been able to afford the horses. Not to mention that damned barbecue area out the back: he found all the bricks for it and built that giant fireplace all on his own.”

    “Mm. Very decent chap,” murmured Iain.

    “Exactly. Think it was about a year back that the word ‘plutocrat’ was mentioned in connection with him being out of a job if Blue Gums folded,” said Gil on a cautious note.

    “Uh—right. Look, I’m terribly sorry, Gil, but Mummy’s putting all the moolah she got from Rudi’s estate into some bloody wellness centre with Jacqueline Corbière.”

    “No, no—my dear chap, not that! I—um, think I mentioned my mother’s fifth, Dwight. Yank arms manufacturer.”

    “Uh—yes?”

    Gil made a face. “Bit on the bullet. Asked him to buy the dump in Mummy’s name.”

    Iain looked at him ’orrid anticipation. “And?”

    “Before I could turn round three very smooth chaps turned up, only one of ’em being in Dwight’s actual employ, the others were merely Sydney lawyers, gave the place the once-over, and beat Letherby down to a fraction of his asking price—waving the global monetary crisis at him, I sort of gathered. Put it like this, he wanted three mill’ but they got it for just on two.”

    “Crumbs. But how much did Letherby and Co. pay?”

    “For a very burnt site containing one staff accommodation block with no kitchen facilities and a cabana with possums in the roof? –Lifted the solar panels when Jack took his eye off the buggers for a weekend,” he explained. “About nine hundred thousand, we gather.”

    “Good God. Old suburban bungalows like Daph’s are going for around seven hundred thousand in Sydney, these days.”

    “I know, but Potters Inlet, as was put very clearly to Letherby, is Outer Woop-Woop,” said Gil, grinning. “No infrastructure.”

    “That bloody bus that gets in to Barrabarra any time between nine-thirtyish and ten-thirtyish certainly isn’t infrastructure, no,” Iain admitted. “Well, good show! So will they run it as an ecolodge?”

    “Er—hang on. Haven’t told you the worst bit, yet. Apparently Mummy and Dwight were just panting to be asked—Dwight rang me in person and breathed bonhomie all over me, lost count of the times he called me ‘hey guy’—and as Mummy is more than well provided for he’s put the bloody place in my name. Tried to stop him but suddenly three million dollars Australian appeared in my bank account. –The price plus start-up expenses,” he finished wryly.

    Iain gave in and laughed like a drain, gasping when he could finally speak: “You’re a plutocrat, Gil!’

    “Exactly. God knows I don’t want to run a fucking ecolodge—in fact back when YDI decided to build Blue Gums I told Hill Tarlington in no uncertain terms I wasn’t interested. So, um, well, Dwight’s solicitors have jacked up an accounting firm, but as Rosemary and I have discovered, all they do is put the laboriously prepared accounts you’ve sweated blood over into their standard format and make sure you get the tax breaks you should as your ageing assets depreciate. The place is going to need a competent manager—not a hospitality bod like Vince, but, well a CEO, if you like. There’ll be all the advertising to be managed as well as the hiring of the staff. I don’t know what your exact position is vis-à-vis RightSmart, Iain, but I had the impression it’s just a temporary arrangement. Anyway, would you fancy it? It’d mean living up here, don’t think I want the place managed at long distance, but it’s a very relaxed lifestyle, and Veronica seemed to enjoy living here.”

    Oh, God.

    “Thanks very much, Gil,” he croaked. “I’m not positively committed to RightSmart, we’ve more or less agreed that this’ll be a chance to find out if I like it.”

    “Mm, that’s what I thought,” said Gil, looking at him hopefully.

    “I— Look, I never seriously thought— I mean, I had fun temping at Blue Gums, but their clientele was frankly so insufferable—!”

    “I think we’ll avoid that problem. We’d be aiming at a much more low-key approach, just as Letherby and his partners planned. Lot of fishing for the chaps, lovely massages for the ladies.”

    “I see.” Iain gnawed on his lip. “Veronica and I had more or less decided that if it works out at RightSmart we’d settle for the placement consultant life and save up for a suburban nest, Gil. Live on the train line, bike between the next stop but two and home, kind of thing. Though, um, well, I’d be on a decent salary, and she’s keen on doing their bookkeeping for a while, but it’s going to take us a Helluva long time to save up for a deposit on a house.”

    “Mm. You wouldn’t have that problem here.”

    “Uh—look, it’s knocked me for six, rather, Gil. I’ll need to think about it, and all its implications.”

    “Of course, yes, wouldn't expect you to rush into it. –Oh, by the way, Guy Vane and Jimmy Halliwell have still got an interest, didn’t want to buy them out.”

    “Uh—oh, yes, your friends from the regiment? Mm. How are they?” said Iain with an effort.

    “’Smatter of fact they're both out—the regiment was posted to Colchester: last straw. Planning to come out here.”

    “Gil, Guy Vane’d make a much better manager than me!”

    “He hasn’t had your varied work experience, old man. Been Regular Army all his life. He’s been reading up on hospitality management, and we thought he might try doing Vince’s old job, if all parties were agreeable.”

    “Gil,” said Iain very, very faintly, “what was his rank when he resigned his commission?”

    “Er, well, recently promoted to lieutenant-colonel—but there’s no question he’d try to usurp your authority!”

    No, but little Iain giving orders to Colonel Vane? Iain didn’t remember him very well, but he did remember he was the ramrod-up-the-arse type.

    “Uh—no, never thought he might,” he said with an effort. ‘Look, I will think it all over very seriously, Gil.”

    “Yes, do that,” he said with that lovely smile of his.

    “What do you think, Veronica?” said Iain uneasily, as the silence lengthened. She’d let him get right through it without interrupting—well, she wasn’t an interrupter by nature, but...

    “Um, I don’t know,” she said, looking bewildered. “I thought you were really keen on RightSmart, Iain?”

    “I am. But this would mean a lot more authority.”

    “Mm. But what would I do?”

    “Live in that silly but luxurious cabana, barefoot and preggers!” said Iain with a grin. “Um, no: sorry, sweetheart. There’d be all the accounts for the ecolodge, you see. Not hundreds of sets of wages to calculate every week, but you’d still be pretty busy, only with enough time for the house and the children. And your friends are up there, aren’t they?”

    “Mm. But Daph and everyone are down here.”

    “I know. Can’t have it both ways, apparently,” he said, making a face.

    “Well, um, which do you prefer, Iain?”

    “Dunno. Think I’d better wait until Gail's back on deck and see how it goes at RightSmart.”

    “Yes. She’ll be back on Monday week, won’t she?”

    That was the plan, but Iain had a strong feeling that they’d see her earlier than that.

    ... Yes. She stuck it out until the Thursday.

    “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I was going mad with boredom at home.”

    “I realise that. Are you going to be able to negotiate the bloody stairs to that loo on the half-landing with those crutches?” he said baldly.

    “I’ll have to, that or burst! Um, well, not too shit-hot on stairs, wish to God we hadn’t bought a trendy two-storeyed townhouse. Think I might have to holler for a strong right arm.”

    “It’ll be right here. And mind you do holler.”

    “Yeah. –No sign of Jase, I suppose, talking of which?”

    “No, Annette’s still up in Queensland with her mum. Caitlin’s back at school but he’s hellishly edgy about her—no wonder.”

    “Mm. Drew been okay?”

    “Perfectly. Well, it’s only been three days since he got back from Noumea, but I’d say he’s accepted my presence with equanimity.”

    “Good.”

    “Oh—he’s very proud of his tan, so for God’s sake don’t laugh,” Iain warned her.

    “Striking, is it?”

    “According to Laurie it looks like one of those very old ads for Coppertone that she remembers from her mum’s mags when she was a kid.”

    Gail gulped. “Right. Thanks. Forewarned is forearmed. Who’s he interviewing, do you know?”

    “Peter Wainwright, an experienced data inputter and soi-disant archive manager. Giving him the third degree, the last two dozen that claimed to have done archives had merely bunged office records in non-acid-free boxes. –The norm, apparently.”

    “Yep, Australia doesn’t know from archives. Who’s Laurie got in Room 2?”

    “Angie Morrissey. New cook-housekeeper with a really unusual recipe for lemon meringue pie, not sicky, unquote. She’s trying to ascertain whether or not the woman will force her idea of cooking on the clients rather than doing what they want, the anticipated answer being,” said Iain blandly, “a lemon.”

    “Very funny,” said Gail, trying not to laugh. “Okay, what’s Christie up to?”

    He eyed her drily. “You could ask her yourself. She’s finishing ringing possible candidates for three office temps with Burrows Willoughsy, more commonly known, I gather, as Bee Dubba You, and planning to trot off on a round of visits to five she placed in three-month contracts a week back, having given them and the bosses a week to shake down. She was planning to get back in time to choke down a stale sarnie before interviewing a Mrs, possibly Dr, Joliat, who wants secretarial services but it’s odd hours, unquote, but I’ve ordered her to have a decent lunch, I’ll do it myself.”

    “Sounds okay. This wouldn’t be a flaming woman doctor, would it? Odd hours in her surgery?”

    Since the Colonel had ordered him to shut her office door, Iain was able to reply: “No, reading rather far between Christie’s lines—the girl’s never opened a book in her life, has she?—I’d say she’s some kind of literary bod, Gail. What have you got against women doctors?”

    “Don’t get me started! No, well, them and the rest of their ruddy profession. We’ve got a policy not to place anyone in flaming doctors’ surgeries, we had one disastrous winter where we placed three woman in different medical centres and two came down with the flu within a week and the other got a dose of some ghastly bug from the lavatory seat, or such was her claim, hygiene appeared to be the last thing these medicos were concerned about: there was no toilet paper, only a dusty box of tissues on the windowsill; and it was only by the grace of God that it didn’t turn to golden staph, thus allowing her heirs to bankrupt us in a damages suit.”

    “Er—I have read all your manuals: there was no mention of this pol—”

    “Unwritten.”

    “—policy. Okay, right. Any more like that?”

    “Well, very great caution over anything to do with heights, and if it’s anything in a warehouse—”

    “Forklift licence, I know that one.”

    “Good. And no tree lopping. Refer them to a professional tree surgeon with an absolute disclaimer, thanks. There is a note about it on Jase’s pinboard but I think it might have got obscured under those bloody pictures his kids do.”

    “Did you have a dis—”

    “Near-disaster. The man didn’t have the sense to say no to the woman—added to which he didn’t have the guts to look like a gutless wonder in front of her, but before you start it would have been just the same, in fact worse, if it had been a male client, because then—“

    “Male peer group, yeah. I know all about thems ones, Gail.”

    “You oughta do, after fifteen years in the Army,” Gail admitted with a sheepish grin. “Think that’s it. Uh—very careful about any gardening job that might look as if it required a chainsaw, too, Iain.”

    “Don’t worry, had one of those on Monday. Popped out and took a look at it. No climbing involved, the tree was down—that storm of yours,” he explained, eyeing her plaster cast drily, “so after grilling a few candidates I took a couple out there—separately, talking of the peer group thing—and made ’em demonstrate. The first one didn’t get past lifting the thing ineptly. The second chap was okay, though: in fact he gave me a dissertation on chainsaw safety, so I put him on. –Bradman, not Don but Duggie. There was too much lifting for one chap so I managed to get the client to agree to a very junior assistant. Habib al-Alfi. Woolly hat pulled down to the eyebrows, make that eyebrow, he’s not exactly a handsome boy, and he does come from Cronulla or thereab—“

    “What?” she groaned.

    “—thereabouts,” Iain continued, unmoved, “but completely in awe of Bradman—the chap’s six-foot four in his socks, ex-naval W.O.—and ’umbly willing to learn from him.”

    “Iain, we’re gonna have relays of little Lebanese tearaways from Cronulla or thereabouts turning up expecting jobs,” she groaned.

    “I don’t think Habib’s peers are all imbued with the work ethic, Gail. –The family is from Lebanon, directly, but the granddad’s Egyptian.”

    “That’s very clear, thanks. If they do start turning up—some of them’ll be quite likely to chuck bottles at the windows if we can’t find them jobs, I suppose you realise—you can ruddy well deal with them! –And what in God’s name is a W.O., when it's it at home?”

    “To take your points in reverse order,” said Iain, his eyes sparkling, “a Warrant Officer. Non-commissioned rank. Secondly, I’d be happy to deal with them, or any lads. And thirdly, they’d be doing bloody well to get anything as large as a bottle past those bloody concrete slabs over the windows, and if they did manage it I’d recommend they enrol in the Australian Army and apply for sharp-shooter training. Which reminds me, can I put a few leaflets for the Territorials in the waiting-room?”

    “Tuh—eh?”

    “Weekend soldiers. Bloody good way of keeping active, learning a few more skills.”

    “Is that legal?”

    “In that it’s run by the Defence Department, yes! One or two of Jase’s chaps belong, hasn’t he ever mentioned it?”

    “Uh—no, usually just let him get on with it, he seems to handle the solid forklift-driving types okay. Well, yes, put out as many leaflets for them as you like. Um, are their employers obliged to give them time off?” she asked with somewhat belated caution.

    “Not sure if they’re obliged. I’ll check your regs,” he said cheerfully.

    “Do that. You wouldn’t like to get me a mug of brown dust, would you? Or have you reorganised the tea arrangements and it’s now a choice between Earl Grey and espresso from a five-thousand-dollar machine?”

    “From David Jones—mm. No, actually. Colonial C.H.T. or brown dust, same like usual.”

    “C.H.T.?” said Gail very, very faintly.

    “Chest-Hair Tonic!” Iain explained with a snigger. “How do you take it?”

    “Uh—brown dust, thanks. One spoonful. Um, usually just with milk, if there is any.”

    “Yes: Christie got some on her way to work.”

    Gail’s jaw dropped. “What about the carpooling?” she whispered.

    “Turns out the carpoolers were very happy to make a stop at the local deli before they hit the main road, because their offices would be only too grateful if they could buy the milk, too!” he said with a laugh. “Okay, strong spoonful of brown dust, milk, one sugar, then?”

    Gail gave in. “Yeah. Thanks.”

    Iain exited to the sink area, grinning. Had she really thought that little Iain wouldn’t be on top of— Never mind. Always took time for a new commander to shake down, start trusting you.

    A few days later Veronica woke him in the middle of the night. “Whassup?” he mumbled.

    “There’s a terrible storm and I think something’s blowing around outside.”

    “Y—” BOOM! “Yes,” he managed as lightning flashed outside their crooked Venetians and she gasped and shrank. “But it—” BOOM! “Five miles off, I’d say. It can’t be the dustbins or their lids, because they’re all wheelie-bins.”

    “Yes, but— Ooh!” she gasped as there came another flash. BOOM!

    “It’s getting closer.” Iain hopped out of bed and went over to the window. “Christ!”—BOOM! Flash! BOOM!—“Come and look, Veronica, it’s fantastic: fork lightning!”

    BOOM!

    “No! Come away from the window, Iain!” she gasped.

    “It’s moving away,” he said as the sky split asunder with an almighty FLASH! “One, two, three, four, five, six—” BOOM! “Yes, moving away. Must be the continental climate, I suppose. What a show! Oops, here we go again! Wait for it...”

    BOO-oom!

    “Yes, moving right away,” he said, turning to grin at her. “It won’t hurt you.”

    “Yes, it will, fork lightning is extremely dangerous,” said Veronica grimly.

    “Not if you’re insi—” CLANG! CLANG! CLATTER—BANG!

    “Bugger, there is something blowing around out there. Well, can’t be on our patch: nothing it in but dead paving stones and that Martian growth.”

    “Daph says it’s a frangipani, silly,” she said faintly.

    It was a leafless, budless collection of smooth, strangely moulded, pointy-ended brownish spikes that with a large stretch of the imagination could have been considered branches. “Martian growth,” he said firmly. “Must be in next-door’s patch and I can’t go in there, they’d sue me for me last trouser button.”

    “Mm, they are terribly fierce, aren’t they?”

    This was the sum total of the adjoining patches, since their unit was at the back of the block. This didn’t mean they had a lovely garden beyond their side wall, it meant they had a lovely parking lot and its associated riotous homecomings complete with deafening door-slammings at three in the morning and five ack-emma departures on deafening motorbikes.

    “Maybe it’s in the driveway,” said Veronica uncertainly.

    “I don’t think our front windows will get stove in, darling, given that peculiar six-foot yellow brick wall three feet away from them.”

    “It is peculiar, isn’t it? What did they imagine could grow in three feet?”

    “Dark-loving pot-plants? Mould? –Go back to sleep,” he said, getting in and cuddling up.

    After a while she said drowsily: “It must be terribly windy up at Potters Inlet.”

    It was terribly windy here, it was still howling round the building. Was that a stroke against the Blue Gums idea, then? “Mm.

    “I hope Ann’s sweetcorn’s all right.”

    “Uh—mm.”

    “And Jack’s got all those beans on stakes, oh, dear.”

    “They’ll be as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar if he put them up.”

    “Mm... If we had a garden, we could plant sweetcorn.”

    Iain hated sweetcorn. The little bits got stuck between your teeth and stayed there forever more. The taste didn’t compensate for this. It was, alas, an Antipodean favourite. The days when everyone, according to Bert, had some in the back yard were gone, but the supermarkets were always bursting with the frozen variety. “Mm.”

    “It’s terribly exposed up at Blue Gums...” she murmured.

    “Uh—mm.” Was this another stroke against it? He waited, but she seemed to have drifted off.

    He’d just made it to RightSmart’s front door next morning when his phone rang. Ellie. Hysterics.

    “Calm down! Calm down, Mummy, it can’t possibly be that bad!”

    Wails of: “It’s terrible, Iain!” And: “All of them!” but he finally got it out of her that Jacqueline had broken her right arm, slipped on the front path of her horrid flat last night when she was bringing her pot-plant in because of the storm, and Daph’s Lou had rung to say old Bert Sugden had a broken wrist. Slipped on the wet front path coming home from the RSL—right, very clear. And Ellie didn’t know what to do because poor Jacqueline couldn’t do a thing—

    “Yes, Mummy, go to Jacqueline,” he said very clearly. “Bert’s got his family to worry about him.”

    More wails, resolving themselves at long last into the intel that Daph, Cotty, and Roz’s two boys all had feverish colds after the soaking they’d got last weekend on their trip to look at “silly penguins”, unquote, and that Roz into the bargain had a tree down in her back yard, crushing her garage roof. Last night’s storm—quite.

    “Don’t worry about Bert, Mummy, you pack a case and pop over to Jacqueline’s. I’ll stay with him tonight. I’ll ring the girls and let them know. Is anyone looking after Daph and Cotty?”

    Phew: yes, Lou was with her mum and Cotty’s Catherine had come over. Iain was aware that Cotty and her daughter didn’t get on too well, but never mind, blood was thicker than disagreements over the nutritive value of the mushroom, the tofu block or the bean sprout. He rang off and just sagged for a bit. Then he rang Daph. She was home, but just about to set out for Bert’s.

    “No,” he said firmly. “You take that cold back to bed, we don’t want you coming down with pneumonia on top of everything else.”

    “Exactly!” said Lou loudly. Oh—must be on the extension. “I told her that, Iain, but she won’t listen!”

    “Mm. The world’s got enough martyrs, we don’t need you as well, Daph.

    “But Dad’s all by himself! They should never have sent him home, but you know what the ruddy hospitals are like! And they’ve filled him full of painkillers and what's the betting he gets up and does somethink stupid like leaving the gas turned on or somethink?”

    Er—good point. He had one of those electric kettles that switched themselves off automatically, thank God, but—yeah. True, he wouldn't need to put the electric fire on, as it wasn’t cold—that there last night had been the effect of the approaching monsoon, if you asked Iain, but the New South Welshmen would never admit as much, no monsoons need apply, thanks, we’re not brown, we’re Aussies, kind of thing. The very far northern tip of the Northern Territory was sometimes, but very, very rarely, allowed to have a monsoon: usually it just had “heavy rain” and “flooding”, popularly referred to as “the Wet”. Talk about shoving your head in the sand: no wonder the unlamented Howard government had got away with no policy whatsoever on counteracting climate change!

    Uh—yeah. The old boy had a gas stove. “Look, I’ll get over there myself, Daph. Never mind about work,” he said as she started to object. “If Gail kicks up I’ll tell her where to put RightSmart and take up Gil Sotherland’s counter-offer!”

    Daph began to object again but had a terrific sneezing fit, so that was that.

    Iain went along to the Colonel’s office.

    “Did you tell Bill Hardacre he could have Jess Lindeman for a month?” she said without preamble.

    “No. He’s trying it on. Forget that. I’ve got a personal emergency: I’ll need to take the rest of the day off.”

    “Your mother?”

    “No. Old Bert Sugden. Broke his wrist last night, slipped on his front path; I’m gonna have to do something about replacing it with non-stick pavers. The bloody hospital’s sent him home zonked out on painkillers and his daughters aren’t on deck, for various reasons. I’m sorry if you feel he’s not close enough family to justify taking the time off, but there it is.”

    “Couldn’t Veronica go?”

    “Gail, he’s a frail little old man. He likes her but he doesn’t know her terribly well, on the one hand, and on the other hand she hasn’t got the force of character to make the determined old bugger stay in bed. I’m afraid I’m only telling you as a courtesy: I’m not asking.”

    “I noticed that,” she admitted wryly. “We need Veronica anyway, I don’t dare let any of the rest of them near the accounts. Wish we hadn’t let Laurie go back to Potters Inlet.”

    “There was no justification for keeping her, with Drew back. And I’ve got Jase helping out with resumé checking and so forth—ringing referees from home and so on.”

    “You know what that is, don’t you?” she said grimly. “The thin end of the wedge. He’s gonna decide he wants to be a house hubby and just work part-time from home, while Annette goes back to work full-time!”

    “It is her turn, she’s had twelve years at home with only a bit of part-time work. Thought you were liberated?”

    “Something like that. –Go, go, stand not upon the order, surely you didn’t think I was gonna stop you?”

    “Might’ve. Can never tell with a new CO. Thanks, Gail. I will jack up something, but just at the moment—”

    “Yes! Go!’

    Grinning, Iain vanished.

    Gail shook her head, muttering to herself: “Considering this is the old biff that’s been more like a father to him than anything his bloody Mummy ever dredged up—Oh, well. They’re all mad. Paranoid, especially about lady bosses, not to mention pecking orders, not to mention the bloody militaristic hierarchies their lot invented! –Oh, bugger!” she realised. “Who’s gonna help me to the loo?”

    Iain stuck his head into Accounts. –One full-size desk with a remove, one table that the dreaded Alysse did the enveloping at—the contractors were paid electronically, directly into their bank accounts, but their payslips had to be sent out in the post—and a lot of filing cabinets. “Darling, would you mind if we spent the night at Bert’s? The poor old chap’s broken his wrist.”

    “Oh, dear!” cried Veronica. “Of course I wouldn’t mind, Iain. What about the grocery shopping, though?”

    “Forget it, we’ll all have fish and chips.”

    “Okay,” she said mildly.

    “I’m going over there now: Daph and Cotty are both down with frightful colds and Roz’s two boys are likewise. Added to which she’s expecting some men to inspect the tree that fell on her garage last night.”

    “Help! Everything seems to happen at once, doesn’t it?”

    “Yep, sometimes it feels as if the whole lot’s fallen on you. I’ll see how Bert is and ring you, darling. Think I probably should stay with him all day.”

    “Okay, fine. I’ll just catch my old train: it’ll be just like old times!” said Veronica happily.

    Mm, so it would. Iain went to ring a taxi with a very thoughtful look on his face.

    He still had a key to Bert’s, so he went straight in, just in time to catch the old man fumbling around left-handed with his electric kettle.

    “What the ’Ell are you doing ’ere?” he growled.

    “Forcing you to go back to bed. Go on: go.”

    “It’s only me wrist, for God’s sake!”

    “That and the bruises, unless that sodding front path of yours turns into an inner-sprung mattress at the witching hour. Go on, bed. I’ll bring you a cuppa. Want toast or anything with it?”

    “All right, I’ll ’ave white toast and lilly pilly jam, since yer offering! With butter, not flamin’—”

    “Not flaming marg: yeah, yeah.”

    “All right, you know it all,” said the old man sourly, limping off to bed.

    He sat up and drank the tea and ate the toast, and ordered Iain to bring the TV in here, since he was making him stay in bed (glare), but by the time Iain had washed up the few dishes and peeped in on him he was fast asleep, regardless of the telly blaring out some frightful morning show with some dame demonstrating—good God, she couldn’t pronounce half the words she was supposed to be saying: fascinating!— demonstrating some sort of tinned muck, or possibly the tin opener itself. He turned it off and crept out, smiling.

    Bert woke up mid-afternoon and admitted sourly that all right, the bruises were starting to give him jip, refused loudly to allow Iain to inspect the sore places, and grudgingly took two Panadols with a fresh cuppa. He then pointed out sourly that he seemed to have missed lunch, but by the time Iain returned with the plate of baked beans and toast he'd demanded, had drifted off again. He didn’t wake up again until Veronica got in at around six-thirty.

    “Gosh, the kitchen looks spruce,” she said, looking around it in surprise.

    “Yeah. Spring-cleaned it,” Iain admitted. “Nothing else to do, didn’t want to bang round with the vacuum, the old boy’s been asleep most of the day.”

    “How is he?”

    “Very bruised, I think, but he won’t let me inspect the damage, silly old coot. I’ll just see if he's awake and then I’ll pop out for some fish and chips. Fancy a pineapple ring with yours?”

    “Ooh, yes, please!” she beamed.

    Iain went up the passage, smiling.

    His polite query elicited a snarl of: “Of course I want fish and chips, I’m not in me flamin’ dotage yet!”

    “No, but I thought you might not be hungry.”

    “I am hungry! What happened to me lunch?” he said aggrievedly.

    “You fell asleep before you could eat it. I’m going to stop off at the twenty-four hour chemist to get you something for the bruises. Where are your car keys?”

    “Where they usually are,” he said, glaring.

    Iain had already looked in the charming little old cornflower-bedecked butter dish on the end of the bench nearest the back door. “No, they’re not, Bert.”

    “I dunno, then. Roz drove me to the hospital, but she took her car. And I won’t ask why she ’asn’t been over today!” he said aggrievedly.

    Oh, good God, hadn’t anybody— “I’m sorry, Bert, I should have said. She’s been stuck at home: a tree blew down on her garage in the storm, and what with waiting for some men to come and inspect it, and the two lumps with temperatures of a hundred-odd— She did ring around twoish, but you were asleep.”

    “Aw. So ’ow are Daph and Cotty?”

    “Sneezing, but Catherine reports Cotty’s temperature’s down and she felt like lunch, and Lou’s actually managed to make Daph go back to bed and stay there.”

    “Eh?”

    “Well, she’s streaming with it, Bert. She has got a temperature, but not a very high one. It’s largely the running nose, she used up an economy-size box of tissues in a morning. She can’t taste anything but Lou got some toast and Vegemite into her at lunchtime.”

    “That’d be ’er level—can’t cook to save ’er life, you’d never think she was Daph’s daughter! Well, that’s not too bad, I s’pose. Rung up and bent Daph’s ear, didja?”

    “Uh—yeah.”

    “Thought so. No-one else ’as ever managed to make ’er stay in bed with a cold.”

    “What about the ex?” said Iain cautiously.

    “’Im! –Make sure you go to Merv Green, if ya gotta go to the chemist,” he suddenly ordered him. “Tell ’im it’s for me and don’t accept no proprietary brands, okay?”

    “Uh—I don’t understand, sorry, Bert.”

    “Wish I was in me thirties again and fit as a flea. If it’s got a fancy label and a flamin’ fancy proprietary name on it they charge through the nose, see? But if it’s the generic stuff it’s miles cheaper. Tell ’im generic. Okay?”

    “Generic. Yeah, okay.”

    “And mind you speak to Merv ’imself, not that dim girl what ’elps ’im out. –Calls ’erself a pharmacist,” he said with a terrific sniff. “Weren’t no lady chemists in my day.”

    “Times have changed for the better, then,” said Iain smoothly. “To return to the subject of car keys, where are the trousers you wore last night?”

    “Dunno. Roz was in charge of them: could of gorn orf to the drycleaners be now, for all I know,” he said with evil glee.

    Iain rolled his eyes but went to inspect the wardrobe. Gee, the trousers were hanging up neatly on a trouser-hanger with the keys still in the pocket.

    “All right, ’Ercules Parrot, geddouduv ’ere,” was Bert’s valediction as he held them up, grinning.

    Grinning, Iain exited.

    After the fish and chips, washed down with beer because Mr Sugden wasn’t in his dotage yet, the old man did finally let him inspect the bruises and anoint them with the stuff the sympathetic Merv Green had sold him. Generic. Mr Green had asked him if he knew Bert’s Medicare number but on being told not, had merely said: “Aw, never mind. Tell ya what, I’ll throw in some of those blackcurrant things ’e likes”, and the final price had been very low indeed. Naturally Bert had asked suspiciously, on being handed the blackcurrant pastilles—an English brand, Iain hadn’t seen them for years, it was astounding to see them suddenly popping up at the other side of the world—how much he paid for these, but Iain had explained soothingly that they were a present from Mr Green. Which had produced the not unexpected response: “Shouldn’t of let ’im.”

    He was horribly bruised, poor old chap: they were just starting to come out and by the look of them he’d be even bluer and sorer tomorrow.

    ... He was. Got up in his dressing-gown when he heard Iain and Veronica getting breakfast but it was obvious he could hardly move and was in a lot of pain, and in fact he meekly let Iain send him back to bed again.

    “Iain, what shall we do?” said Veronica as he came back from serving Bert his cuppa, toast and lilly pilly jam in bed and reported he’d actually consented to swallow one of the strong painkillers the hospital had kindly provided him with. “I don’t think we can leave him like this.”

    “No, especially if he’s zonked out on painkillers.”

    “No, the horrible things make you terribly groggy. I could stay with him, if you like.”

    “Gail’d kill me if I accepted that kind offer: you’re indispensable and none of the others are safe anywhere near the accounts!” replied Iain with a grin. “I’ll stay, Gail can email me some stuff, reference checking, that sort of thing, same like Jase.”

    “But Bert hasn’t got a computer,” said Veronica, swallowing.

    Good point. “Uh—in that case, your laptop? Can you hang on here while I nip home and grab it?”

    “Mm, that’d be best. And the modem connection, Iain. You’d better bring the two-way plug and everything. Ooh, and some clothes!”

    They did that. Possibly Iain could have nipped out to do some shopping while Bert was asleep but the mere thought of the old boy staggering around the kitchen, trying to plug in the kettle and pour boiling water left-handed, not to say what might ensue if he tried to make some toast under the bloody gas grill—! He did have a perfectly ordinary electric toaster but according to him in the old days they’d never needed one and the gas grill did a much better job. He still usually used it, if left to his own devices. No way, José.

    Bert woke up around one obviously in a lot more pain than he had been yesterday, and let Iain reanoint the bruises—God, black and blue and then some!—without a murmur. And stayed awake long enough to eat his toast and baked beans, this time. Then he wanted to read the paper, so Iain rescued it from the wastepaper bin, where it had been resting since five minutes after he’d brought it in. When he looked in fifteen minutes later the paper was turned to the racing pages but Bert was asleep.

    Next morning he woke up early—just as Iain got back from his run, in fact.

    “Take another painkiller, Bert,” he said with a sigh.

    “No, they make ya feel like a zombie!” he retorted crossly. “I ’aven’t got that much time left, I don’t wanna spend half of it out of me ’ead!”

    Iain bit his lip. “Understandable, but if you’re in pain it’s not sensible. Look, it’s only a couple of days since the fall. Give in, for Pete’s sake, and give it another day. What say we have a decent cooked breakfast? Some protein’ll make you feel better.”

    “Don’t ’umour me, I’m not a kid!” he snapped.

    To this Iain returned unemotionally: “Bacon and eggs?”

    “There isn’t any ruddy bacon.”

    “There is, I bought some last night when I did the grocery shopping.”

    This elicited the response: “An’ while we’re on the subject, I don’t need Veronica to babysit me!”

    “Bert, she was having horrible visions of you pouring boiling water over your feet, left-handed,” he sighed. “Do you want bacon or not?”

    “Yeah, all right. Look, how’s your boss feel about you taking all this time orf?”

    “She perfectly understands. End of subject. You can shove the bread in the toaster, if you like.”

    He did like. A lot of muttering ensued, but some slices of bread did end up in the toaster rather than on the floor. But putting the plastic clip thing back round the twisted end of the plastic bag was beyond him.

    “I’m fucking useless!” the old man said bitterly.

    “No, just extremely right-handed. I’d be exactly the same. Well, I’m left-handed, so if I’d broken my left wrist.”

    “Aw, yeah: forgotten you was a southpaw. Be why you always look a bit cack-’anded. So, um, can’tcha do anything much with yer right ’and?” he asked with interest.

    “Well, uh, I can shoot,” Iain admitted. “Thanks to my cousin Colin, really: we had a so-called rifle brigade at school and I started off stubbornly resisting any attempt to make me do anything right-handed, but Colin wised me up the summer I was dumped with his parents and they dumped me on him. Promised to take me up to his grandfather’s place for a bit of rough shooting if I’d give in.”

    “And did ’e?”

    “Yes, managed a few days over Christmas. Looking back, think it ruined his love-life, poor sod! The old man was a bit of a bastard: wouldn’t let him have his girlfriend to stay. But I can’t do anything else with my right hand, can’t sign my name or anything like that.”

    “In my day the schools tried to get you out of it.”

    Iain winced. “Ouch.”

    “Yeah. Lefty ’Uggins, ’e was a left-’anded batsman, mind you; once they saw ’ow ’e could slug they never tried to get ’im out of that! Besides, it puts the bowlers off like anythink!” he ended, sniggering.

    “Yes, noticed that. Likewise the batsman, if the rôles are reversed.”

    “Right, like that time you threw the captain of the Second Eleven a slow one, eh?”

    Good grief, when he had he imparted that titbit? And why on earth had the old boy retained it? “Uh—that’s right, yeah. One egg or two?”

    “Two, and nobody needn’t say nothink about cholesterol!”

    “Nobody was going to.”

    “She might,” he noted cautiously.

    “Veronica? You're joking! She might express dismay, but she certainly won’t tear a strip off!”

    “You wanna hang on to ’er, in that case,” he advised, grinning.

    “I intend to.”

    “Right. Up at ruddy Blue Gums Ecolodge, would this be?”

    Iain tuned and stared at him. “What do you know that I don't?”

    Mr Sugden sniffed. “Just about everythink! No, well,” he explained smugly, “she doesn’t let on everything to you, see, ’cos she doesn’t wanna force you to do stuff. Well, there hadda be one, somewhere in the world,” he noted drily.

    Iain was now rather flushed. “Go on, what doesn’t she want to force me to do?”

    “Anythink, ya dill! No, well, specifically,” he said with relish, “she doesn’t want to force you to turn down your mate Gil’s offer just because she wants a house in the suburbs like mine with a couple of frangipanis like them two out the front. Jeannie planted them back when we was first married, never thought they’d grow, they were cuttings she’d got orf ’er mum, there was this myth that the things wouldn’t grow from cuttings because of that latex muck that oozes out of them.”

    Iain didn’t tell him to shut up and get on with it: the old man rarely reminisced about his wife. It was something like twelve years since her death but Daph and Roz had both told him that he still missed her and Cotty had confided that she wished blimming Catherine’d see a bit more of the poor old stick, because she looked a lot like her Nanna. “Mm?”

    “Well, that’s it, really, Iain. She likes the suburbs. Just wants to be ordinary, she told me. Liked it up at Potters Inlet but said it was a nice place for a holiday, it had been a lovely break, only it was rather isolated if you had to live there all the time.”

    Iain’s jaw dropped. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he croaked.

    “Thought you oughta be finding out for yourself, mate. As useless as the rest of ’em, aren’tcha?” he said with immense satisfaction.

    “Pretty much, apparently—yes. Okay, that settles it! Um, I did realise she, um, won’t speak up about what she wants, but, um, thought I’d— No, well, I was wrong, obviously. Um, Bert, if I ask you something will you think it over seriously and not just fly off the handle?”

    “Might do. Depends. –Yeah! Go on, ya nana!”

    “Well, I’m never going to swing a mortgage before I hit forty-five, and only then if we both work full-time, and I don’t want her to do that, her biological clock’s ticking, and— She does want kids, or have I got that one wrong, too?”

    “No, ’ow blind are yer? Ever seen ’er with little Philippa? –Yeah, well, there you are. Bent me ear about the kids up Potters Inlet, too. Forget ’ose. But of course she does.”

    “Yes,” said Iain with a sigh of relief. “Thank God I haven’t got that one wrong! Well, um, it’s a cleft stick, you see, Bert. If we have kids we can’t afford a house to put them in. I was thinking the best idea might be to take the Blum Gums job: at least we’d have free accommodation.”

    “She loves the trains—only ’uman being in the ’ole of metropolitan Sydney what does!” he choked. “But she does.”

    “Y— Oh, I see. Yes, part of the suburban way of life, mm?”

    “You got it.”

    Iain took a deep breath but before he could speak the old man said sardonically: “All right, I’ll put you out of yer misery. Want to take the house orf me ’ands, that it?”

    “No! For God’s sake, no, it’s your home! Added to which we could only afford to pay a bit every month. No, um, I was wondering about sharing it, Bert.”

    “So’s you can pick up the pieces if I ’ave another fall, that it?” he returned drily.

    Iain looked him in the eye. “That is a consideration, yes.”

    Mr Sugden stuck out his narrow little chin. “All right, it is. And the alternative’s beginning to look like ruddy like Daph or Cotty taking over. Well, they’ve already ’ad a go at me, before, and this bloody wrist is gonna make it worse, isn’t it? And Roz, once them two useless lumps are off ’er hands, in fact she went and said it'd probably work out quite well, time-wise!”

    “Mm. They are your family, though, Bert.”

    “Me family what thinks they got a right to run me life, yer mean. No, well, got on okay when you and yer mum were here, didn’t we?”

    “I thought so, mm.”

    “And Veronica’s a lovely girl. Ya know she said me lounge-room looks nice as is and she doesn’t reckon it needs doing up at all?”

    The lounge-room was a perfect late Fifties gem: not trendy collectible late Fifties, middle-of-the-road late Fifties. Well, possibly “loose covers” were later, Iain wasn’t sure of the timelines, but there was quite a lot of deep maroon fake mahogany, vaguely fake Queen Anne in style, as to the cabinets and occasional tables, and the suite’s famous loose covers were smothered in giant pink roses. The curtains matched. They had all been replaced in the last fifty years but the pattern was as close as Jeannie had been able to get to the original.

    Iain smiled. “She likes roses.”

    “So did Jeannie, bless ’er. Well, yeah, Iain, far’s I’m concerned it’s a goer. You happy in that second bedroom?”

    “Of course, yes. Well, might stick a double bed in it.”

    “Yes, ’course, anythink yer fancy. No, is the room big enough?”

    “Yes, it’s fine.”

    “Goodoh. Stick the baby in the little bedroom, then, and Bob’s yer uncle!” he said, grinning.

    “Yes. Um, but it might be a bawler,” said Iain cautiously.

    “They all are, mate!” he said with a laugh. “You wait! No, well, I got that sorted, see? Ben got me a load of industrial earplugs when ’e was on that factory job—before your time, that was. They were dishing ’em out, so why not? Work real good. Back when—now, when was it?” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Before the old MacDonnell place was sold: it was let to some ruddy uni students for the best part of a year. Had the cheek to put notices in everyone’s letterboxes telling ’em they were gonna have a noisy party after their end of year exams!”

    “Bert, at least they bothered to warn you all,” said Iain, trying not to laugh,

    “Warn us our eardrums was about to be busted? Yeah! Anyway, used them then. Slept like a log all night. Thought they weren’t gonna work at first, only they kind of expand inside yer ear. Just about had time to tell meself I couldn’t hear a thing, then I must of gorn out like a light!”

    “Good,” said Iain weakly.

    “Work out the financial details later, eh?” said Mr Sugden happily. “You gonna burn that bit of bacon for us or not?”

    “Uh—oh!” Iain came to with a jump and turned the gas on under the pan. “Fried tomatoes as well?”

    “I might make an exception,” he said superbly, sitting down at the table. “Don’t forget the tomato sauce.”

    “It’s your stomach.” Iain put the bottle of tomato sauce on the table.

    “Hey, you know me salt an’ pepper set?” the old man said thoughtfully.

    “Donald and Daisy Duck—yes?”

    “Yeah, well, that’s it. She never laughed at ’em or tried to shove ’em in the cupboard.”

    “Bert, she loves them, you ass!” said Iain with a laugh.

    “I dare say, but when did that stop a dame from clearing the kitchen table and shoving stuff in cupboards?”

    “Oh, see what you mean. The situation is—now, this may take some getting used to,” he warned, his eyes sparkling.

    “Funny bugger,” responded Bert automatically.

    “But,” said Iain impressively, “Veronica is not ‘a dame”!”

    “Glad you’ve got the sense to reckernise it. There’s a whassname to that, though.”

    “Mm?” replied Iain, moving his bacon around carefully.

    “Put them eggs in, we don’t want ’em raw—and mindja don't break the yolks, this isn’t the British Amy, thanks! –Corollary. Think that’s the word.”

    Iain broke the eggs carefully into the pan. “What about it?”

    “’Ave yer busted the yolks?’

    “Only one. I’ll have that one.”

    “Yer right, there! The corollary is that you better be bloody careful you don’t expect her to take over like the usual bossy cows and leave the lot to ’er, see?”

    Ouch! And not a “mate” in sight—though Iain had now realised it was often used in the vernacular to mean: “I’m telling you for your own good but I don’t want to come the holier-than-thou.”

    “I do see,” he agreed. “I realise that you can’t believe anybody notices anything that goes on around them but yourself, but it had dawned that that’s the usual procedure for us useless types on the male side, and I’m not saying that the bossy cows don’t encourage it, nay, promote it—”

    “You can drop the nays.”

    “Yeah—sorry. I’ve realised it and I’m watching myself. That okay?”

    That was apparently okay and Mr Sugden merely adjured him to dish that bacon up pronto, we didn’t want it fried to a cinder, this wasn’t the British Army, mate!

    Veronica burst into tears of relief when he broached the idea of sharing Bert’s house, so that was all right.

    “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt, you cuckoo?” he said with his arm around her on Bert’s loose-covered sofa.

    Veronica blew her nose. “I think I just wanted to make sure you were going to be contented, in a job you really liked, Iain.”

    “How could I be contented if you weren’t, silly?” he said, kissing the top of her head.

    “I see. Um, but which job do you really prefer, Iain?” she said on a fearful note.

    “I’d like the idea of both, if was merely the jobs themselves, on a blank canvas, so to speak. The RightSmart job offers more variety, I think—not as far as the routines go, perhaps, but meeting new people every day appeals—and they’d be very varied types. The punters at the new-look Blue Gums Ecolodge are all going to be the sort that Bob and Deanna get at the B&B: the ultra-nice middle-aged, middle-class sort, and I have a strong feeling that that’d soon pall. But the idea of running my own show did appeal, I must admit, until I started to look at the reality behind the thing—to fill in the blanks on the canvas, so to speak. In the first place—no, not first, that isn’t fair to the man. But as far as the physical side of the buildings and the grounds goes, Jack’s got so much expertise that I’d hesitate to veto anything he wanted to do, or even give him an order. He’s not the sort to take an ell when given an inch, but I do think he'd go his own quiet way. But that’s a relatively minor point. When I thought it over I realised that with Gil owning the dump and his bloody pal Guy Vane doing hospitality manager I’d be the meat in the sandwich. I know Gil’s a very nice chap, and I can take being off-side with my superiors if it’s something important, but having to cope with your immediate subordinate’s disapproval of you as well—! And you can be sure he’d be on Gil’s side: they’re both Regular Army through and through, toed the expected line all their lives: couldn’t help themselves. It’d be a nightmare: I’d feel I couldn’t call my soul my own even if neither of them actually said anything to indicate disapproval or disagreement. Um, sorry if that sounds paranoid. Maybe I am paranoid, but it’s certainly a situation that a paranoiac isn’t gonna cope in!”

    “I see,” said Veronica thoughtfully. “I think you’ve made the right decision, in that case. There’s that nice launch you liked, too,” she added thoughtfully.

    “Oh, lawks! Yes, I can just see it! Jack would assume it was part of his job to take the punters on it again, and so much for little Iain’s picture of himself getting out on the inlet for a nice day’s fishing with a few of the more compatible male guests!”

    “Exactly. Jack’s so easy-going, but he’d be hurt if you tried to do it instead of him. And actually, Iain, if you were just managing the business you wouldn't even have the variety of mixing with the guests, even if they were a bit boring: that's the hospitality manager’s job.”

    Iain shuddered. “Say no more! Thank God I’ve decided against it!”

    “Yes,” said Veronica with a great sigh. “I think so. –And I just love the frangipanis!”

    Er—yes. Okay, it was her biological clock, and the sooner she could start nesting, the better. In fact what about a little practice right now? True, those single beds in Bert’s second bedroom weren’t ideal, but he thought he could manage. So he put this idea to her and not to his surprise she broke down in giggles, gasping: “Okay, but try not to make too much noise!”

    “That’s her,” said Iain nervously, on a fine, blowy Sydney day some weeks later.

    “Ooh!” gulped Veronica.

    “Uh-huh.”

    “Ooh, she’s wonderful, Iain!” she breathed.

    Iain’s knees went all saggy and he had to hang on very, very tight to her arm. “Yes, I’ve always thought so. Let’s reclaim her, eh?’

    So they reclaimed Purple Portia from the bonded warehouse and drove home to the old bungalow, the still-bare frangipanis, and Bert’s report that there was a bloody possum in the roof and it wasn’t his imagination that the ruddy spouting had got loosened in that bloody storm when he busted his wrist, and if Iain thought that was funny, ’ow was this one? The bleedin’ sink was stopped up and there was a suspicious-looking puddle in the middle of the back yard!

    Suburban bliss, in short.

The End

of

TEMPS