Turkey Trot

4

Turkey Trot

    If you go and accept an offer of a room with a genuine Mrs Harris on account of the name alone, you can expect to get what you deserve and gee, Iain was now pretty much getting it. It wasn’t even as if innumerable superior h’orficers hadn’t told him he had a misplaced sense of humour, either! Mrs Harris had been a Sugden. There was a clutch of Sugdens round their way, which was an unremarkable suburb lost in the suburban sprawl of Sydney, a suburb of fairly well-sized, ageing bungalows—it was all bungalows, for miles and miles, as the grimy and unreliable suburban train jogged further and further out towards the kangaroo park, and then quite possibly straight on till morning, only Iain had never gone to the end of the line ’cos gee, the kangaroo park wasn’t in the country like he’d thought it would be, it was surrounded by more suburban sprawl, quite depressing enough. The kangaroos, which were rather small, so he had a suspicion they were only wallabies, looked depressed, too. As did the parrot, singular. The suburban trees were infested with several varieties of parrots, so exactly why this park had one parrot must remain a mystery for all time.

    Most of the bungalows in the Sugdens’ suburb were roofed with what the locals referred to as “corrugated iron” but what an elderly Mr Sugden, ’orribly wrinkled but still ’orribly with-it, had revealed sourly to Iain was “colour-steel: costs a bomb, mate, and clangs like buggery when the bloody possums run across it in the middle of the night same as what the old corrugated iron did, so why they bothered in the first place, don’t ask me.” Iain now knew what a possum was. Their nightly performances on the Sugdens’ roofs in the middle of the suburban sprawl were possibly explained by the nearby presence of a small park which featured a scattering of native bush, or even more possibly by the presence of what the same elderly Mr Sugden referred to sourly as “them fucking organic nutters: rotten fruit everywhere and bloody chooks encouraging the rats.” These nutters had bought a section three down from Mr Sugden’s and planted fruit and vegetables all over it, even in the front garden, and then compounded the felony by buying the section backing onto it and pulling down the house on it, an ageing bungalow, perhaps dating from the Fifties like its neighbours, which according to Mr Sugden was a perfectly good house, old Ma Dutton lived in it for years, her son Murray used to come over and mow the lawns regular. Any vestiges of lawn had long since disappeared and the section was now smothered in exotic fruit and nut trees, strange tangled vines from which dangled giant pale green pear-shaped exotic vegetables, rampaging vegetable marrows, enormous sunflowers and only slightly less enormous marigolds, and standing crops which Mr Sugden had stigmatised as “them things ole Ma Dutton had in ’er front border, they’ve let the bloody things go to seed” but which Iain had privily determined were in fact amaranth, being grown by the nutters, who were not merely organic but, he had privily determined, permaculture nutters, as a grain crop.

    Iain’s Mrs Harris, Daphne of that ilk, more commonly addressed as Daph, was in her fifties and divorced. Her sister, confusingly also a Mrs Harris, Cotty of that ilk (short for something, Iain hadn’t dared to ask what), was also in her fifties and divorced. The third sister, Roslynne, Mrs Brooks, known as Roz, was also in her fifties and divorced. So were Wendy Farmer next-door to Daph on the one side and Janine O’Farrell next-door on the other side, and Tammy Buddle from over the road: it was, clearly, the norm for their age and socio-economic position. Which Iain after some time decided, though no-one in Australia spoke about class, was approximately lower-middle cum upper-working. A certain proportion of their suburb was out of work, but those who had jobs—in the case of couples, both husband and wife—tended to work in shops and supermarkets, as electricians’ or plumbers’ mates, occasionally rising to the level of qualified tradesperson, as taxi drivers and sometimes even taxi owners, as bus drivers, minor clerks in huge government offices, security persons and so forth, or, like Daph and Cotty, as dailies for the affluent two-car, upper-middle working couples in the new shiny suburbs of faceless, cream-rendered two-storey townhouses or very new null high-rises with large balconies offering views of nothing much, but ample basement parking for the two cars. The households in their own suburb also all had cars, sometimes two: it was apparently the Australian norm; but they were not as new and not as expensive.

    There were at least a couple of layers of working class beneath them: the upper echelon of which, just as in Britain, consisted largely of respectable labourers or factory workers of both sexes, many out of work through no fault of their own. At the bottom of the heap was the substrate of the permanently unemployed and virtually unemployable: many of them near-moronic, some cunning enough to be what the rest of the country classed as “dole bludgers,” and at best with enough enterprise for petty thievery. It was depressing to make the discovery that Australia contained these dregs of humanity, the virtually subhuman under-layer that back in Britain was the legacy of hundreds of years of inbreeding combined with hundreds of years of semi-starvation, lack of health care, rotten housing and exploitation by its so-called betters. Given that no-one in Australia admitted to the notion of class it was difficult to discuss these distinctions with anyone, but Iain had done a fair amount of assiduous viewing of the more serious current affairs television programmes and—once he’d figured out which papers contained more than huge ads for consumer goods, pics of overseas celebs and local sports stars, and wads and wads of advertisements for houses and cars for sale—of newspaper reading, so by now he sort of thought he’d got it. And also grasped that it was only in the big cities like Sydney and Melbourne where you found a sizable under-class. In the country towns and regional centres its place was largely taken by the Aborigines. Though it seemed not to be the done thing to call them that any more—well, not to people such as old Mr Sugden, of course, but the nice documentaries seemed only to use such phrases as “Aboriginal community”. There was an Aboriginal community in Sydney, as underprivileged as any Black ghetto in New Orleans or New York could possibly be. All that was depressing, too.

    Nevertheless there was nothing to stop anyone from going to the wonderful beaches or spending a day at, well, museums, art galleries or the kangaroo park, as well as innumerable sports fixtures. And with Christmas now well within sight, it was really warm, though they had had some rain, but warm rain. And judging by the lists of jobs in the papers and the number of times someone from RightSmart had rung him, Iain, with offers of ever more unlikely positions, there was certainly work for those who wanted it. And you weren’t condemned to stick forever in your own boring little suburb as the Sugdens had: that Murray who was the son of the late Ma Dutton was the owner of two successful, prosperous car-sales yards. And he hadn’t even played footy for the Sydney Swans, almost a sine qua non if you wanted to go into car retailing, so there you were!

    Well, there Iain certainly was, snugly ensconced in Daph Harris’s spare room at 16 Lavender Avenue, being stuffed like the traditional festive goose. Except that the Harrises of course always had turkey for Christmas. And if some of the rellies were coming to them, a baked ham as well. The fat of the land—quite.

    Louise (Lou) Swettenham, née Harris, already divorced at twenty-six, had come round this evening with little Bryce, aged seven, and tiny Philippa, aged three, so there was quite a crowd round the dinner table, what with them and Daph’s youngest, Scott, still living at home though he was hale and hearty and turned twenty-one, and old Mr Sugden, who was a widower and often at Daph’s, though he nominally lived with his youngest son, Ben, who was holding down two jobs in an effort to keep body and soul together whilst paying maintenance for two lots of kids to two different exes, and so was hardly ever home, certainly not at ordinary people’s teatime, which was the time the affluent trendies from the professional classes required his taxi’s services between work or the pub and their featureless, cream-rendered townhouses or null high-rise apartment buildings. And today Lou’s close friend, Carli Weaver, a single mum of twenty-five, had come, too, with her little Mia, aged six.

    True, Daph Harris was a generous woman and used to feeding a crowd, but Iain had a strong feeling that it was just as well she had his board, because the cleaning jobs for RightSmart’s clients could hardly bring in enough to feed this lot on anything like a regular basis. However, Lou and Carli had both brought contributions. Lou’s was a pineapple upside-down cake which she knew (modestly) wasn’t as good as Mum’s but they could have it for pudding with a bit of cream, she’d got one of those cans, the trick was to sprinkle a bit of icing sugar on as you went, and Carli’s was a carrot salad that she’d got the recipe for off the TV. Those red bits were radish, Mr Sugden. (It was pretty much first names all round in Daph Harris’s circle but old Mr Sugden was old enough to be Carli’s grandfather and in fact was Lou’s grandfather.) Um, only a bit of garlic, Mr Sugden: it was (without hope) good for your sinuses and your digestion. Sure enough, this opinion was rubbished soundly and he managed to loftily ignore his daughter’s point that the bolognaise sauce had garlic in it anyway.

    Daph Harris’s spaghetti bolognaise was pretty much a miracle in edible form and even though Iain had been favoured with the name of the secret ingredient (a bit of fresh-grated nutmeg) and the secret of getting the sauce just right (a level dessertspoon of sugar and a sachet of tomato paste to every tin of tomatoes and ignore what the recipe books said), he was bloody sure no other cook under the sun could have replicated it. The meat component was rich and sort of creamy as well as meaty, though he’d seen with his own eyes it was the same packet mince from the supermarket that everyone else bought. She did use olive oil, yes, but it was supermarket olive oil, bought in a ten-litre tin, and she’d been very glad to have his help bringing it in from the car. She didn’t use it for chips or stir-fries, of course, but it really made a difference in a pasta sauce. Iain was quite ready to believe that, but as in his time he’d eaten innumerable girlfriends’ and not a few male friends’ efforts at the same dish with, apart from the nutmeg, the very same ingredients, and the results could only have been classed as ’orrible, he didn’t believe for a moment her claim that anyone could make it and it was easy. He knew perfectly well it only looked easy. She had been insulting it with grated tasty cheddar because it was miles cheaper than Parmesan, but Iain had contributed a huge hunk of real Parmesan—from the supermarket, but the deli section of the supermarket—which did it due honour. He’d also contributed a couple of bottles of a quite drinkable Australian Cabernet Sauvignon, and was now thanking a merciful Providence that he’d made it two bottles on the assumption that old Bert would probably be there and none of them’d be driving. ’Cos neither Lou nor Carli seemed averse to a glass of red.

    In his ignorance he had assumed that the kids would be phased by the spaghetti bolognaise but no, they were lapping it up eagerly, even tiny Philippa.

    “You’ve got some budding gourmets here, Daph!” he said with a laugh.

    “Nah, the kids all like pasta, these days,” said Bert.

    “Yes,” agreed Daph. “They did a survey on Australian kids’ eating habits, and spaghetti bolognaise was their favourite meal.”

    Iain was gob-smacked—yes, gob-smacked. He just stared at her with his forkful of spaghetti halfway to the said gob.

    “You’ll catch flies,” noted Bert drily.

    “Uh—yeah.” Hurriedly Iain ate his mouthful. “But everybody’s can’t possibly be as good as yours,” he croaked.

    “Oh, pooh!” replied Daph, terrifically pleased.

    “Yours is extra, Mum,” conceded Lou. “I think it’s just that it’s tasty, Iain.”

    “Nah. They don’t have to chew it, like meat. No hard work involved,” said old Bert, eyeing his great-grandson evilly. “Oy! Stop that slurping, Bryce!”

    “Spaghetti is a bit hard to eat without slurping, Pop,” said Lou mildly. –“Pop” was the modern Australian vernacular usage for “granddad”. It was used nominally, not merely as a term of address: one could say that so-and so was little Whatsisface’s pop, and no-one turned a hair. No-one Iain had asked had the faintest idea where it had come from but Bert himself had volunteered the fact that no-one had used it in his day. Iain would have concluded it must be American, but how in God’s name did the American word for “father” come to mean “grandfather” out here?

    “Is Iain slurping? –No,” said the old man firmly. “You wanna grow up to be a soldier like ’im, start copying ’im now.”

    “Can I’ve some wine, then?” replied the indomitable Bryce.

    “Pull the other one, that’s the one with the bells on it,” he invited.

    “Scott’s slurping!” noted Bryce on a pugnacious note.

    Scott was a burly young fellow, about six-foot-four in his bare feet, like he was, and a surf-lifesaver in his spare time, of which he had plenty, as he was on the dole, whilst Bryce was one of those skinny little boys with a gap between the too-large front teeth, flaps of ears, and limbs like pea-sticks. Nevertheless he retorted on the same note: “I am not!”

    “You were, sort of, but it’s slurpy stuff,” said his big sister mildly. “Bryce is all right, Pop. And I bet Iain slurped when he was a kid!”

    “Horribly. Got told off for my shocking table manners when I was sent to school.”

    “Like, boarding school?” asked Carli with interest.

    “Yes. I was older than Bryce, too. I’d had the comfortable idea that it’d be just boys herded together, sort of pigs round the trough kind of thing”—here Scott and Bryce both collapsed in bolognaisey splutters—“but in actual fact each table was supervised by a teacher.”

    “Heck, at lunchtime?” croaked Bryce, the splutters ceasing.

    “Yes, lunchtime and dinnertime, Bryce,” agreed Iain.

    “Heck,” he croaked in horror.

    “Didn’t you get any time to yourselves?” asked Carli.

    “Not very much. Well, after lunch, yes, but there was always a teacher or a couple of prefects with their eye on us.”

     “Right, a bit like lunchtime for our kids, I suppose. Did they make you play sports?”

    “Yes, in fact a lot of what was nominally free time was taken up by supervised sports.”

    “They wouldn’t want them running wild, Carli,” put in Daph, kindly mopping Mia’s chin for her.

    “No, right. What about homework? Like, our kids always get some.”

    “Not always,” objected Bryce.

    “No, but what I mean is, they start you off with it pretty early and there’s a bit every week, and the older kids get it every night.”

    “We did have it. We called it prep, and you had the option of doing it after afternoon school under supervision, usually by a junior master or prefect, no eraser-chucking, spit balls or paper darts allowed,”—Bryce and Scott sniggered—“or in your own time in the evening, which meant that it was either prep or television.”

    “Say it was raining, I’d do it after school,” decided Scott.

    “Yes, but on a lovely fine afternoon with other boys outside playing? There was no ultimate solution, Scott, in fact it was pretty much a classic dilemma. I usually ended up not getting the prep done at all and receiving due punishment, or having to get up at six and do it before morning school!”

    “Hey, what time did they make ya get up?” asked Bryce eagerly.

    “Seven o’clock for most, but seven-thirty if you were in the senior class, or so they claimed. In actual fact the seniors were nearly all prefects and they had to get up before seven so as to supervise the younger ones, or in the rowing team, and they had to be on the river by six, or in the school athletics or football teams, and they had to get in an hour’s run before seven, and even the ones who were no good at sports usually had something like music practice that they had to get up at six for!”

    “See? Count your blessings that no-one’s gonna cough up megabucks to send you to boarding school,” advised Bryce’s great-grandfather.

    “Heck, yeah.”

    “Which did you do?” asked Scott.

    Ooh, ’eck, Iain had sort of hoped that his verbal flow would have drowned that one before it took its first wavering breath. “Definitely not a prefect, my housemaster caught me smoking one of his cigars at around the time he was wondering if it’d do me good to be one—make me take some responsibility for myself and the other boys, kind of thing. I did row for a while, but the year we lost to, uh, a rival school I smuggled a crate of beer into the dorm to console the losers, not realising that the masters might spot something was up if the whole crew was dead drunk next morning.”

    “How did they know it was you, though?” asked the percipient Scott.

    “Had to own up, they threatened to expel the whole team unless someone did.”

    “Heck, what did they do to you?” breathed Carli.

    “Withdrawal of all privileges—meant I couldn’t go to the cinema in the weekends or even walk down to the village to buy junk food—ten times round the playing field at a brisk trot every morning before breakfast, rain or shine, for the rest of the term, and a well researched essay on alcoholism.”

    “Alcoholism? That was a bit unfair, for one crate of beer!” cried Lou.

    “Yeah. Anyway, that was the end of my glorious career with the school rowing eight.”

    “Was it like, canoes, or surf lifeboats?” asked Bryce.

    “Uh—no, they call them skiffs, Bryce. Long, thin boats.”

    “I’ve seen them on TV,” said his grandmother. “They have them in the Olympics. You know, Bryce, like in the ads for Goulburn Valley fruit, that was the Aussie team.”

    “I think he’d be a bit young to remember those, Mum,” said Lou tolerantly.

    “Aw, yeah, I know! They had yellow singlets, didn’t they?” cried Carli, brightening. “I dunno where the fruit came into it, though,” she admitted dubiously.

    “What sort of fruit?” asked Iain faintly.

    Several voices cried: “You know! Goulburn Valley!” but Bert explained drily: “Tinned peaches. Muck, the modern ones are. No sugar. And they’ve started putting them in bloody plastic jars and charging a fortune for them. And those stupid plastic yoghurt pot things, ninety percent jelly—that’s water, in case you lot haven’t realised it.”

    “They tin them in fruit juice, it’s much better for you than heavy sugar syrup made with refined sugar, Mr Sugden,” said Carli firmly. “And those little pots of jellied fruit are really nice. Mia likes them, don’t you, love?”

    “Yeah, they’re ace. Our school, we have healthy lunches, now. You can have jellied fruit on Wednesdays, only the other days you gotta have fruit salad. Mrs Green an’ Mrs Kelly an’ Mrs Al-Masri, they make them, and our class, we chop up the fruit.”

    “So do we!” put in Bryce, glaring.

    “Yes,” agreed Carli. “Mrs Andrews, the head teacher, she found out that some of the mothers were sending them without lunches, or just with junk food, so she decided they better have proper school lunches for the juniors, and then they screened that Jamie Oliver series, y’know? And all the schools started getting on the ball and they’ve banned junk food at the school shop, now. Most of the mothers work, of course, but Mrs Green’s a teacher’s aid and Mrs Kelly, she’s got littlies, some days she can’t come because she volunteers at Play Group as well, and Mrs Al-Masri’s husband won’t let her work. Well, don’t ask me if he knows she’s doing the lunches, but he’s not as bad as some of them, he lets her drive the car!”

    “I see,” said Iain weakly.

    “They do make the kids wash their hands beforehand,” said Lou reassuringly.

    “Jolly good!” replied Iain with a weak laugh.

    “So which did you do?” pursued Scott.

    “Uh—oh! Before school? Lost track of where I was, there, Scott! That was a bit of a dilemma, because if you were into rowing it was complete dedication—not so much in winter, mind.”—Here old Bert gave a cackle and Iain’s eyes twinkled: there were no flies on Bert Sugden, and he was bloody sure he’d seen right through him, Iain Ross, on about five minutes’ acquaintance.—“The athletics boys didn’t like me because I’d never taken their stuff seriously enough and the rugger boys loathed me because I’d told them that all that heads-down, shoving stuff they did looked bloody silly.”

    “It’s not as good as Australian Rules. League’s not so bad,” said Scott judiciously. “What about cricket? In the summer, I mean.”

    “Not nearly good enough for the First Eleven, might’ve just squeaked into the Second, only when the captain tried me out as a fast bowler, I threw a lovely slow one, and he said I wasn’t a team player.”

    Mr Sugden sniffed. “Got him out, didja?”

    “Yes, he completely misjudged it and sat down on his wicket, Bert,” said Iain soulfully.

    Predictably, Scott and Bryce collapsed in splutters over the last of their bolognaise.

    “So I took up the trumpet,” concluded Iain primly.

    Scott and Bryce both choked, and the ladies gave startled giggles, but the little girls didn’t react and old Bert noted drily: “Hah, hah.”

    “Um, are you musical, then, Iain?” asked Daph on a weak note.

    “Not terribly, Daph, but the music rooms were heated,”—Scott emitted a surprised guffaw—“and the one they let me use had a lovely view of the headmaster’s daughters doing their ballet practice.”

    The adults all sniggered at this one but the six-year-old Mia cried: “Ooh, ballet!” and Iain had the grace to swallow.

    “How come,” asked Bert slowly, “—eat them carrots, Scott, they won’t kill ya—how come these daughters weren’t off at a fancy girls’ boarding school?”

    See? No flies on old Bert! “Well, it wasn’t actually the Dark Ages, though I must admit most of the teachers gave that impression, and they were trying out letting girls into the school, starting out on a small scale with the masters’ daughters, you see.”

    “What were they like?” asked Scott with a grin.

    “Marjorie and Barbara, the Headmaster’s girls, were a pair of—” Iain’s eye fell on the innocent faces of Mia and tiny Philippa—“uh, dainty little fairy-like creatures, adored by the whole school. They put on a Sugar-Plum Fairy thing at the school concert in pink tutus, it was magical!” he said with a laugh.

    “Ooh, pink tutus! Real ballet girls!” breathed Mia.

    “Ye-ah! Like fairies!” squeaked Philippa.

    “Mm. –The others didn’t quite come up to that standard,” said Iain drily to the expectant Scott. “My housemaster’s three were known as Dog-Face, Scar-Face and Bulldog, named with good reason, and the physics master’s sole offspring was Rat-Face—boys of that age don’t have very original minds,” he conceded to Daph’s sniff—“and the English teacher’s two were Splodge and Podge. The French teacher’s daughter gave it up after one term: she was very plain, poor girl, and all the boys loathed her father, he was a sarcastic fellow, so we used to burst into a chant of ‘Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?’ whenever she appeared.”

    “Honestly!” said Daph crossly.

    “Yes, boys can be cruel little brutes, especially when they mob together.”

    “Didn’t they stop you?” asked Scott.

    Iain shrugged. “Had to catch us first.”

    “Just eat them carrots, Scott,” ordered Bert with a sigh. “You as well, Bryce.”

    “I’ve eaten my carrots,” reported Mia virtuously.

    “Yes, good girl. –She likes them,” Carli explained to the table at large. “They often have them raw at school, too, they’re very good for you, they’re full of beta-carotene. –I’ve seen a recipe,” she added thoughtfully, “was it on Better Homes and Gardens?—no, it might’ve been Huey, now I come to think of it. Anyway, it had carrots with a stew, or somethink with meat. Anyway, you thicken the sauce with mashed-up carrots instead of flour!”

    “Ugh!” said Scott, shuddering.

    “Ignore him, he’s talking through the little hole in the back of his neck again,” said his mother briskly. “Wouldn’t it make it a bit sweet, though, Carli? I mean, there’s a lot of sugar in carrots.”

    “Um, maybe... Only maybe it had tomato in it, you could use the carrots instead of a spoonful of sugar— No, I remember!” she cried. “It was on SBS!”

    Lou dropped her fork. “Blast! –What were you watching that for?” she croaked.

    “Blurred foreign film in Croatian or somethink, with flamin’ subtitles?” suggested Bert sardonically.

    “The European Song Contest?” groped Scott.

    “No, that’s lame. Dunno why anyone’d wanna watch it. Nah, it was Food Safari, Lou, it’s really good!” she urged.

    “Yes,” agreed Daph, “but most of the recipes are too fancy, you’d never do them. And that lady that does it, she never gives you time to write the recipes down. And you can’t write away for a fact sheet—’member how you always could, on Burke’s Backyard?” she said reminiscently.

    “Yeah—no, but you can get them off the Internet, Daph!” urged Carli.

    “You can, maybe,” she allowed drily.

    “It’s easy, you just—“ Carli plunged into it and Iain, eating up the last of his carrots like a good little boy—they were delicious, Daph did them with a little honey and lemon juice—and kindly topping up Bert’s wine glass, allowed his mind to drift...

    The evening ended with Iain walking Bert home: he felt he needed all the exercise he could get, with Daph’s cooking!

    “You wanna watch that Carli,” the old man advised drily. “Got flash notions. SBS!” He snorted.

    “Lots of young women are into cuisine and nutrition these days, Bert,” said Iain mildly.

    “Yeah. Not just that,” he said significantly. “It’s SBS carrot muck and beta-how’s yer-fathers one day, and next thing ya know she’ll be bringing you—well, it was knitted jumpers in my day,” he said drily. “Diet salads for yer lunch and a therapeutic pillow, most likely, like she done the last but one Daph ’ad. Um, what was ’is name, again? Not the pudgy, pale-faced thing she ’ad last, he didn’t last, took one look at Lou and Carli done up to the nines with them stick-on nails and the miniskirts and them high-heeled boots and run a mile. The one before ’im. Dark bloke. –Not an Abo, I don’t mean. Don’t think ’e was even a Lebo, though mind you, ’e ’ad a bit of a look of them. Juh—uh, some bloody silly name like Jindabyne—noticed how they’re giving their kids madder and madder ones these days, and the really mad ones, they’re the ones that end up dead on TV, poor little buggers, done in by the bloody mum’s de facto? Justin? –No. Uh—wait on... Jenner, that was it!”

    “As a first name?” said Iain feebly.

    “Yeah. Mad, see? Anyway, Carli fancied ’im, said ’e ’ad nice ways and appreciated nice things, only six months down the track ’e pushed off to Queensland with ’is boyfriend, so that was that.” He sniffed.

    “Y— Uh, Bert, I really don’t think Carli’s got her eye on yours truly,” said Iain feebly.

    “Round about the time you went out to set the table for Daph, she told Scott he could learn a lot from you, you got real gentleman’s manners,” he warned.

    Ooh, ’eck. “I can only trust Scott told her where she got off, Bert,” he said primly.

    “Well, yeah, but still!”

    “I shall have to let it be known that I’m madly in love with Daph’s spaghetti bolognaise,” he sighed.

    “Funny bugger,” retorted the old man, unmoved.

    “Well, Hell, Bert, I thought I was merely being chummy! What’s the Aussie word? Matey?”

    “Uh—no, you ’aven’t got that quite right, Iain. Think ya mean treating her like a mate.”

    “Yes, exactly!”

    “You might of thought you were, but them gentleman’s manners, they come through.”

    “Very well, forewarned is forearmed, and if she makes the slightest advance I’ll give her the brush-off!” he said crossly.

    “I would, yeah. Don’t do to foul yer own nest. Thought Lou had an interested look in ’er eye, too, round about the time you got that ruddy old clanger of ’ers to start while that useless Scott, ’e was stuck in front of the TV as usual. Mind you, a Kingswood’s a classic, she could probably flog it off to a collector, these days. Belonged to flaming Damian Swettenham, it was ’is dad’s, and when ’e walked off and left her and the kids flat with the house and the mortgage and a ruddy great ’ole where the pool was gonna be, ’e left it behind. Only in case you were thinking ya might look it up on the Internet and find out what she can get for it, don’t.”

    “Very well, I shan’t,” he sighed. “Um, I thought Lou was living in a flat, Bert?”

    “Yeah, ’cos Stinker Swettenham, ’e disappeared into the wild blue yonder, see? And she hadda sell the house, couldn’t afford the mortgage, with what ruddy John Howard thinks a solo mum can live on. Trouble is, the Labor lot, they’re flamin’ hopeless, can’t get their act together.”

    “But haven’t you got a state Labor government, Bert?” he groped.

    “’Im! Nobody voted for ’im, only got in because Carr resigned mid-term—’ad enough, was the story; dare say there was somethink behind it, only they aren’t gonna let on what to the battlers what only voted for ’im. But see, that’s state level: the federal lot are worse. They reckon this Kevin Rudd, he’s gonna be the one to pull them out of the muck, only see, that’s what they said about the last one, Latham, and ’e was a complete ruddy disaster! Fell orf ’is trolley. Completely lost it—round the twist after a couple of months in the job. So next thing ya know ’e’s written a book doing the dirty on all the other Labor Party pollies. Don’t think anybody’s buying it, mind you, ’cos ’oo cares? Well, ’is mates probably each bought a copy to see what dirt he raked up about them, and one each the radio talkback hosts, and the TV channels—well, might of sold two dozen,” he ended airily, and Iain collapsed in splutters.

    “Did he really have a breakdown?” he said, wiping his eyes.

    “Yeah, poor silly sod. Used to be one of them foul-mouthed shouters—mind you, he’s relatively young, but the old-fashioned type of pollie. Thought ’e could hack it with the new power brokers, tried to be all shiny and clean, I think was the trouble. Now, Rudd, ’e really is squeaky-clean: New Age, that the expression? –Yeah,” he said with satisfaction as Iain shuddered. “Flamin’ God-botherer, too: can’t stand them. Well, dare say ’e might be more environmental than Liddle Johnny, ya couldn’t be less, but ’im and Janette, they’re God-botherers, too, so ask me, ’e’s gonna turn out to be Howard with a red ribbon on ’is coat.”

    “That’s New Age politics for you. The left are so far to the right they’re well-nigh invisible.”

    “You said it! Well, I’ll see ya,” he said, opening his front door.

    “Goodnight, Bert,” replied Iain with a smile as the old man went inside.

    “Rivet, rivet!” The large green frog forced a green leaflet into a lady shopper’s nerveless hand. “Lovely fountains and ponds, garden accessories of all kinds, specially priced for Christmas, why not pop in and take a look? Rivet, rivet!”

    “Gidday, Iain!” squeaked a valiant little voice.

    “Rivet, rivet! Hullo, Bryce,” said the frog, smiling at him under his huge green snout. “School’s out, eh?”

    “Yeah, we broke up. You don’t look much like Kermit,” he decided critically.

    “Rivet, rivet! No, but how does this grab you?” Iain squatted. “Rivet, rivet!” he grunted and Bryce dissolved in giggles.

    “Rivet, rivet! –Oops, ’nother shopper!” He stood up, somewhat impeded by the green and yellow tummy, and handed out another leaflet. “Rivet, rivet! Lovely fountains and ponds, all sizes, right down to miniature, specially priced for Christmas, why not pop in and take a look? Rivet, rivet!”

    This lady shopper was feistier than the last: she gave him an ironic look. “Come complete with frogs, do they?”

    “No, madam, the frogs come to your garden once you have a pond. Rivet, rivet!”

    “Round here? Do me a favour!” She handed the leaflet back to him and marched on down the huge undercover mall.

    “Blow,” said Iain sadly to Bryce. “They usually agree when I say that, and tell me they’ve seen it on the TV; Gardening Australia, usually.”

    “Like, ponds?” he replied valiantly.

    “Yes, with frogs coming to your garden once you’ve got one,” said Iain sadly.

    “Mrs Hutchinson, she’s got a pond, but she hasn’t got no frogs.”

    “Uh, is this the lady next to your pop’s?”

    “Yeah, Mrs Hutchinson,” he agreed.

    Mrs Hutchinson’s front yard featured a fiercely trimmed lawn, a spotless concrete path all of four yards in length firmly edged with spotless white-painted small rocks, and the circular pond, less than three feet across, cemented in, and centred by a cement ball about the size of a soccer ball over which played a continuous and, in Iain’s opinion, maddening trickle of water. According to Bert the flaming pump went “click, click, click” all day and night and Iain saw no reason to doubt his word. Balancing this fountain on the other side of the path was a spotless agave. Iain had not hitherto realised that a plant could be both spotless and soulless, but Mrs Hutchinson’s agave was.

    “Her pond’s too”—anal?—“um, exposed,” he managed. “You need the sort of pond that’s surrounded by lots of greenery. A frog-friendly environment. Lots of plants to give them shade and shelter.”

    “Hey, maybe they’d come to the organic nutters’ garden!”

    Ian smiled. “I should think it’d be just the ticket! You need still water or at least a stream for frogs, though. How do they irrigate all those plants, Bryce?”

    Bryce looked vague. “Dunno.”

    That was as clear as it was gonna get. Iain took up the posish next to his frog pond—a particularly choice example, this, with a green light and a small fountain, plus a decorative moulded waterlily which also lit up, all solar driven, or such was the shop’s claim. “Rivet, rivet! –Where’s your mum?”

    “Dunno. She said to wait for her here.”

    Ouch.

    “You look quite good doing that. That’s a neato pond,” he offered kindly.

    “Rivet, rivet! Rivet, rivet!” replied Iain obligingly.

    “Hey, when you were in the Army—”

    Oh, boy. Iain gritted his froggy teeth and prepared to severely edit all Army anecdotes in the intervals of handing out leaflets and, as Merv McAndrew who owned the shop had ordered: “looking like a frog.”

    “What do you do, Iain?” asked the decorative young maiden encountered with Scott in a pub, giving him a languishing look.

    “I’m a frog, Trish,” replied Iain dulcetly.

    Scott collapsed in beery splutters.

    “Very funny! You are not, you’re English!” she snapped.

    Iain was very nearly overset by this one. “No, I’m a professional frog: wear a Kermit-type suit and squat outside Merv McAndrew’s Greenacres Ponds & Garden Accessories in the mall, going ‘Rivet, rivet.’”

    “Yeah, ’e does!” choked Scott, going into positive paroxysms.

    “Aw, right, a Christmas promotion?” said Trish.

    “Yes,” agreed Iain weakly.

    “She fancies you,” noted the percipient Scott as, having engulfed two fallen angels and a packet of crisps in the time it had taken them to sink an ice-cold glass of Toohey’s each and get the second round in, she pushed off to the Ladies’.

    “Scott, the girl has no sense of humour whatsoever. What-so-ever.”

    “So?”

    “I’m getting old,” Iain admitted. “It’s actually starting to matter.”

    Scott collapsed in splutters again.

    It was true, though. Trish’s pal Kirrin, or possibly Kirrian, the local accent defeated Iain in this instance, turned up as threatened and at Scott’s urging they all agreed to have a feed and go to the flicks, but although after the steak and chips and a violent science fantasy thing, almost entirely computer generated and containing no discernible plot, Trish still seemed keen, Iain didn’t make the extra effort that would have got him into her flat and her knickers. Scott made quite a lot of effort but Kirrin/Kirrian didn’t seem as keen as he was, so that was that.

    “Fairies!” cried little Philippa.

    “UGH!” shouted Bryce angrily.

    “Uh—” Feebly Iain picked up the remote and clicked through the available channels. Chat show on one commercial channel—oops, no, two—feeble kiddies’ something on the ABC—“NO! It’s lame!”—and, uh, Croatian news? Something blurred and incomprehensible with no subtitles on SBS. Shit, dead bodies! Quickly he switched back to the fairies.

    “There’s nothing else, Bryce, so we might as well let her watch the fairies.”

    Bryce of course didn’t wanna watch the stupid fairies, couldn’t really blame him, though they were rather nice fairies, actually. Real girls. Quite buxom, some of them were.

    They ended up perched on the window seat, leaving Philippa in proud possession of the large telly, reading Treasure Island aloud. Possibly a Reader’s Digest condensed version? It had a posh cover. Well, it was that or more fairies, Daph’s house didn’t contain many books and it certainly didn't contain any Harry Potter epics, which might have been more at Bryce’s reading level— Er, no, on second thoughts, scrub that. Possibly no-one but “Miss Masters” had ever read aloud to the kid in his life: at any rate she was certainly mentioned in that regard.

    The doorbell pealed when he was well into Chapter 2. “Ye ba-hanks and brae-aes o’ bo-hon-nie Doo-hoon,” quite startling on a quiet morning in a quiet Sydney suburb, actually.

    Gee, it was Carli with Mia. It was just that she got awfully bored at the hairdresser’s, and Carli would be back at twelve without fail— Yeah, yeah. Well, nothing else to do, McAndrew had decreed he could have this morning off if he worked tonight. So that made a quorum.

    “He’s reading us a story!” Philippa informed Mia with shining eyes.

    Er—yeah. Sort of. Philippa seemed to have got on his knee in the process. God knew if she was taking in a word. True, he was skipping a lot— Mia had already joined them.

    Eventually Iain’s voice and stamina gave out and since he couldn’t bloody well think of anything else the kid could safely do, Bryce was allowed to play with one of Scott’s sacred video games, and they had cold drinks all round and, um—

    Oh, God. Philippa had chosen another book. Please, please, Almighty, don’t let it be the sickening adventures of nauseating Cuddle-Pot and poisonous Snuggle-Pie, and I’ll believe in You forev— No, it wasn’t. Even worse, so he was possibly being punished for all those times he’d blasphemously declared he didn’t care if He was Muslim, Christian or Jewish, or for that matter Zoroastrian, He could go to Hell for sending him, Iain, to a bloody hot, filthy Hell-hole like Iraq. Philippa got on his knee again and Mia sat very close against his side and Iain held the book so as they could both see the frightful pictures.

    “Here we go! The Purple Fairy Book...”

    “Thanks, Iain,” said Daph Harris gratefully as he heaved the giant turkey out of the supermarket’s freezer and into one of their shopping trolleys. “That mob’ll eat it, of course, but they never bother about how it gets onto the table in the first place!”

    “They’re all the same,” agreed Cotty Harris. “Yeah, that one—thanks, Iain!” she said gratefully as he heaved the second giant turkey into her shopping trolley.

    “You’re entirely welcome! –Want a turkey, Roz?” said Iain with a grin to the third Sugden sister.

    “No, I’m doing the ham. I ordered it in advance, it’s safer, otherwise you only get the dregs.”

    “I see. So will we need two turkeys as well as the ham, Daph?” he asked as they forged off in search of cranberry sauce: there had better bloody well be some left, unquote: last year the blimming place had run out and Daph had had to hunt for it all over the city.

    “No, the second one’s for New Year’s, I’m gonna bung it in the chest freezer, only see, if you leave it till after Christmas you only get the dregs.”

    “I see. Gosh, it’s all pre-planning and strategy, isn't it?” discovered Iain in awe.

    The three Sugden sisters eyed him tolerantly and chorused: “You better believe it!”

    Gee, they’d never had chestnut purée, though Roz, whose cuisine was slightly more adventurous than her sisters’, owned to having seen the real ones in the fruit shop, and they definitely had them down the market every year. Daph inspected the prices on the small tins and discovered the name was in French as well, and the combo finished it. He wouldn’t do any such thing, he was already buying the wine!

    They forged on... No: ice cream last, Iain, you don’t want it to melt. Iain subsided meekly. It was, admittedly, something like twenty-six degrees Celsius and eighty percent humidity outside, even though it was pitch dark and eight-thirty in the evening. –Sydney was far enough north to have really high humidity and virtually no twilight. But on the other hand the giant supermarket did seem to be air-conditioned. Or possibly it was only the blasts from the giant ranks of freezers?

    “Roast pumpkin to go with the turkey?” he said with a smile, as Daph asked him if he could possibly grab that nice big Queensland Blue.

    “No, the kids won’t eat it. It’s for pumpkin pie, of course!” she beamed.

    “Didn’t you tell me just the other day that you’d bought up a whole lot of pecan nuts in advance for pecan pie, though?” he croaked.

    “As well,” she said serenely.

    Iain might have croaked something admiringly stunned in reply but at that moment the supermarket’s sound system burst into a tinny rendition of The Little Drummer Boy, so he subsided. And they forged on...

    “Is that Bing Crosby?” he croaked incredulously amidst the tinned fruit, as the song changed.

    “White Christmas: yeah,” confirmed Cotty placidly.

    “Yeah,” agreed Roz. “—They’ve got those Canadian cherries again.”

    “Not tinned, at Christmas!” protested Daph.

    “Nah. They're too dear, anyway,” she conceded.

    “What are we looking for?” asked Iain.

    “Peaches,” explained Daph.

    “I thought you were planning a fresh fruit salad, Daph?” he ventured.

    “Nah, for the trifle.”

    Gosh! Trifle as well? That made two different kinds of pie, fruit salad and trifle, plus ice cream, and the Christmas pudding!

    Roz had discovered the plastic pots.

    “Those are those things Dad won’t have in the house,” Daph warned her.

    “Yeah, but it isn’t his house, is it? ...They’re too dear, really, but they are nice pots,” she said wistfully.

    “Janine O’Farrell reckons it takes months to get the stink of peaches out of them. They do make a nice set, though,” Daph conceded.

    Roz picked one up and looked at it longingly. “I don’t suppose these finger-grip thingos’d be much use, really, it’ll of been a man that designed them, he’d of used his fingers—nah, don’t fit,” she discovered, experimenting. “They do look good, though... Nice size, too. –What’s she doing for Christmas this year?”

    “Going to her Siobhan’s in-laws in Tamworth.”

    “It won’t last,” predicted Cotty. “Keeps changing his job: can’t stick at anything.”

    “Never mind, it’ll be a nice break for Janine. You could buy a nice big preserving jar and a tin of own-brand for that price, Roz,” warned Daph.

    “Yeah, and Dad’ll kill ya if he spots you with a row of them!” agreed Cotty.

    “Ye-ah...” Roz put it back on the shelf, looking wistful. “They are nice, though...”

    “It’ll be like those spice jars you thought you were gonna get a set of,” predicted Cotty, “You’ll spend a fortune and before you’ve got the set the buggers’ll stop making them.”

    “Aw, yeah, those funny little jam jars she found,” recollected Daph. “The jam was horrible, too: diet or something.”

    “Diabetic,” said Roz sadly. “Yeah...”

    “Own-brand,” said Daph firmly. “On the bottom shelf, Iain: can ya grab us a couple of tins? –Thanks. Better make it a couple more, I think, just to be sure. Ya never know: one year the buggers ran out of them and I hadda buy the expensive ones for New Year’s.”

    “What she means is,” said Cotty sourly, “they had stacks and stacks of them out the back but they deliberately let the ones on the shelf run out so as you hadda buy the dear ones!”

    “That’d be right. I might get some apricots, just in case,” decided Roz. “Thanks, Iain,” she said on a weak note as he immediately retrieved two large own-brand tins from the bottom shelf. “Look! See, that proves it!” she added crossly.

    “What?” asked Daph mildly.

    “That everything’s designed by blimmin’ men to fit their huge great paws! Go on, Iain, pick up one of those tins.”

    Feebly Iain held up a tin.

    “See?” cried Roz.

    “Yeah,” they agreed.

    “Mind you, these are the big tins, Roz,” said Daph fairly.

    “I was thinking that, but I’m only a man,” said Iain meekly.

    Surprisingly enough, all three Sugden sisters at this broke down in giggles.

    “Er, Roz,” he said cautiously as they forged on slowly through the throng, “is there something at home that needs mending or heaving around by a great paw?”

    The plump, blonde Roz—the hair was helped along a bit, but they were all light-haired, fair-skinned women—gave him an embarrassed smile. “Not really.”

    “Go on, what?”

    It was one of the flaming awnings, they weren’t automatic ones, see, and she could see what the problem was but she couldn’t get the thingo to move, it was a bit rusty—

    “I’ll come round first thing tomorrow and take a look at it. So if you hear strange rustlings in the bushes it won’t be Freddy, it’ll only be me with me little oil can,” said Iain primly.

    This resulted in giggles all round, an embarrassed refusal and then an embarrassed but grateful acceptance. Oh, well. It was so humid at night he wasn't sleeping all that well anyway, it’d be something to do between five and six instead of lying there wondering if it was time to get up yet.

    And they forged on...

    Okay, right, goddit, all this bread wasn’t only for bread qua bread, or toast, it was for the stuffing for the turkey! Okay, no dried thyme, Daph had some lovely thyme in the garden, though she wouldn’t have expected him to notice (delighted giggles from the sisters). No, she had plenty of Christmas mince, she always bought it whenever she saw it on sale, the buggers never got enough in at Christmas time. Put that frozen pastry back, Cotty, she was making her own this year! Right: butter and ice cream. Anything else? Cream? Animated discussion over whether cream would be better left until Christmas Eve, the vote being no, it wouldn’t, largely on Roz’s advice that it’d be the same stuff anyway, the supermarkets weren’t gonna rush out and milk the cows for fresh cream, were they?

    That was it, then, and they staggered off to the checkouts behind their four laden—laden—trolleys. It was the fat of the land, all right! And they hadn’t even bought fresh fruit and veggies, Daph was going to the Sunday markets for them!

    “Put yer hands up, I’ve got a gun!” snarled a cracked little old voice shortly after dawn next morning.

    Iain turned cautiously, holding his oil can high. Shit! The old biff actually did have a gun! Rifle. Possibly dating from World War II.

    “I’m not a burglar, sir, I’m fixing Roz’s awning.”

    “Never seen yer before in me puff,” the wizened little man retorted.

    Ooh, ’eck.

    “I’m her sister Daph Harris’s boarder, Iain Ross.”

    “Right, and you ’eard from Daph she’s a woman on ’er tod with valuables in the house!” he snarled, emphasising his words with a few waves of the rifle, shit!

    “No, honest, that’s why I brought the oil can!” bleated Iain.

    “Bullshit! FREDA!” he bellowed.

    After a moment a scowling fat woman in a cotton nightdress appeared on his front verandah. “Now what?”

    “Caught this bugger trying to break into Roz’s house!” he chirped.

    “What? That’s Iain, you stupid ole ning-nong, he’s Daph Harris’s boarder! And put that stupid gun down, it’s not even loaded! –It’s all right, he hasn’t even got any bullets for it, the silly old coot,” she said tiredly to Iain.

    “And would there be one up the spout, Freda?” he asked, eyeing the thing warily.

    “Wait on.” Before Iain’s starting eyes she descended the steps, came over to them, wrenched the rifle bodily out of the old man’s hands, aimed at the sky and pulled the trigger. “No,” she reported, handing it to Iain.

    “No,” he agreed weakly.

    “Oy, gimme my gun!” the old boy cried.

    “Yeah, do that, Iain, and then I’ll call the cops and they’ll clap ’im up for possession of an illegal firearm, and we’ll all have a happy Christmas!” she said genially.

    “’E coulda been a burglar,” said the old man sulkily.

    “No, he couldn’t, Dad, ’cos ’e’s Daph’s Iain, and SHUT UP AND GO INSIDE!”

    He glared, but shuffled off.

    “Sorry,” said Freda.

    “That’s okay, Freda.”

    “Seen you down the mall in yer frog suit,” she reminded him.

    “Yes, of course, you and Roz were shopping together.”

    “That’s right, yeah. Is it hot?”

    “Er—oh, the suit? Well, yeah, ’orribly ’ot, but fortunately the mall’s air-conditioned!” said Iain with a laugh.

    “What I thought. –It’s all right, Roz, it’s only Iain. Dad thought he was a burglar, or pretended to: come out with his gun, silly ole bugger.”

    Roz was in a floral cotton housecoat and bare feet. “Hi, Iain,” she said feebly.

    “Hullo, Roz. The awning’s nearly fixed, just needs a bit of oil and the nuts loosening.”

    “That’ll make two sets of loose nuts round here, then,” said Freda with grim satisfaction. “He’s got nothink to do and he wakes up early,” she said to Iain.

    “That’s quite all right, Freda. Old soldier, is he? Ah—Korea?”

    “Yeah, how’d ya know?” she replied in astonishment.

    “The vintage of the rifle.”

    “He’s a soldier, too. British Army, of course,” said Roz.

    “That right? How come Dad hasn’t seen you down the RSL with Bert, then?”

    Iain looked helplessly at Roz.

    “What’d he wanna go down there with that load of silly ole drongos for?” she replied with vigour.

    Freda took another look at Iain. Her massive form shook slightly—impressive, with only that cotton nightie over it. “You got a point! But any time you feel up to it, Iain, Dad’d love to take you down for a jar. Mind you, he’ll bore you to death, only if you can stand it—”

    It must be a local bar that he hadn’t yet discovered. “Of course, Freda! I’d love to! What’d be a suitable day?”

    “Boxing Day,” said Roz drily.

    “No—well, some of them’ll be there, that bar’d fall down if it didn’t have them to prop it up, and the Vietnam lot are getting just as bad, have ya noticed? Twenny-seventh’d be a better day. Only if you feel like it, Iain!”

    They were both looking at him hopefully, ooh, ’eck. “Well, no-one needs my services as a frog over the break, so why not?”

    That was that, and Freda hurried inside to give Dad the good news and Roz, having inspected the work, hurried inside to get Iain a really nice breakfast, no arguments.

    It was a really nice breakfast, all right. Started off with a slice of green melon, possibly a honeydew but Roz didn’t seem familiar with the term. What had she done to it to make it taste so delicately ambrosial? Okay, squeeze of lime with a sprinkle of raw sugar, if she said so. Then pancakes with sliced fresh strawberries in more raw sugar that had dissolved, better than any sauce he'd ever had in a London restaurant, and real cream, and miraculous coffee. Italian coffee-pot: right.

    Roz’s two giant sons appeared just as the last of the coffee was vanishing down Iain’s gullet. They weren’t actually twins, but there was only a year between them and nothing at all to choose between them in the shambling and uncooperative stakes. Seventeen and sixteen, or, as their mother bitterly put it, useless lumps and your mid-thirties was really too old to have kids. No, there were no more pancakes, Shane! No, the pancakes were all GONE, Kym!

    “One is awarded pancakes, old chums,” said Iain kindly, “if one gets up at sparrow fart and fixes something for the lady in question. Get it?”

    “Yeah, and get out of the kitchen,” said their mother with satisfaction.

    “Aw, but—”

    Roz stood up. “GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN, IT’S CHRISTMAS TOMORROW, IN CASE YOU TWO USELESS LUMPS HADN’T NOTICED!”

    They’d got.

    Roz sat down again. “Fancy another pot of coffee, Iain?” she said calmly.

    Alas, Iain collapsed in helpless splutters. Though he did understand it was largely their age: well, that and the social norms that had never taught the poor little sods better, combined with the lack of a strong-minded father. Of course he’d never had a father either, but, he reflected drily, hiking off to the mall to change into the frog suit for the last time, he’d been luckier than he knew to have the bloody Duff-Rosses make sure he went to a ruddy strict school.

    “Rivet, rivet! Rivet, rivet! Merry Christmas! Thank you for shopping at Greenacres Ponds & Garden Accessories! Merry Christmas!” He did a few froggy leaps on the strength of it, waving his green-gloved hand—er, paw? Er, front foot?

    Merv McAndrew in person appeared at his elbow. “That’ll do, thanks, Iain, think that’s the last of ’em, we can close up. The mall’ll be closing soon anyway.”

    “Uh—still crowds down at the supermarket, Merv.”

    “Yeah, but they lock off that end, ya see. Come through.”

    Iain followed him through to the cramped back regions of his spacious modern shop, where he was stunned to be handed a square-bottle-shaped present wrapped in colourful Santa paper.

    “What’s all this about?”

    “Wearing the frog suit. The promotion went good, we’ve done loads more business than last year.”

    “Really? Jolly good! Then I’ll accept it gratefully in the spirit, Merv, and thanks very much!”

    “They might’ve come anyway,” noted young Harry McAndrew, coming up to his father’s side.

    Harry had refused point-blank to be a frog. “Just shut up and keep out of it,” warned his father.

    Iain was opening his present. “Come on, let’s drink to it!”

    Merv produced two coffee mugs. “Go on, then, ya twisted me arm.”

    “Er, what about Harry?”

    “Not old enough to drink spirits.”

    “I am so! I’m eighteen!” he whinged.

    “Yeah. Not old enough to drink spirits,” repeated his father with satisfaction. “Put it like this, ya stupid little wanker, you’re not getting one, because it was Iain, not you, that DONE THE FROG! Now go and whinge to your mother!”

    “He got paid for it!” he shouted.

    “So would you of been, ya flamin’ nit! And do NOT tell me that would’ve got you into a frog suit!”

    “Merv,” said Iain, trying not to laugh, “cast your mind back to when you were that age. Would anything have got you into a frog suit? Weren’t we all bloody feeble little egos? What were you doing that year, say, after your last school term?”

    “Uh—” A silly look spread over Merv’s round and usually amiable face.

    “Yeah, me, too, in spades. Spades and a half!” admitted Iain. “That was the summer I went to France with a pal. Hiking—backpacking, I think you’d call it. We fancied ourselves and our chances dead rotten. We were after real drink, real girlfriends, and the real Continental experience. On our first day we found a lovely little café that accepted our order for red wine without a blink and spent three hours sitting under its awning getting drunker and drunker, completely failing to pick up French bird. Then we let a huge lorry driver give us a lift into the depths of the countryside, relieve us of our wallets and Jim’s new hiking boots, not to mention my prized Swiss Army knife, and dump us by the side of the road.”

    “Shit,” said Harry in awe.

    “Yeah. Beat that.”

    “He—” Merv thought better of it. “Yeah, well, we’ve all been young and dumb,” he said with a sigh. “All right, you can have a drop—with water!”

   All parties tacitly recognising this as the thin end of the wedge, Harry’s drink was duly poured and the proprietor of Greenacres Ponds & Garden Accessories gave the toast.

    “Merry Christmas and may we all live through your mother’s bloody Christmas dinner!”

    Feebly Iain agreed: “Merry Christmas. Rivet, rivet.”

    Old Bert Sugden rose to his feet. “Here’s to— Will ya shut up!”

    “Order!” cried his son, Ben, collapsing in sniggers.

    “Dad, we don’t need another toast!” cried Daph.

    “Will you all just shut up! Here’s to a merry Christmas and a— Oops! Hap’ New Year!” ended Bert, subsiding suddenly onto his seat again.

    “Is he all right?” asked Lou anxiously.

    “Yes,” said Daph heavily. “Drunk, but all right. Didja have to give him whisky for Christmas, Iain?”

    “Um, um, couldn’t think what else he’d really like, Daph?” he offered wildly.

    Ben collapsed in further sniggers.

    Scott rose drunkenly but determinedly. “Open a few cold ones, eh?”

    “No! You’ve had enough!” cried all the womenfolk, but Scott ignored them and went steadily—no, well, unsteadily but determinedly—out to the kitchen. Young Kym went over and raised the serving hatch between the modernised kitchen and the dining-room. Knocking down the wall between them to make it open-plan, Daph had explained sadly, would have been too expensive. Added to which, Bert had explained drily, it would’ve brought the house down.

    “He’s getting it,” he reported.

    “You don’t need any beer!” cried Cotty crossly.

    “Yes, we do,” corrected Iain solemnly.

    All the Sugden women glared at him but Iain didn’t care, ’cos he was full to bursting of wonderfully succulent roast turkey, glorious baked ham with whatsits on its whatsit, cherries and bits of pineapple an’ all, real roast potatoes and homemade stuffing with real thyme and sage out of the garden, beautifully cooked green beans, just crisp enough, Daph knew he liked them and you kids needn’t have any, and honey-glazed sweet potatoes, gosh, and of course cranberry jelly and cranberry sauce, and before that there had been avocados with giant prawns, double gosh, he hadn’t been expecting those at all, and for afters the pecan pie and the pumpkin pie and the trifle, and the fruit salad and the ice cream, as well as a slice of flaming pud with cream! It was not merely the fat of the land, it was the fat of the fat of the land!

    “What?” asked Roz, as he sat back, let his belt out again, and murmured something.

    “Mm? Oh! I think I said ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’, Roz.”

    “Yeah, Daph’s a great cook,” she acknowledged. “Well, go on.”

    “Uh—’nother toast? Certainly! Oh—nothing to drink it in.”

    “No, I mean, go on out to the verandah,” she said tolerantly.

    “Yeah, come on, Iain!” agreed old Bert, getting up— Oops! No.

    Ben got up and hauled him to his feet. “Yeah, come on, Iain.”

    “But, um, we useless drones were all banished to the verandah before dinner,” he groped. “Shouldn’t we, um, do the dishes, or something?”

    “They can wait. Anyway, we’ve got the dishwasher,” said Daph peacefully. “Lou, love, didja put that bottle Iain gave us in the chiffonier?”

    “Yeah, with the cherry brandy, Mum.”

    Daph yawned but conceded: “We could go in there, I s’pose. I did get some new DVDs but they’re not that exciting. There’s Roz’s copy of Pretty Woman, though, it’s better quality than my old video.”

    Light dawned, and Iain got up, grinning, thanked Daph for the marvellous Christmas dinner, kissed her flushed but not unwilling cheek, and, leaving the womenfolk to the sweet liqueurs and chick flicks in the lounge-room, went to join the male peer group on the verandah with the beer. ’Cos that was how it was done, in Australia!

    Naturally the next week featured the remains of the turkey to be eaten up, though Daph had forced her sisters to share the remains of the ham. Never mind, cold turkey with one of Daph’s salads was lovely. Especially the one with the red frilly lettuce and the finely sliced fennel. Food of the gods—and far more suited to the hot humidity of a Sydney summer than a roast dinner, though Iain would have cut off his right arm rather than tell his kind landlady so.

    The twenty-seventh of course featured the RSL with old Pete Jenkins, Freda’s Dad...

    Oh, good God, it was like the British Legion! Old soldiers never died, they went down the RSL! There were at least a score of them, as old as Pete or older, all eager to give the exact details of the time that them and good old So-and-So...

    Bert was waiting for him on Daph’s verandah when he reeled back. “How was it?”

    Iain staggered over to sit beside him. “Phew! I’ve drunk more beer at one sitting than I have since I was in my twenties!”

    “Yeah. Apart from that.”

    “Cathartic, I think’s the word, Bert,” said Iain slowly. “Uh—sorry, Greek.” He went into a quiet shaking fit. “It is Greek,” he said weakly. “Sorry, rather pissed.”

    “Stewed as a newt, more like. Cath how much?”

    “I think it exists, not for the purpose of consuming vast amounts of beer, which one might well be excused for thinking which it—sorry, that sentence has got lost. Not for the beer. So as they can let it all hang out with pals who know what it’s like. Not sobbing their little hearts out to some bloody young prick of a psychologist that’s never been under fire or seen a man die with a bullet in him.”

    “Ya don’t say,” said the old man drily.

    Iain smiled at him with immense liking. “Mm, I do.”

    Oops, New Year’s Day featured the second turkey, he’d forgotten about that! He and Scott spent the following day at the beach, gawping at bikini-ed lovelies in the intervals, on Scott’s part, of some half-hearted surf-lifesaving duty—it was a smallish, obscure beach, without much surf. And duly returned home to cool showers and cold turkey with salads. One was a potato salad and one was a lettuce and cherry tomato salad and they were both delicious.

    January 3rd featured the beach again and Iain getting off with a nice girl tourist called Trine. Danish, with a lovely tan, lovely legs and lovely all over, ooh-er! Conveniently she was staying in a motel right on the beach. Ooh-er! But she and her friend Bridget, who was English, and rather pale and quiet and not interested in Scott, had tickets for a play this evening, so he and Scott headed for home.

    “How do ya do it?” asked the young man glumly.

    “Well, uh, well, uh, not sure, really, Scott. Just, um, look interested?”

    “I always look interested!” he cried aggrievedly.

    This was true.

    “You’ve got experience, I reckon they can see that,” he said glumly. He drove on glumly, finally coming out with: “Well, what was she like?”

    “Well, hot stuff, actually,” said Iain apologetically. “Insisted on going on top.”

    “I knew it!” he cried.

    Iain rubbed the sore patch on his shoulder. “Bit of a biter, actually.”

    “Eh? Not just like hickeys?”

    “No. Bit more. Never had that?”

    “No... Ya mean it really hurt?”

    “Mm. All right for a change, I wouldn’t fancy it fulltime.”

    “No, me neither. Did it turn you on?”

    “Hard to say, I was turned on already,” replied Iain honestly.

    “Good tits,” agreed Scott glumly. He drove on glumly. “It’ll be cold turkey for tea again,” he predicted glumly.

    He was right, it was cold turkey again. Bert came round and generously helped them eat it.

    On the verandah afterwards with an illicit fag in the fast-fading dusk the old man blew out smoke and said: “Funny, life, isn’t it? Ya look forward to the turkey all year and then it goes on and on and ya wish you’d never set eyes on the flamin’ thing...”

    “I hope you only mean that literally!” said Iain, very startled.

    “We-ell... We’re pretty bloody ordinary, Iain. Are ya getting sick of it?”

    “No!” he cried indignantly, very flushed.

    “Wouldn’t blame you if you were. Well, good-oh.”

    After a moment Iain admitted: “It’s more than good-oh. I never had much of a home life.”

    “No. That and bloody Iraq, eh? Well, Daph’ll get you back on your feet,” he said calmly.

    What? He wasn’t off his feet! ...Um, perhaps he was, a bit. Just a bit—yeah.

Next chapter:

https://temps-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/personnel-placement.html