45
Further Bulletins From The Coal Face
“Like flies round the honey pot,” reported Meg limply, divesting herself of her outer garment.
Bill replied from his usual position: “What did you expect?”
“Put your feet on the AFGHAN!” she shouted.
Bill shifted one foot two inches in order to get it off the sacred loose cover onto which it had accidentally crept, and onto the bloody afghan.
“What happens when he wears the afghan out?” asked Roger politely. –Bill choked.
“Shut up. And STOP BONKING IN THAT CHAIR!”
Roger went on rocking backwards and forwards in the best armchair. Bonk. Bonk.
“Why did we think that actual copulation ’ud make him grow out of it?” wondered Bill to the ambient air.
“Shut UP!” she shouted.
“Did you?” asked Roger with interest, momentarily ceasing to bonk in the best armchair.
“Some of us did,” noted Bill.
“Daft,” he concluded simply. “Or is it just another manifestation of Sixties’ pop psychology?” he asked, less simply.
“One of those,” conceded Bill, shaking slightly.
“Look, shut up!” said Meg crossly.
“Go on: give us the full report,” groaned Bill.
“You were up to ‘flies round the honey pot’,” prompted Roger kindly.
“Oh, yeah: and I was wondering what else you expected,” remembered Bill.
Meg glared, what time Roger said to his Aged Parent: “Wouldn’ta thought even you woulda had to wonder that, Dad. Well, it’s plain as the nose on your face: she expected Ginny to have chosen one of them and to be handing out wedding invitations—silver-engraved, of course—and asking Connie to be a flowergirl in pink frills and Singapore orchids—”
“I DID NOT!” shouted Meg.
They looked at her curiously.
“Stop it! You’re both horrible!” cried Meg. She burst into loud tears and, sobbing something that could just possibly have been interpreted as something along the lines of “ganging up on me”, rushed out.
Coggins père et fils looked at each other sheepishly.
“Went too far,” diagnosed Bill.
“Yeah. Uh—sorry, Dad.”
“You and me both, I meant. Cripes,” he said, scratching the pepper-and-salt curls. “Go after her? Or leave her to get over it?”
Roger replied cautiously: “Doesn’t she usually get worse if you leave her to get over it, Dad?”
“Yeah,” he said, grimacing. He got up slowly, groaning. “Just be warned,” he said grimly. “A bloke oughta ask himself, is it worth it, before deciding to sacrifice his freedom, not to say peace of mind, for a lifetime of free fucking.”
“Is that the same as copulation?” replied Roger in confusion.
“Shut up!” he choked.
When Meg had eventually been calmed down she consented to come and sit in the sitting-room by the fire with a nice cup of tea made by Bill and tell them all about it. Not until Roger had apologized, though. Looking mildly surprized, Roger apologized meekly.
Meg sipped her tea. “Where’s Connie?” she asked without much interest.
“Sold ’er. Uh—no: June came and got her. Said she was pissed off with blimmin’ boys,” admitted Bill.
“Oh,” said Meg weakly. “Um—well, where are the twins?”
“Dunno,” replied her partner in life.
“Michael went over to help Tom and Damian,” volunteered Roger. “Didn’t you see them as you came in?”
“No. He hasn’t forgotten he’s got to get packed for Computer Camp, has he?”
“No. Well, he’s packed all his computer books,” said Roger.
Meg sighed.
“It’s all right: I packed his clothes and stuff,” said Bill hurriedly.
“Oh. Oh, well, good. –What’s Tom up to now? Building a third garage?”
“Nope: landscaping the front garden,” said Roger calmly.
“What?” Meg put down her tea and rushed to the front window.
“‘Barmy,” explained Bill kindly.
“Help, he’s dug it all up!” she gasped. “Are those rocks and stuff he’s put in, Rog?”
“Yeah. He reckons he wants to make a vista sloping down to the view of the reserve.”
“Barmy,” explained Bill kindly.
Roger got up and came over to Meg’s side. “And see over there, down by the edge of the reserve?”
“Ye... He’s taken down the fence!” she gasped. “What about little Dirk?”
“He’s gonna fall into the flaming ha-ha, that’s what about little Dirk,” said Bill grimly. “Like I said: barmy.”
“Ha-ha?” echoed Meg weakly.
“Over by—um—where the fence used to be,” said Roger on a weak note. “He’s built a huge great stone wall—that’s what he wanted Damian and Twin to help him with—and at the foot of it there’s a huge great—um—” He broke off, gulping.
“Ditch. That’s what a ha-ha is, according to ’Is Lordship, Lord Tom Dimwit of Dimwit Manor,” explained Bill grimly. “—Barmy,” he elucidated.
“Has he had another row with Jemima?” she asked keenly.
Bill scratched his chin. “Not another row, as such. But you’re on the right track, Miss Marple.”
“He bought a second-hand cradle in a junkshop over Helensville this morning,” explained Roger.
“The blackmailing sod!” she cried.
“That was pretty much Jemima Puddle-Duck’s reaction: yeah,” admitted Bill.
“Yeah. Even Jemima could see at a glance,” said Roger drily, returning to his armchair, “that it was miles too small for Dirk. –Mind you, it is an awfully nice cradle. Or it could be, after the usual five thousand hours’ hard yacker.”
Meg tottered limply back to her chair opposite his. “I see.”
“Hence the intensive landscaping activity,” explained Bill.
“Yeah. –Jemima’s decided he can do the cradle up for Susan’s baby,” added Roger.
Meg choked on her tea. “I hope they’ve sorted themselves out before the Christmas in July party,” she managed limply. “He did promise Jemima he wouldn’t go on at her about having another baby.”
“He’s like that, Meg,” said Bill sourly.
“Yeah,” agreed Roger. “Go on, then, Meg: tell us about your day,” he prompted kindly.
—If you shut your eyes, thought Meg dazedly, you’d swear it was his father speaking! Help.
“Start with what old Miss Macdonald gave you for afternoon tea: put us out of our misery,” suggested Bill, grinning.
“So as you can sleep through the rest of it,” she noted. “Um... No, I’ll start at the beginning.”
“Alice,” murmured Roger.
Meg managed to ignore that. Just. She began: “Well, I went round to collect Ginny from Michaela’s, like said I would—”
When she got there, a male figure in a long raincoat was standing outside the block of two brick flats in Kapenga Avenue. Not a boring raincoat, a trendy sort of... Well, it wasn’t just grey, it was very, very pale grey, almost a silver, and very flowing, and it came to about four inches above his ankles. The ankles themselves were draped in expensive-looking fawn tweed. Literally draped. Under the tweed were expensive-looking fawn suede shoes with heavy crêpe soles. The shoulders of the raincoat were very, very wide but not square, more sort of... Not droopy, but more lowered and rounded than Meg had seen. Especially not on a man. And she had definitely never seen shoulder-pads that size on a man. The hat was silver-grey tweed, with a sort of droopy brim, but it bore no relation whatsoever to the sort of droopy-brimmed grey hat that old Alec Overdale got round in in the wetter weather. None whatsoever. Heretofore Meg had not believed that a droopy-brimmed man’s hat could be trendy but now she saw that she had been wrong. That was all she did see, as the man had his back to her and his collar turned up. Trendily.
She got out of the station-waggon and went slowly up the drive. To get to Michaela’s door she had to pass the man.
Under the raincoat, which was open in spite of the drizzle, he had a huge scarf. Meg would have taken a bet it dark green silk. With fringes. Under that there was a cream Aran-knit jumper—loose. Just showing at the neck of the jumper was a green woollen—
“Hullo, Meg!” the man said, laughing. “How lovely to see you!”
—shirt. Viyella, probably. She gulped. “Hullo, Adrian,” she croaked. “I didn’t know you were back from France.”
“Got back on Friday,” he said, holding his hand out. “Ça va?”
“Oh—fine,” replied Meg feebly, putting hers into it.
He smiled and squeezed the hand and before she knew what he was doing had kissed her on both cheeks.
“You look very smart,” quavered Meg. “Are those French clothes?”
“Oh, absolutely!” he said, laughing again. “Le look Guardsman, they sell this sort of gear as!”
“They look incredibly French, though.” said Meg feebly.
“Bah—certainement!” he said. –Meg thought you would have transcribed it like that, but it didn’t sound like anything on any of St Ursie’s blessed audio-lingual tapes, that was for sure.
“Family keeping well?” he asked nicely.
“Yes. Blooming,” said Meg numbly.
“Good.”
There was a short pause.
“Which of these flats is Michaela’s?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“Um—oh. That one. –What have you done to your hair?” said Meg numbly, peering at it.
Adrian removed the hat, grinning. His naturally light brown hair was very short—well, he always had worn it short—but it was even shorter at the sides than it used to be, and at the front it was much curlier than it used to be, and...
“Don’t tell me that’s ‘le look Guardsman,’” she said weakly.
Adrian ran a hand a through his permed and frosted hair, chuckling. “C’est pour épater les parents,” he explained.
“Yeah, les bons bourgeois parents,” said Meg grimly. “Were they?”
He replaced the hat. “Mm. Mum had a fit, and Dad told me I looked like a French pansy. So I said had I fulfilled their expectations, then?”
“Adrian!” she protested trying not to laugh.
“Well, for God’s sake,” he said, sounding even older than he looked, which was around thirty-five and disillusioned with it: “they’ve never given me the slightest support or encouragement in my choice of career, you know. –Quite the reverse, in fact.” He shrugged.
“Yes,” said Meg weakly.
“Shall we ring?” he said, taking her elbow gently.
“What? Oh—yeah. Go on,” she said limply.
Adrian rang the doorbell, smiling.
Col Michaels opened the door.
“Blimey O’Reilly!” croaked Bill at this point. “I think this rates a stiff drink!”
“There isn’t any. Meg drank the rest of that sherry, Dad.”
Bill rose to his full impressive height and went over to the bookcase. “Rats. Behind this here bust of Spokeshave with the syphilitic nose and the odd Approach To Latin or two— Bugger,” he said. “Me stool’s disappeared. Wouldja mind, old mate?’
Roger strolled over and casually lifted down the bust of Shakespeare, a pile of ancient school textbooks, and Bill’s Glenlivet that he’d got off Polly by the simple expedient of looking sadly at her near the Puriri wholesalers.
“Everyone knows ya keep it up there, Dad,” he said tolerantly.
“Yes, the whole street,” agreed Meg. “I don’t like it,” she noted mournfully.
“No, well, you’ve been stuffing your face on one of Ginny’s Aunt Violet Macdonald’s fabled afternoon teas all arvo: this seems fair and equitable,” replied Bill. “Glasses, glasses!” he said irritably to his son, snapping his fingers. Well, trying to: it was more like a soggy sort of plop.
“How many?” replied Roger.
“Two: one and one makes two,” returned Bill heavily.
“Yeah—um—do ya mean I can have some, Dad?”
“YES!” he shouted.
“Ooh, good.” said Roger. He went over to the very, very old chiffonier and began fossicking in amongst the piles of old school textbooks, the piles of comics that the twins had got at the last Puriri Primary School fair even though they were too old for comics, the piles of women’s mags that Meg got off Ida and that everyone kindly pretended they didn’t know were there, Meg’s grey knitting that she’d been doing for the last eternity and that was too hard on the eyes to do at night in the winter and too woolly to do at night in the summer, and the piles of very old Popular Mechanics that dated from the last visit but three to Alec Overdale down in Ngaruawahia. Plus Bill’s 1954 Royal Visit cup, saucer and plate that Tom had offered him a small fortune for, plus the sacred box that contained the twins’ very first pairs of shoes that everyone kindly pretended they didn’t know about: she’d sealed it up with tape and melted candlewax.
“Here they are: behind the twins’ shoes,” he said cheerfully.
Meg glared; Bill smothered a snigger.
Roger held out the requisite objets d’art proudly. “Tom reckons these oughta be donated to the Museum of Transport and Technology. In a few years they’ll be really collectible.”
“Got ’em the year posh plastic glasses first came in,” said Bill dreamily. “Remember?” he said to Meg.
“No!”
“Must have been in the Seventies,” said Bill dreamily.
“Not the Sixties, Dad?” asked Roger sadly.
“No!” he choked. “Give them here!”
Roger handed him the plastic tumblers and Bill shook out the odd bit of fluff and dead spider.
“Couldn’t I have a wee bit with hot water and sugar?” asked Meg wistfully.
“NOT MY GLENLIVET!” screamed Roger and Bill simultaneously.
Roger collapsed in giggles.
“Yeah: touché,” said Bill sheepishly. “Uh—no, ya couldn’t, Meg. Sorry, but not this stuff. There are some things the male psyche cannot stand, and that’s one of ’em.”
Meg subsided. “Macho brute,” she sighed.
“Well, go on,” said Bill, grinning at her over the Glenlivet. “Cripes, this plastic doesn’t half make it taste odd. Don’tcha reckon, Rog?”
“No.” said Roger, hanging on to his like grim death.
“Well, go on, Meg! –No, hang on: lemme guess. Col Michaels was in an Aran-knit jersey, too?”
“You think that’s a joke, don’t you?” said Meg in a hollow voice.
Bill and Roger let out yelps of laughter.
“I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” admitted Meg.
“Surprized to see ya, was ’e?” asked Bill laconically.
“N— Well, not to see me. But he was surprized to see Adrian,” admitted Meg weakly.
Bill sipped Glenlivet reflectively. “This plastic undertaste grows on ya,” he reported. “Go on, might as well get it over with,” he advised his helpmate.
Glaring, Meg proceeded with her narrative.
“Hullo, Meg,” said Col very mildly. “Gidday,” he added neutrally to Adrian.
“Hullo, Col,” replied Adrian neutrally.
Then there was a short pause.
“Adrian just got back on Friday,” said Meg nervously.
“So I see,” agreed Col.
Another pause.
“Doesn’t he look French?” said Meg weakly.
“Terribly,” agreed Col neutrally.
Yet another pause. During this one Meg wondered whether she was going to scream.
“I gather you’ve come to collect Ginny, Meg,” said Col. “Would you like to come in? She’s almost ready; I think I’ve persuaded her not to wear the little velvet frock with the lace collar.”
“What? Oh: for her Aunty Vi,” agreed Meg numbly, “No. I mean, um, yes.”
“What a pity you got here just as we’re going out,” said Col smoothly to Adrian, standing aside for them to come in.
“That’s all right,” he replied politely.
They all went into the sitting-room and Meg sat down on the divan.
Col was lounging in the doorway. “Have a seat,” he said politely to Adrian.
“No, thanks,” said Adrian.
Col continued to lounge in the doorway. Adrian lounged near the heater.
Meg sat there limply on the divan wondering whether she was going to laugh or scream first. Eventually she said—in order to stop herself screaming, the feeling it was going to be that was definitely getting the upper hand: “Is Michaela out, Col?”
“Yes. At the kiln, I believe.”
“How is she?” asked Adrian nicely.
“Um—all right,” said Meg limply.
Col raised his eyebrows very high.
Meg gave him a glare and said uncharitably—since she had now realized what one at least of his intentions was, little sod: “How are you, anyway, Col? Are you still living in that cottage of the Carranos’ at Pohutukawa Bay?”
Col eyed her mockingly. “In reverse order: Yes, and Fine, thanks.”
“How’s the swot?” asked Adrian in a super-kind voice.
Meg had been feeling relatively charitable towards him, but the feeling now waned noticeably.
“Fine, thanks,” repeated Col with precisely the same inflection.
Meg said hurriedly: “So how was France? Did you enjoy your stay, Adrian?”
“Well, I learnt a lot!” he said with a laugh. “No, I did enjoy it, Meg, but it was very hard work. And it took a while to got over the culture shock.”
“‘You’ve lost weight, I think,” said Meg on a weak note.
“Yes. One of Tante Juliette’s grandsons let me use his bike. I did a lot of sightseeing on it.”
“Tante Juliette?” said Meg weakly.
“Madame’s sister. The whole family seems to call her that.”
“Including the grandsons,” agreed Col smoothly.
“No, they mostly call her Mémé,” replied Adrian, equally smooth.
“Oh, yes. It’s like—um... ‘Gran’? No, more like ‘Nana’,” said Meg weakly.
“Yes. It was a peculiar feeling,” said Adrian slowly, though with a twinkle in his eye, “to find that French as she is spoke is actually as diverse and—well, as demotic!—as English.’
“It was an enriching cultural experience, then,” said Col.
“Bên ouais,” he agreed.
Meg’s jaw sagged. She couldn’t have transcribed that noise to save her life!
Silence fell. Col went on lounging in the doorway. Adrian went on lounging by the heater. Meg sat on the divan wondering whether she was going to laugh or scream first.
Just as she was about to ask Adrian a fatuous question about what he’d learnt to cook at Tante Juliette’s restaurant, Ginny came in, looking flurried. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Meg!” she gasped. “Oh—hullo, Adrian!” she gasped, turning very red.
Adrian also flushed a little but as he was very tanned this wasn’t so obvious and if Meg hadn’t been looking very hard she might have missed it; and said, holding out his hand: “Hullo, Ginny. How are you?”
Ginny put her hand in his and he immediately did the cheek-kissing bit he’d done with Meg.
“Um—fine, thanks!” she gasped.
“Doesn’t he look French?” drawled Col.
“Yes, very!” said Ginny, smiling up at him. “What lovely clothes, Adrian!”
“And the lovely hair, don’t forget that,” drawled Col.
“What is this, sour grapes? Yours is very pretty, too,” said Meg grimly, getting up. “Are we going?” she said to Ginny.
“Ye— Ooh!” she gasped as the doorbell rang. “Who’s that?”
“Answer it and find out?” suggested Col.
“Ye— Um—I’m sorry, Adrian, we’re just on our way to Aunty Vi’s!” she gasped, hurrying to the door.
The caller was Euan Knox.
“Look, I think this really does rate a weak Glenlivet and hot water!” said Bill in a shaken voice. “Very weak,” he added hurriedly.
Meg nodded mutely.
“Boil up the jug, old mate, and put about half a cup and a spoonful of sugar in a mug for ’er,” Bill ordered his heir.
“Half a cup, Dad?” he croaked.
“Y— Of HOT WATER!” he bellowed.
“Oh!” Roger hurried out.
“Sometimes I wonder,” his progenitor muttered.
Meg nodded mutely.
“Three!” Bill then said, shaking his head. “Gawdelpus. No wonder flies and honey pots were mentioned.”
Meg nodded mutely.
“Ya musta felt sorta... stunned?”
Meg nodded mutely.
“Yeah. Mind you, once you’d got over the initial whatsit, coulda gingered up the pervaceous nerve-ends—”
Meg was shaking her head.
“No?” he said sadly.
“No!” she gulped, shuddering.
Bill got up, creaking and groaning, and kindly put a huge hunk of manuka root on the fire. “Warm you up a bit,” he explained.
“Thanks,” she said dully. “What on earth is that?”
“Eh? Uh—dunno. Twin brought it over from Tom’s some time this arvo, according to Rog.”
“Oh. –Bill, that reminds me: where’s Andrew?”
Bill was about to say “Dunno” but at that moment Roger came in with a mug for Meg—they had eventually taught him, after approx. nineteen years’ struggle, that when one boiled the jug up it was not necessary always to fill it to the brim and wait five years for anything to happen therein—and said: “He went down to Darryl and John’s just after you left, Meg.”
“Bill! Why didn’t you stop him?” she cried.
“Eh?”
“They must be terribly busy getting ready for the Christmas in July party!” said Meg crossly.
“Uh—it’s not till Tuesday,” he said in confusion. “And they’re both on holiday all week—”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped.
“John’s not the same sort of fanatic as Tom, ya know.”
“No, he’s a different sort of fanatic.” replied Meg immediately. “Are you gonna put any whisky in this?”
“Eh? Oh,” he said sadly. “Go on, then.” With immense care he poured about a teaspoonful of Glenlivet into Meg’s mug.
Roger began: “That’s not mu—” but broke off as Meg said happily: “Ta,” and raised the scarce-flavoured result to her lips.
Bill winked at his heir and stowed the bottle down the back of the couch by his thigh. “You feeling strong enough to go on with this saga?”
“Was there any more, Meg?” asked Roger.
“Um—well, Euan had only come to give her a chair.”
“To give Ginny a chair?” said Bill numbly.
“It’d be a Nineties love-token, Dad,” explained Roger kindly.
Choking slightly. Bill gasped: “Yeah! Um—well, go on, love.”
Glaring, Meg continued: “He got it at the Sunday Market at Carter’s Bay. He’d re-covered it for her.
“Gotcha. So ’e pushed off after that, did ’e?”
Meg nodded.
“Well—um—how did he look?” said Bill feebly.
“Um... Well, actually, I think ‘unmoved’ would be the best word, Bill. Totally unmoved by the whole bit. –Only Col looked really peeved when he gave her the chair!” she added, perking up noticeably.
“Good,” allowed Bill.
“That’s a bit mean, Dad,” said Roger fairly.
“Well, sarky young beggar, isn’t ’e? –Who’s your money on?” he asked curiously.
“Bill! Leave him alone!” cried Meg indignantly.
“Sorry, old mate. Keep forgetting all these junior personalities are real people to you,” he apologized.
“Bill! That really is going too far!” cried Meg, turning purple.
“That’s all right, Meg. I’m used to him.” said Roger kindly. “I suppose my money’s on Euan. Not that I think he’s a sure thing, mind you. But I like him the best, if that’s what ya mean, Dad.”
“Do you?” said Meg weakly. “I suppose he is a nice boy, yes.”
“All right: we all know your bent Fijian penny’s on lee Mel Gibson dee lee Sood dee France,” said Bill nastily.
Surprisingly, Meg only replied to this, on a suspiciously smug note: “No, it isn’t, see.”
Bill and his heir looked at her suspiciously.
She didn’t immediately elaborate, just admitted: “Well, nothing much happened at afternoon tea—I mean, obviously Ginny wasn’t going to impart the details of her love-life to old Miss Macdonald.”
“Then why’d ya go?” said Bill in confusion.
“For the chocolate cake, Dad. Did she make it?” Roger asked eagerly.
Meg grinned. “Yes.”
Bill and Roger groaned deeply.
“And an orange cake—that was nice, too, I think it must be where Polly got that recipe of hers—and a date loaf with walnuts in it, and hokey-pokey biscuits, and egg and lettuce sandwiches!”
“Is that all?” said Bill sadly.
“How many people were there, Meg?” asked Roger, trying not to laugh.
Glaring, Meg said: “Me and Ginny, and Vicki and Scott, of course, and Miss Macdonald and her friend old Miss Milsom!”
“Scott woulda eaten a fair bit,” allowed Roger.
“Didn’t she make scones or pikelets, Meg? Ya must’ve overlooked them!” urged Bill.
“No,” said Meg, trying not to laugh. “That reminds me: where’s the umbrella?”
They goggled at her.
“Bill! Where’s the—”
“Uh... Left it at school, din’ I?” he said in confusion to his heir.
“Dunno, Dad.”
“Broken reed,” he muttered.
“Why do you want it, Meg?” asked Roger kindly.
“Miss Macdonald gave me a basket of stuff,”—they were on their feet already—“and it’s in the car, but it’s only got a tea-towel over— BILL! It’s pouring: don’t bring it in with nothing over it, they’ll get WET!” She sank back into her chair, sighing.
Bill and Roger reappeared approximately ten seconds later, panting and beaming. They were both rather wet, even though those huge shaggy brown jerseys shed water like nobody’s business. Roger was carrying the two cake tins and Bill was carrying the basket. The tea-towel was dry.
“Put a raincoat over it!” he panted in explanation of this miracle.
“Oh,” said Meg weakly. “LEAVE IT!” she shouted, but too late: Bill had whipped the tea-towel off and Roger was opening a tin.
“This isn’t chocolate cake,” Bill reported sadly, eating one.
“LEAVE THOSE ALONE!”
“Mince pies,” Roger reported sadly, eating one.
“LEAVE THOSE ALONE! And they’re not mince pies, they’re Miss Macdonald’s special Mistletoe Mincies, it’s a recipe of—”
“Her grandmother’s. They do taste a bit odd,” he admitted.
“Her mother’s, and they aren’t odd, it’s orange pastry, and DON’T EAT ANY MORE, they’re for the PARTY!” bellowed Meg.
“Whab are theshe?” asked Bill.
“Look, stop eating them!” Meg wrenched the basket off him. “And if you open that other cake tin, I’ll kill you,” she notified Roger.
Roger’s hand retreated from the Christmas sticky-tape that sealed the tin.
“S’pose that’s the world-famous chocolate cake,” recognized Bill glumly.
Meg looked smug.
“Aw, come on, Meg: there’ll be piles of food at the party, coulden we—”
“No.”
Bill subsided onto the couch, pouting.
Roger was investigating his tin. “What are these flat things underneath?”
Meg wrenched the tin off him. “Gingerbread men for the children. And you’re not getting one!”
“John’s already made regiments of gingerbread men,” he objected.
“That reminds me, said we’d lend ’im our Christmas lights,” said Bill to his heir. “I forgot, before.”
“Yes, that’s why we’ve come for them!” said a cheerful voice. John came over to the fire, grinning. “Your front door was open again,” he informed them.
“BI-ILL!” cried Meg.
“We shut it,” said Andrew kindly.
“How was your afternoon tea, Meg?” asked John.
“Oh—very nice. Um, well, I was just telling them— LEAVE THAT ALONE!” she bellowed.
Andrew’s hand retreated from the basket. “I was only looking.”
Meg took a deep breath. “You can have one mince pie— No, hang on. Those are Miss Macdonald’s hokey pokey biscuits in there, and the mince pies are in the tin with the view of Christchurch on it. You can have one of each. And don’t touch the other tin,” she added grimly.
“Ooh, ta!” he beamed.
Limply Meg offered the basket to John.
“‘Hokey pokey’?” he murmured.
“Don’t start that again,” she said grimly.
John smiled. He bit into one experimentally. “Mm—goob.”
“Has she given you the recipe?” asked Bill eagerly.
“No. And give John a drink,” she ordered grimly.
“No—really!” protested John with a laugh.
“See, he doesn’t want one,” said Bill quickly.
“It’s that Scotch whisky he got off Polly,” explained Meg.
John’s eyes twinkled. “In that case I will, thanks.”
Bill poured, sighing. “Come on, siddown, she’s about to give us the good gen on which of ’er scores of admirers Ginny Austin really fancies.”
John sat down immediately. Once Bill had screamed at him to get off his feet and had grudgingly moved his legs, at Meg’s orders, approximately three inches further towards the back of the couch to give John some room, Meg began.
“Um... Where was I?”
Roger explained laconically to John: “When she got to Kapenga Av’ to pick up Ginny she found Adrian Revill on the doorstep in a Froggy Burberry and an Aran-knit jersey. And then Col Michaels opened the door in an Aran-knit jersey. And five minutes later Euan Knox turned up with an armchair he’d re-upholstered for Ginny. Not in an Aran-knit jersey, it must be admitted.”
“In’ it marvellous?” marvelled Bill. “To think that’s the fruit of my loins!”
Andrew gave a loud guffaw and immediately turned bright red.
“This would have added interest, Meg,” noted John, trying not to laugh.
Meg swallowed. “Yes. Col and Adrian were both terribly peeved, of course.”
“Euan is reported to have been unmoved,” reported Bill.
“Mm: I can just see that,” he murmured.
“Which of ’em do you vote for?” asked Bill keenly.
Meg sighed.
“I don’t know that I vote for any of them, Bill. I don’t think any one of them would be particularly right for Ginny. Though my natural inclination is to favour Adrian. of course. Providing they could be happy together,” said John, smiling at him.
“Did you know ’e was back?”
“Yes: he rang us yesterday.”
“See?” said Meg crossly. “And shut up, let me tell it!”
There was a short silence.
Meg licked her lips. “Um—well, we gave Adrian a ride home from Michaela’s place...”
“His parents live in a Gizz suburb,” explained Roger kindly. “Somewhere near Damian’s grandparents, I think.”
“Ye-es… I’m not quite sure where, I got a bit lost,” admitted Meg.
Bill sniggered meanly.
Andrew gave a gasp. “Dad! What about the time you—”
“Shut up,” he said hurriedly.
“How did Ginny and Adrian seem together, Meg?” asked John.
“We-ell... I had quite a job to persuade her to go in the back with him,” admitted Meg sadly.
John made a face.
“Um—well, she asked him about the restaurant and Tante Juliette and everything,” she admitted.
John rubbed his nose. “That sounds all right.”
“Ye-es… Then she asked him if he’d picked up l’accent méridional,” reported Meg on a dubious note.
“Er—in what sort of tone of voice, Meg?”
Meg made a face. “Really sarky. “And then he said: ‘Oui, je suppose,’ and she said something about the Languedoc that was even sarkier.”
“Er—I think possibly you mean the langue d’oc, Meg,” murmured John.
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“No—um—”
“They don’t learn anything in New Zild B.A. courses, hasn’t that sunk in yet?” said Bill heavily to the Pom in their midst.
“Bill! For Heaven’s sake!” cried Meg.
Bill took a deep breath. “Eight years or so back, Meg, if you can cast your mind back that far, which on present evidence I would doubt, you couldn’t wait for Michael and Andrew to get old enough so as you could go on back to varsity and do your flaming Master’s. Or such was your claim.”
“I’ve had Connie since then, you pig!” she cried. “And if you think it’s fun coping with this pigsty and you four male hoons and all my marking—!”
Bill poured himself a Glenlivet. ignoring her.
John held out his tumbler. “You can refill mine, too, and then I might go.” he murmured.
Meg took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. John. Only ever since Phoebe suggested I could do my Master’s he’s been trying to make me say I will!”
“Look, three years down the track when Phoebe’s passed on to greener pastures and that bloody Yvonne cow’s got the headmistress-ship and her brain’s gone to seed entirely, it’s gonna be all my fault!” said Bill heatedly.
“Thus are New Zild divorces made,” acknowledged John placidly.
There was a stunned silence in Meg’s and Bill’s sitting-room. Certainly Andrew’s ears went very red, but they did it silently.
“Well, aren’t they?” John said mildly.
Meg swallowed. “Yes,” she said sulkily. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Yeah,” admitted Bill. grimacing: “something like that. I’m sorry, Meg. I never meant to nag you. I know you’ve got more than enough on your plate. Only I just felt you might be thankful for the—um—intellectual stimulation.” he ended weakly.
“Mm. I really can’t.”
“I know,” he said, sighing.
“What about the G. Austin Gold Stakes. anyway?” asked Roger.
“Eh?” said Bill foggily. “You been asleep all afternoon?”
“No. I thought Meg had more to impart?” he said, raising his eyebrows at her.
“Don’t do that: ya look like flaming Tom!” said Bill, shuddering. “Well, have you?” he demanded loudly of his helpmate.
Meg jumped. “Oh! Um, yes, I suppose have...”
In the car coming home from Ginny’s old aunty’s place Meg had said: “I gather you’re slated to be bridesmaid-in-chief, then?” and Ginny had replied grimly: “That’s what Vicki thinks.” Then there had been a short silence.
“Oh?” said Meg cautiously.
Ginny scowled. “I’ll probably be in Japan by April. Why is it that I’m expected to sacrifice my plans to fit in with hers, just because she’s getting married?”
“I think it’s got something to do with social norms.”
She gave a startled laugh. “Yes!”
Meg looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “Will you?”
“Sacrifice my plans?” Ginny took a deep breath. “No, I blimmin’ well won’t!”
“Good on you,” said Meg mildly.
Ginny gave her a startled look.
“I’m not all that into crinolined silk and little green orchids on the head, either,” explained Meg kindly. “So when will you leave for Japan, Ginny?”
“Probably not until the end of March. If I don’t go home for Christmas I should be able to finish my M.A. thesis during November and December, and they can do the viva in March. It won’t be much, it’s not like doing a Ph.D.: more a token. really.
Meg swallowed. “Mm. You could put off the trip for another few weeks, though, surely?” she said in a very weak voice.
Ginny sighed. “Maybe. –David says there’s no point in antagonizing them unnecessarily,” she admitted.
“David? Oh: old Mr Shapiro?”
“Mm.”
“Well, I suppose he’s old enough to have learned some sense,” said Meg on a dubious note.
“He’s old enough and wise enough to know when not to do the sensible thing, too!” said Ginny strongly.
Meg swallowed a sigh, and silence fell.
Finally Meg ventured in a small voice: “She is your sister.”
“Yeah. But when’s she ever been known to sacrifice any of her plans for me?” said Ginny grimly.
Meg bit her lip. “I know.”
“Well,” she said, taking a deep breath: “it’s like you were saying: social norms. But if I do go to the blimmin’ wedding it’ll be the last time I conform to them!”
“Mm,” agreed Meg, thinking it probably wouldn’t be, but that for a few years it certainly would. Help, she was a determined little thing, wasn’t she? Quite hard, under that surface prettiness. In Vicki, of course, it was much nearer the surface, and you only had to talk to her for five minutes to know that she had about as much tact as a steamroller and as about as much consideration for anyone else’s needs, wants, or interests. But with Ginny... It was more hidden—not deliberately, just, well, further from the surface of her personality—but it was there, all right.
Meg drove on in silence. She found that what she was mainly thinking wasn’t what would Ginny do with herself in Japan, or what was the exact relationship between her and the elderly David Shapiro, or what a row there’d be if she did take off before her twin’s wedding, but oddly enough, and for the very first time, that you could feel a certain sympathy for Ralph Overdale, couldn’t you? Coming slap-bang up against that hardness and determination under all that surface prettiness and gentleness.
They had gone a fair way and Ginny hadn’t volunteered any further remarks, so finally Meg said, rather awkwardly: “Um, have you made any plans for after Japan?”
“Um—well, sort of.’
“Polly was hoping you might want to do a Ph.D.,” said Meg cautiously.
“I know. Prof Brownloe suggested it, too. But I feel I’ve kind of got past that stage in my life.” She smiled sunnily at her. “Jake suggested I might like to come into the Group as a cadet—you know, like Jenny Wiseman. And I’ve thought it over, and I think I will.”
“I see,” said Meg very weakly indeed.
“I thought I might be at a disadvantage with an M.A. in Classics, but Jake said he’s had enough of little pinheads with Business Studies diplomas that can’t think for themselves and don’t know what hard work is, and only know about Business Studies that they’ve been taught by an ex-yuppie graduate of the Eighties crash!” She giggled.
“Help!” said Meg with a weak laugh.
“I must I’ve always wondered what happened to those Eighties yuppies. And there are an awful lot of Business Studies courses available. I was reading in The Bulletin only the other day about a whole lot of Business Studies colleges in Australia that have gone bust lately. Most of them seem to have swindled enormous sums out of unfortunate Asian applicants and then just folded without offering the courses. So there must be a lot of ex-yuppie gradates of the crash over there, too!”
“Hundreds, I should think,” agreed Meg limply.
“Yeah!” Ginny smiled at her.
“Ginny,” said Meg in a weak voice: “will you like business, though?”
“I’m not sure. Jenny’s told me a lot about it, and it sounds really interesting—challenging. I will have to get some sort of a commercial qualification, obviously. But Jake’s gone into all that—well, the Group has. They vet the courses their cadets take very carefully. And if they do well they encourage them to go on: there’s a boy that finished his B.Com. at about the time Jenny started hers that they’ve sent to Harvard Business School.”
“Ye-es...”
“I know I’m not a boy, but that won’t make any difference if I’ve got the ability!” said Ginny, laughing.
It would if she wanted to have kids, thought Meg grimly, not saying it. Not just to the Group’s attitude: to Ginny’s own, most likely. And even if it didn’t change her attitude—and come to think of it, Meg could just see the red-headed twin keeping her spouse to an absolute half-and-half arrangement over childcare and housekeeping—well, even if she still felt the same, would the Group? And had Ginny taken into consideration the point that twins ran in her family and that coping with two of them at once was about twenty times more exhausting than coping with one?
“Mm. Well, good luck with it,” she said. doing her best to smile.
“Thanks. –Jake’s very keen for me to carry on with the Japanese,” she confided. “At the moment he’s got quite a few English-speaking Japanese on the payroll, but he’s trying to get more Westerners who are Japanese-speakers.”
“I see. Would you be working in the Tokyo office, Ginny?”
“Not right away. but after a year I’d hope to, yes.”
“That’d be interesting,” said Meg feebly.
“Yes. I’m looking forward to it!” said Ginny. beaming at her. “It’ll be a challenge.”
Meg agreed limply that it would.
She didn’t manage to get out anything else until they were well up past the Albany turnoff. Then she croaked: “So it—it doesn’t make any difference to your plans that Adrian’s come home, then?”
“Adrian?” said Ginny blankly. “No, of course not!”
“Oh.” said Meg weakly. “I see.”
Ginny looked at her drily. “I’m not interested in Col, either. Or Euan. I know he’s awfully nice—actually, he always reminds me a bit of Bill!” she admitted, smiling at her.
“Does he?” said Meg weakly. “Similar types, I suppose...”
“But we’ve got nothing at all in common: we don’t look at the world in the same way,” she finished firmly.
“No,” agreed Meg sadly.
“Polly didn’t get married until she was twenty-nine,” said Ginny. “There’s stacks of time before I have to think about all that!”
Meg looked limply at her audience. “I would never have imagined that Ginny... Well, of all people! Going on about the Group and—and working in the Tokyo office and—Harvard Business School and reading The Bulletin to the manner born!’
“That isn’t on tonight, is it?’ said Roger hopefully
“What? NO!” she shouted,
“Could be the 50th repeat of a repeat,” offered Bill.
“It ISN’T ON!” shouted Meg.
Twin was investigating the Listener. “Ooh, there’s a James Bond film on tonight!”
“Roger Moore,” said Meg grimly. “And it’s on far too late for you.”
“It’s holidays!” he whinged.
“It’s holidays and someone has to get up at crack of dawn to drive Michael in to catch the bus for Computer Camp,” said Meg grimly. “Is anyone volunteering?’
“I don’t have to get up at crack of dawn.” whinged Andrew. “Why can’t I watch it?’
“Darryl always gets up at crack of dawn, Meg: she’ll run Michael in. Where to, anyway?” asked John.
Very red, Meg said: “Don’t be silly. We couldn’t possibly let her!”
“Yes, we could,” said Bill immediately.
“Shut up,” she ordered grimly.
“Honestly, Meg: it’s her declared intention to drive into town to Wah Lee’s, it’ll be no trouble to drop Michael off wherever he has to go,” urged John.
“Um—they’re leaving from the YMCA in town, it’s the big camp this year,” said Meg in a very weak voice.
“Starsky’s going, too,” added Twin.
“Fine. She can drop him off as well. I’ll fix it up now.” John wandered out to the phone.
“Bill!” said Meg angrily.
Bill opened his eyes with a start. “Eh?”
“How can you just sit there and let him?” she said angrily.
“Much easier than stopping ’im.”
Meg took a deep breath.
“Besides, the YMCA’s more or less around the corner from Wah Lee’s.”
This was true. Meg bit her lip.
“Wonder why she’s going there at this stage?” he wondered. “He made the cake yonks back.”
Meg took a deep breath. “I suppose she’s going there because making the cake used up every last sultana and cherry and almond and piece of crystallized pineapple they had in the place!”
“Ooh, has it got pineapple in it?”
Meg ignored this.
“John’s gonna make something else as well,” volunteered Andrew. “–The James Bond film’s not on very late, Mum.”
“All right, you can watch it. And if you have a headache tomorrow, don’t blame me!”
“YAY!” he cried, ignoring the headache bit.
“Anyway, what’s John going to make?” asked Meg on a weak note.
Twin looked vague. “Dunno. Something with nuts and stuff.”
Meg took a deep breath, but John ambled back and said with a grin: “It’s a secret. You’ll like it, though, Meg. Darryl says that’s fine, and if you’d like her to take Connie of your hands for the morning she can go along for the trip, too. And is she allowed to eat Wah Lee’s fabulous coated peanuts? –Unquote,” he explained—unnecessarily: the whole of Blossom Avenue was aware that the adjective “fabulous” was not in the J. Aitken working vocabulary.
Meg protested weakly that Connie would be a nuisance but John, as they all expected, amiably overbore this. Meg then admitted that Connie ate anything under the sun that looked even faintly like a sweetie. And/or carcinogenic. John then revealed that Bob and June’s phone seemed to be off the hook so he thought he’d wander up there and Meg, at this point recalling Connie was there, decided she’d drive him up.
“You didn’t seem very surprized about Ginny wanting to go into Big Business,” she noted as they bumped cautiously over the muddy ruts of upper Blossom Avenue.
John replied slowly: “I don’t know that I was: no.”
“You didn’t already know about it?”
“No,” he said with a smile.
Meg scowled. “I can’t understand it! I mean, she’s the—the sensitive one, I would have said! And—and—well, she’s interested in art and music; wouldn’t you think—?”
“Mm,” said John thoughtfully. “I don’t know that I would these days, Meg. Well, in our young days sensitive boys and girls with aesthetic interests who went to university and did arts degrees all wore duffel coats and protested against the bomb and—”
“Rugby tours of South Africa,” agreed Meg, nodding.
“Certainly,” he agreed courteously in his strong Oxbridge accent.
Meg gulped. “Yeah,” she agreed with a silly grin.
“Yes,” said John, smiling, “and after university, and not necessarily discarding the duffel coats, went into teaching or—er—university lecturing, didn’t we?”
“Mm!” squeaked Meg, rolling her lips together tightly.
“And subsequently, still not necessarily discarding the duffel coats, voted Labour and acquired huge mortgages on rundown properties on five- or ten-acre lots in the wilds of—”
“You don’t have to beat the point to death with a bludgeon!” said Meg with a loud giggle.
John grinned. “Well, look at us, Meg! Give or take the odd artistic bent at the top of the road, there’s you and Bill, me, Tom and the Butlers all of approximately the same generation, all teaching except for June—”
“Bob’s still actually got his duffel coat,” admitted Meg.
“Yes!” he gasped.
“Actually Bill had his till not all that long ago, but he left it down at Mother’s one August holidays and she never sent it back. We think she probably burnt it.”
John nodded limply.
After a moment Meg said slowly: “I see. You’re trying to say the times they are a-changing, right?”
“Something like that, I think,” he murmured.
Meg thought it over. “Oh, dear. Well, where have all those liberal, liberated, ban-the-bomb Seventies ideals gone to, John? And come to think of it, why the Hell was our generation so deeply into that and—and why does Ginny’s generation seem to—to— I was going to say ignore it all, but it isn’t that. To find it totally irrelevant, I think!”
“Many of them are deeply into the Environment,” he said neutrally.
“Yeah, while they drive around in their plastic-wrapped Porsches eating TV dinners that they’ve zapped in their microwaves!”
“Something like that, mm. Back in Britain there’s a strong animal-rights movement,” he offered.
“Crackers,” said Meg briefly.
John smiled a little. “Mm. It’s a mystery to me as much as it is to you, I’m afraid, Meg. Were we just reacting against the beliefs of our parents’ generation?”
“I was certainly reacting against Mother,” she noted glumly.
“Mm. Well, I can’t tell you why, but I’m not all that surprized to find Ginny’s going into business instead of teaching or a university career,” he finished.
Meg jumped slightly, she’d forgotten what the point of the conversation was. “No,” she said lamely: “I see.”
They drew up by Bob and June’s new front path and John said, concealing a smile in the beard: “So all bets are off’?”
“What? Oh! Ginny! Um, yeah,” said Meg with a foolish grin. “They better be, eh?”
John nodded and was about to open his door but she suddenly gripped his arm fiercely and said pleadingly: “John—”
“Yes, Meg?”
Meg swallowed. “It—it couldn’t have been that old David Shapiro all along, could it?”
John scratched the beard. “The thought had occurred,” he admitted. “If so, I would doubt very much that either of them will allow anything specifically sexual to develop.”
“But— Oh,” said Meg slowly. “Either of them. I see.”
John sniffed slightly. “Mm.”
“She—she certainly doesn’t seem to be interested in very young men,” she admitted.
“No. She finds them callow.”
“Mm.”
After a moment John said: “If you’ve begun to wonder about the relationship she didn’t have with Ralph Overdale, perhaps I should say that I’ve been wondering quite a lot about that, off and on.”
Meg nodded mutely.
“Tom maintains that Ginny did want to, you know, but it was only her—er—cultural brainwashing that kept her from leaping into bed with anyone as elderly as his brother. Though mind you, that seems to be Ralph’s own version, so God knows how accurate it might be!”
“Or prejudiced: yeah,” she said, nodding.
John just looked at her.
After a moment Meg said numbly: “Help. That—that’s really rather sad, isn’t it. John?”
“In many ways, yes, I think so. Don’t mention it to Darryl, though, will you? –It’s not that she doesn’t grasp my point.”
“Oh—no,” said Meg limply. “I won’t.”
“Come along,” he said, grinning.
“Oh—yes.” Meg got out slowly. “It is odd, you know, about the kids of the Nineties.”
John returned amiably: “Every generation doubtless appears odd and incomprehensible to its predecessor.”
“Mm... Ginny has got a stubborn streak. Hard-headed, I suppose is what I’m trying to say.”
“Yes.”
“Only I must admit, when we first met the pair of them I’d never have dreamed that that’s what she’d be doing, three years down the track!”
John took her arm gently. “No,” he said kindly.
“What do these kids envisage for themselves?” said Meg on a cross note. “How’s she imagine she’s gonna cope if she starts a baby in the middle of this glorious career of hers and it turns out to be twins?”
John didn’t smile. He replied seriously: “A lot will depend on the father, obviously. She may find a fellow who’s willing to be a house-husband.’
“Ye-es... Theoretically that sounds a great idea, but in practice those types are always such wet doormats, John!”
At this John did smile. “Mm. I can’t see Ginny settling down with a wet doormat, either.”
“Oh, well,” said Meg with a sigh. “Wait and see.”
June had just opened the front door. “Wait and see what?”
“Um—nothing. Your phone seems to be off the hook,” said Meg limply.
“Dratted Mason,” discerned June.
“Your house smells wonderful, June!” smiled John.
“Um—yes, we’ve been baking. Hullo, John,” said June with a weak grin.
Connie appeared at June’s side. “We made Sanna biscuits!”
“Yes. I’ve got these fancy cutters, only at Christmas, what with all the rush and shopping and everything, I never seem to get around to— Anyway, come in!” said June with a laugh.
They followed her into the warm front passage with its smell of Santa biscuits. Connie rushed ahead into the kitchen-workroom and June, murmuring about “last batch” also vanished.
John detained Meg for a moment. “This,” he said in a firm voice but with a definite twinkle in his eye: “is reality.”
“Eh? Oh!” she said with a laugh. “Well, it is for me, thank God!”
Next chapter:
https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-ever-rolling-stream.html
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