La Même Chose?

38

La Même Chose?

    “There’ll be lots of people there that you know, June,” said Jemima comfortingly.

    “Ralph, for instance?” suggested Tom airily. “And with any luck, Ginny Austin,” he noted airily.

    June gulped.

    “There was nothing in it, after all,” Bob reminded her.

    Tom sniggered. “No: definitely not! I tell ya what, Ralph’s peeved expression the night he got pissed and let it all out was a joy to behold!”

    June got up. “We’d better go, we’re supposed to be on our way into Puriri. Thanks for the coffee. Come on, Bob.”

    Bob got as far as the Overdales’ kitchen door before he said what to Tom, at least, it was clear he had come to say. “Look, whaddaya reckon this do of the Carranos’ is really gonna be like, Tom?”

    Tom replied with relish: “According to the host, what with Polly inviting not only the film crowd but half her varsity mates and half his business crowd as well, it’ll be a bloody disaster!”

    “We’re too early,” said Meg in a voice of doom, peering at the cars parked neatly at the side of the Carranos’ cream-paved sweep with their noses to the edge of the formal garden. And the glorious view of the Gulf.

    “Bullshit, there’s all those cars here!” said Bill robustly.

    “Only four.” Meg peered at the cars again. “That pale blue one’s a Rolls,” she said in a voice of doom.

    “Be Adam McIntyre’s. ’E’ll be wearing them pale blue silk py-jams like on TV that time,” predicted Bill happily. He leered at her. “All thin and slippery, so as ’is lady fans can get a good gander at the—”

    “Shut up!” gasped Meg, turning a fiery puce.

    “—legs,” finished Bill in a voice of mild surprize.

    Meg scowled, and bit her lip hard.

    “Go on, laugh: it won’t kill ya,” he noted.

    “Bill, we are too early,” she said weakly.

    “All right, we’ll sit here for a while. And you—look—all right! Okay?”

    Meg swallowed. After a moment she said in a small voice: “I wonder what she’ll be wearing.”

    Bill sighed. “If we don’t get out of the car, we’ll never know. Anyway, what did she say she’d be wearing?”

    Meg replied dully: “She was in a silly mood. She said she’d be wearing her Carmen Miranda outfit so as not to be outdone by what Sir Jacob considers fit for a tropical South Seas alfresco barbie.”

    “Did she call ’im Sir Jacob?” he asked keenly.

    “Yes,” said Meg dully.

    “She was in a silly mood, all right,” spotted Bill.

    “Wanna get OU-OUT!” wailed Connie.

    Meg smoothed her new dress nervously. “In a minute.” The dress was blue, and not silk, oddly enough. She twitched nervously at its low neck.

    “It is only possible to get a glimpse of the M. O’Connell equipment, Wee Meggums,” said Bill tiredly. “if one approaches the nose very closely to the bodice of the garment and pee-eers...”

    “Shut up!” said Meg crossly, throwing her door open. “And come ON!”

    Bill got out slowly, muttering to himself: “That worked, but was it worth it?”

    “Wanna get OU-OUT!” wailed Connie.

    Bill wrenched her out, warning her most unfairly that she’d better bloody behave. Or Else.

    “Gonna see Nanny!” she responded happily.

    “See ’er? We’ll sell ya to ’er, if ya like,” he muttered morosely.

     Connie raced up to the giant front door, ignoring him totally.

    Sir Jacob himself opened the door to them, with the remark: “What the fuck were ya doin’, sittin’ out there on the sweep?” He didn’t wait for an answer but continued breezily: “You look great, Meg! New dress, eh?”

    Bill looked at him limply as he then picked Connie up and gave her a smacking kiss, informing her that she looked great. too. There you were, then. Or words to that effect.

    The mystery of what had been variously described as the Antipodes’ answer to Xavier Cugat or what Sir Jacob considered fit for a tropical South Seas alfresco barbie was finally solved when Keith Nicholls, having at first got lost, they’d changed things around and drinks weren’t being served in the family-room after all, joined up with Bruce Smith and they fought their way together to the bar.

    Sir Jacob was glowing in a white tux, pink bowtie and white cummerbund, with a shirt of floral silk, mixed blues and turquoises, pinks and puce above the immaculate dress trou’. Ribboned seams, an’ all. The buttonhole was one turquoise carnation. Chaste. Xavier would have loved it.

    Rapidly Sir Jacob added a chopped banana and a tin of coconut cream to the unspeakable green mixture in his blender. Rapidly he whirred it into an unspeakable green froth.

    “Don’t drink that,” warned a deep voice as a brimming tumblerful of the unspeakable result was forced into Bruce Smith’s palsied fist.

    “I wasn’t going to!” Puriri’s most popular GP assured the famous overseas film director Derry Dawlish fervently. He looked at the great man with pathetic gratitude as he walked behind the bar and chucked the mess into the sink.

    “We’ll be late,” warned Jim glumly. “It was a mistake to take the coast road home.”

    “Shut up!” gasped Laura, struggling frantically into her new up-market sarong. “Taking your bloody cousin up to the bach this afternoon was the mistake! I told you the roads’d be chocker coming home! –Do me UP!” she shouted.

    Sighing, Jim hauled himself off the bed and zipped her up.

    “Look,” began Laura grimly, “we don’t know who else they might have invited, and I know Polly said it was okay to bring Corrie and a partner, but— OW!” she shrieked as Jim poked at a piece of her that was bulging over the top of the new sarong, just where the armpit met the back.

    “Sorry: I was only—”

    “He’s your cousin: get out there and see if he’s ready,” she said grimly. “And make sure he isn’t wearing jeans.”

    Jim might have been going to reply, only the phone rang. “That’ll be her, wondering why the fuck we haven’t collected her yet,” he noted.

    “Yes. And in case you’ve forgotten,” said Laura pointedly: “when you invited her she said: ‘Corrie? Is that a name, or is this person an Australian?’”

    “Yes, but—”

    “Shut up and ANSWER THE PHONE!” screamed Laura.

   Jim mooched out to the passage. “Hullo?” he said morosely. “Yeah, hi, Phoebe, I thought it must be you.”

    “Help,” croaked Jemima as they emerged onto the patio with its now milling crowds of overdressed socialites, movie personalities and people they’d never laid eyes on before in their lives—three categories which weren’t mutually exclusive by any means.

    “Could turn tail and run?” suggested Tom kindly.

    “What would you have to talk to Isabel about at playtime next week, though, Tom?” she said meanly.

    “Fancy a weak rum and pineapple?” he replied kindly.

    “Um… Ooh, no: I know! One of those lovely things you made me the other day!”

    Rolling his eyes only very slightly, Tom led Jemima Puddle-Duck off to the bar and informed Sir Jacob that she’d like a cherry brandy frappé. Au lait. And if he only had Cherry Heering to put in it instead of Mission Brothers’ Muck, Jemima probably wouldn’t mind. And if he felt that the blender would never be the same again after it, he was probably right, but that (very bland) was what he got for letting his wife invite nursing mothers to her up-market barbies, wasn’t it?

    Sir Jacob made a slight gesture in the direction of wrenching his eyes off Jemima’s mammary equipment and assured her she could have anything at all. Tom was quite sure he meant it.

    The mystery of what their hostess had meant when she’d said vaguely: “Oh, something Carmen Miranda-ish, if you like,” to Hugh’s enquiry as to what they should wear was speedily solved by Polly’s meeting them at the door in person.

    “It’s very Carmen Miranda-ish indeed, Polly,” he said, trying not to laugh.

    Polly did a sort of Spanish pirouette—Spanish-American, it would be. The dress was certainly very Carmen Miranda-ish, but Hugh, who lately had been taking an intense interest in such matters, perceived that it was pretty With-It, even so. The tight black strapless bodice was ruched cotton-jersey: it reached to about a third of the way down her thighs. Revealing every curve of the perfect pear-shaped bum, natch. The long skirt was a froth of silk frills in bright lime, shocking-pink, glowing turquoise, and hot orange. Slit all the way up over the right leg. Which wasn’t that bad, actually. The upper-arms were adorned with frills in the same bright silks. You couldn’t have called ’em sleeves: they weren’t joined on to anything. Her shiny brown curls were piled up very high and perched on them she had a very small straw Mexican hat, quite half of it hidden by bright silk bows and feathers and bunches of artificial fruit. Hugh took a second look. No, by Gum, the grapes were real!

    “Jake insisted on getting himself up like the Antipodes’ answer to Xavier Cugat, so I warned him I’d go one better!” she said, laughing. “The grapes were his idea,” she added.

    Mm-hm, thought Hugh.

    Meg’s fingers met in the flesh of Bill’s forearm.

    “Ow!” he gasped. “Will ya stop doing that!”

    “I know all the other little boys are playing in their little peer group,” said Meg evilly; “but that doesn’t mean you have to join them!”

    “Ow-ooh,” he moaned. “Look, just because you’re the only one not got up like flaming Carmen Miranda, why take it out on me?”

    “I’m not. And I’m too short for that sort of gear,” said Meg grimly. “Just behave; someone has to drive us home tonight!”

    “Eh?”

    Meg replied clearly; “We are not staying the night this time, because you are not going to disgrace yourself this time by getting pissed out of your infinitesimal mind and getting locked in Jake’s flaming sauna!”

    “I don’t see why not,” said an amused contralto from behind them.

    Meg leapt, and shrieked.

    “Sorry,” said Polly with manifest untruth. “There’ll be some food soon, Meg. And of course you can stay the night.”

    “Life-saver!” said Bill deeply.

    “Mm; now you can join the macho play group,” said Polly drily.

    Bill gulped.

    “I’ve warned Jake, mind you,” she added.

    “Uh—yeah,” he muttered.

    “Well, if he gets too pissed he won’t be fit for dancing!” said Polly cheerfully.

    “Who with? Carmen Miranda?” suggested Meg on a sour note.

    Ignoring her, Bill noted dreamily: “We could dance now, Carmen.”

    “So we could!” agreed Polly cordially.

    Meg began: “That isn’t dance—” But Bill had plastered Polly to his manly bazoom and swayed away down the pool edge with her.

    “—music,” said Meg limply. “Oh, well.” She staggered over to a small cane sofa and collapsed onto it. It was a strategically placed small cane sofa, dead opposite the spot on the cream marble terrace where the famous film star Adam McIntyre was standing. Even though he wasn’t wearing tights, or even pale blue silk py-jams, Meg just sat there, drinking him in. Six-foot-two, eyes of blue. What with that and not having to drive home or keep Bill off the grog—! Paradise.

    “Am I the last?” asked Ralph in horror as the Carrano mansion’s huge front door swung open to a blare of chatter.

    “No, but you’re certainly one of the most beautiful,” returned Polly cordially. “Come on in.”

    He came in, awarded Polly a smacking kiss on the cheek, and wandered over to inspect a little occasional table. Art nouveau? Mm. Not ash, he rather thought. Willow? “Curiously straight-grained,” he murmured as Polly came up to his elbow.

    “Unlike some,” she noted.

    “Thanks,” leered Ralph. “Do you really like it?” He struck a pose.

    Her shoulders quivered. “I adore every stitch of it, Ralph! Where in God’s name did you get it all?”

    “Where shall I start?”

    “The fluorescent lime trou’?”

    “Velly fine Hong Kong silk. Hand-made. Note the fashionable draping, the myriad little pleats at the waist, and the buttons,” he ended deeply.

    Polly peered at his fly. “God, yes!”

    Ralph shook all over. “I never—dreamed—of getting—that reaction—from your delightful self!” he gasped.

    “Clot,” she said mildly. “How long have you had them, or don’t I dare ask?”

    “They’re fairly new. Last trip—er—when was it? Shortly after one had been dumped by the delightful Miss Fothergill.” He looked wry. “Consolation prize.”

    “Mm. What about the Hawaiian shirt?”

    “Isn’t it lovely?” he said eagerly. “Doesn’t it clash horribly with the trou’? Hugh brought it back for me: it is genuinely Hawaiian. He was sure I’d never have the guts to wear it, the silly wanker.”

    Since the shirt featured a royal blue background with large hibiscus blooms in not only the expectable pink, yellow and scarlet, but also a rich chocolate brown, Polly wasn’t surprized. “I love it,” she said firmly. “Especially with that white dress waistcoat open over it. All you need’s the green eyeshade and the cue, really. You’ve already got the shoes.”

    As the two-tone shoes were really the jewel in the crown of his ’orrible Latino-Hawaiian outfit, Ralph conceded: “The mistress of the throwaway line.”

    “Are they giving you agony?” said Polly weakly.

    Ralph held out one elegant foot. Tan and white, they were. Smothered in tiny little punched holes, and delicately scalloped where white met tan: the genuine article.

    “No: terrifically comfortable. They belonged to my father as a young man: he fancied himself a real masher in them, some time in the early Thirties. God knows why he kept them: sentimental reasons, possibly. Tom had them for some bloody school play when he was about seventeen, and then I salvaged them. Couldn’t help meself. They fit like a glove. To buy a pair of shoes these days as comfortable and well made as these—!” He shrugged.

    “Pity there aren’t more places you’d dare to wear them to,” she noted.

    “Absolutely,” agreed Ralph calmly. “May I have one of these roses?”

    “Mm? Oh, help yourself!” said Polly with a smile.

    Ralph broke off a pink rosebud from the large mixed bunch in a fat Victorian vase and—to Polly’s secret annoyance—produced a pin from the fob pocket of his waistcoat and attached it to the waistcoat’s breast. “This vase should swear at this lovely little table: why doesn’t it?” he murmured.

    “Something to do with pyramids and lines of influence?”

    “Possibly,” he croaked. “Aw, go on, tell: is it willow?”

    “What? Yes,” said Polly weakly, “I believe it is. Surely you didn’t think the entire conversation we’ve just had was a diversionary tactic designed to— You did!” she choked, going into a helpless paroxysm.

    Ralph watched sourly as the divine Lady C tottered round her gracious front hall clutching onto balusters and pillars and things and laughing herself silly.

    “All right, I’m a self-conscious idiot,” he said crossly.

    “I’ll—say!” she whooped.

    “I really thought you were forcing me into admitting my ignorance— Go on, laugh.”

    “Sorry!” she gasped.

    Ralph eyed her cautiously. “You really weren’t, were you?”

    “No!” cried Polly indignantly. “I don’t pull the wings off flies, either!”

    He smiled slowly. “No, I don’t believe you do.” He kissed her cheek lightly.

    “What was that for?” she said suspiciously.

    “For being both enormously attractive and enormously intelligent without lapsing into spite, I think,” he admitted.

    “Um—thanks,” she said dubiously. “I’m enormously rich, too: I sometimes wonder if that has something to do with it.”

    “Er—makes life cushy for you?”

    “Mm.”

    “Does it?”

    “As far as material worries go, certainly.”

    “Not in other things?” he said softly.

    “No.” Polly gave a little sigh. “Every time I see Meg’s twins I—I can’t help wondering if Jake’ll live to see our twins reach that age.”

    Ralph came up very close. “Is he all right?” he asked simply.

    Polly nodded. “Yes. Very fit.”

    “Mm.” He put his arm lightly round her. “That has always struck me as the thing that would give one pause over starting a family when you’re over fifty.”

    “Yes,” she agreed with a sigh.

    “I’m damned sure I couldn’t do it,” said Ralph slowly. “Hugh’s thinking of it, I know. But it seems to me... Well, I’m several years older now than Jake was when he married you, of course.” He hesitated.

    “It’s all right,” said Polly, looking up into his face. “Say it.”

    “It seems to me,” said Ralph slowly, “both pointless and improvident.”

    “Pointless and— I see. Taking no thought for the morrow, like the cigale and the fourmis?”

    “Yes.”

    “Mm. I think I agree with you,” she said. “But he sees it as giving meaning to life.”

    Ralph evinced no surprize at either of these remarks. “Mm,” he said, hugging her shoulders gently.

    “This music’s aw-ful!” complained Vicki. “What is it?”

    “Dunno,” replied Scott Duguid simply.

    “Come on, let’s put on something decent: we can dance!” she urged.

    “Isn’t a bit early for dancing?” said Scott uneasily. “No-one else is.”

    “Well, why else have they got the rugs rolled back in here?” said Vicki, glaring round the family-room.

    “All right: if you reckon ya can find anything to dance to...”

    “They’ve got The Beatles,” reported Vicki dubiously after some time. “Help: they’ve got The Rocky Horror Show.”

    “Great!” said Scott eagerly.

    “Here,” she replied, shoving the album at him.

    Scott had naturally assumed she was going to do the fell deed herself. His jaw sagged. “Um—well—do ya think we oughta, really, Vick?” he said in a weak voice.

    Vicki rolled her eyes. “Give it here!” He watched weakly as she wrenched off Jake’s genuine Xavier Cugat.

    “Come on, Scott!”

    Meekly Scott began to dance to The Time Warp in the middle of Sir Jacob’s family-room in the middle of Sir Jacob’s Latino-South Seas barbie.

    The sun was sinking and Sir Jacob had dragged himself away from the bar in order to supervise the barbecue. Or rather, barbecues, plural: there was a huge array of hardware, all smoking like fury, set out at the far end of the pool. Bob Butler, his eyes on stalks, had discovered there was an actual sucking pig: Jake was now demonstrating the technique with the rum...

    “That light’s blinking,” noticed Jake, as his pig sizzled.

    Polly turned over a sausage.

    He slapped her hand. “That LIGHT’S blinking! –And leave them, they’re not ready!”

    “What? Oh, you mean that stupid light you and Bob Grey rigged up to show when the door-bell goes, not those strings of lights you and Bob rigged up that aren’t actually meant to blink but do?”

    At Jake’s elbow Bob Butler cringed: sounded just like one of those barneys that went on down at Number 9 Blossom Av’ round about the week before Christmas.

    “Answer the DOOR!” shouted Sir Jacob.

    “All right, but these burnt offerings—”

    “Answer the DOOR!”

    “—are done, in case your Latino-South Seas Barbecue-chef-ship hasn’t noticed. Come on, Bob, there’s real food in the kitchen, we’ll make a detour on the way back and you can help me bring some out.”

    Meekly Bob, not without a shrinking glance at the chief barbecue-chef, laid down his official helper’s official barbecue fork and followed her. As they went Sir Jacob reached out a large paw and wrenched Polly’s unofficial barbecue fork off her. He then detained her briefly while he picked a grape off her headdress with the hand that had just taken the barbecue fork off her and patted her bum with the hand that had just laid down his own official barbecue fork, so Bob concluded there hadn’t after all been anything in it.

    “Wow,” said Sol simply as the huge Carrano front door opened.

    “Gracias!” returned Polly with a laugh. She whirled away from the door and performed a Spanish-American pirouette.

    “Olé,” said Euan reverently, following Sol in.

    “Thank you, Euan. Ooh, is this for me?” she squeaked as he then bowed and handed her a mysterious package, loosely swathed in florist’s paper.

    “Yeah: couldn’t manage a white tux,” he said with a wink, “so this is instead.”

    “I see you managed one,” said Bob numbly to Sol.

    “Sure: it’s my one and only. Wore it to dinner at Phoebe’s onct,” he said reminiscently. “Boy, did that go over like a lead balloon. Wal, she tole me to wear a dinner jacket and after I’d gotten out my Baedeker and found the translation”—one or two people present choked—“I wore it.”

    “Yeah,” said Bob numbly. “I hope ya didn’t wear those with it.”

    “No! I was on my best behaviour! Jeez, you Kiwis sure are slow on the uptake!”

    Euan slung a comradely arm across Sol’s shoulders. “I told him to wear those: they’re new. With-it, ya see. The In Thing.”

    Sol was wearing stone-washed jeans with the tux.

    “Yes,” said Polly with a smile: “There’s a couple of young varsity students here tonight in identical gear.”

    Bob had a terrific choking fit. Euan and Sol merely grinned.

    “These are wonderful: thank you, Euan,” added Polly in a strange voice.

    Bob peered into the wreaths of florist’s paper. He promptly had another choking fit.

    There was a mirror—amongst other things—on the kauri wall panels of the hall. Polly went over to it and after some adjustments and with much use of hat-pins, carefully added Euan’s hand of lady-finger bananas tied up with a bright green bow and a scarlet hibiscus to the adornments on her hat.

    “I reckon—that rates—a grape!” choked Bob.

    “Yes,” said Polly pleasedly. “So it does.” She went up to the grinning Euan, put a hand on each of his shoulders and, bending her head with some care, said graciously, though in the voice of one with her chin jammed into her neck: “Pray help yourself.”

    “No hands,” warned Bob.

    “Uh-huh,” concurred Sol.

    Sniggering, Euan helped himself to a grape from Lady Carrano’s hat—no hands. At least two of those present were old enough and still sober enough to reflect that the fact that the kid was bloody good-looking, in a broad-shouldered, fair-haired, blue-eyed, matte-tanned way, probably wasn’t actually hindering things.

    “Hullo,” said Laura weakly to the spectacle of Sir Jacob at the front door in Latino-South Seas gear.

    “Gidday!” Jake returned, beaming. “Come on in!”

    They came on in. As far as Laura could tell he hadn’t blenched at the sight of Phoebe, though of course with all those Boards and Big Business meetings and stuff he must be pretty used to covering up his true feelings.

    “Do you play poker, Jake?” asked Jim mildly.

    “Yeah; might have a hand later, eh? See how it goes,” he returned with complete affability.

    “I’m sorry we’re so late,” croaked Laura, determinedly not meeting her helpmeet’s eye but making a mental vow that she was gonna kill him—kill him, the bloody wanker!

    “Thass okay, haven’t really got going yet!” Jake returned breezily. “Hullo, Phoebe, nice to see you again.”

    “Hullo, Jake: how are you?” replied Phoebe composedly.

    Jim then recollected they had his cousin with them, and introduced him. Fortunately Corrie didn’t seem to notice the lapse: he was even more easy-going than Jake Carrano, in fact when you came right down to it he was about as easy-going as Sol Winkelmann. And he was, indeed, Australian. Neither of these facts appeared to have endeared him immediately to Phoebe.

    Of course, when they got out to the patio the first person they saw was Sol Winkelmann and the second person they saw was Ralph Overdale but by now that was precisely what Laura had expected and in fact only a wanker would not have expected it. And she was definitely gonna kill him.

    Bruce Smith set his plate down and held out his arms.

    June gulped down the remains of her savoury and allowed herself to be swept off to the tune of A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation. After a few moments Bruce pointed out proudly he was wearing that and June replied, with a loud giggle, that she’d noticed, actually.

    “That’s more like it!” said Sir Jacob happily as the strains of A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation rang loud upon the evening air.

    His old friend Ken Armitage spooned juice resignedly over the pig, which still wasn’t done. “Go on, push off and dance, then.”

    “Who with?” he said sadly.

    “Carmen Miranda vanished, has she?” rejoined his old cobber.

    “She’s flirting with Bob Butler in the kitchen,” revealed Sir Jacob glumly.

    “Aw—him!”

    “Yeah,” admitted Jake with a grin. “—I told her it’d be a bloody disaster,” he noted.

    “Yeah. That is the Fothergill dame, eh?”

    “Yeah.”

    Ken sniffed slightly. “Thought so. Well, you’ve got bloody Overdale and the Yank. All it needs is Weintraub, now.”

    “You said it!”

    “Like this?” asked Ariadne Nicholls with a giggle.

    “Lessee.” Bill Coggins inspected Ariadne’s wrapping of her trout in foil. “Nah! Too feminine! Like this!” Solemnly he unwrapped it and wrapped it up again.

    “I see,” she said seriously, nodding. She unwrapped it and wrapped it up again.

    “Very good,” approved Bill, refilling her glass.

    “Shall I put it on the barbie now?” asked Ariadne eagerly.

    “Cer’nly not, that is norra Woman’s task,” said Bill sternly.

    “Silly!” shrieked Ariadne as he laid the foil-wrapped trout carefully on the barbie.

    Bill picked up the bottle again. “Woman’s task,” he said sternly: “is to imbi’ sufficient o’ this, and then lemme clush ’er to me manly bazoom in the waltz.”

    Ariadne gave another shriek.

    On the far side of the patio pool Keith Nicholls warned: “I’m not looking.”

    “I wouldn’t,” agreed Hugh mildly.

    “We did think Bill might be here,” Roberta admitted.

    “And did you think you might need to give me a hand to haul your mother home?” her father asked sourly.

    Collapsing in giggles, she gasped: “Yes! ’Course!”

    Grinning, Hugh put his arm round her. “Yes, ’course,” he agreed happily.

    Meanwhile Phyllis, Lady Harding, had pounced on the famous film star Adam McIntyre and was gushing at him between a large potted banana palm and the funerary white marble angel which featured amongst all the greenery on Polly’s patio. The star had his back jammed against the angel’s pedestal and a politely anguished expression on his handsome face and it would have been true to say that his male ill-wishers, of whom more than one was present this evening, were not entirely cast down by the whole bit.

    “Hi, Phoebe,” said Meg in a very weak voice.

    “Hullo, Meg,” replied Phoebe neutrally. “No Hawaiian flambeaux tonight, I see?”

    “No. Oh—no!” she gasped. “Um—it’s sort of South American this time, I think!”

    “Sort of something,” agreed Laura.

    “The grog’s sort of a bit of all right, though,” noted Jim. He had a large frosted something in his fist. Greenish. Heavily decorated with mint leaves and bits of pineapple and slices of orange and lime. No-one was volunteering to ask him what it was because they all knew that he was burning to be asked. And that the answer would be extremely silly.

    Laura took a deep breath. “Meg, this is Jim’s cousin Corrie,” she said loudly.

    “Hullo,” said Meg weakly, looking up at six-foot-four of tanned hunk, in those whitish Australian-type pants and those Australian-type boots and around Phoebe’s age, and wondering why in God’s name Phoebe wasn’t in a better mood—in fact, why she wasn’t in the good mood to end all good moods. “Um—where are you from, Corrie?” –She was afraid this sounded a bit too abrupt, or in fact downright rude, but Corrie didn’t seem to mind.

    Phoebe eyed her sardonically. She could have told her, in the wake of the Tasmanian trip, not to say several previous trips, that on the other side of the Tasman normal conversation with those to whom one had just been introduced consisted solely of a string of questions, the more personal the better. Admittedly it wasn’t all that much different on this side of the Tasman, true. Sure enough, Corrie plunged into an exact description of where his place was. Meg had never heard of Coonawarra but she managed not to let it show. Well, not to Corrie.

    “Is this fish?” said Michaela doubtfully.

    “Trout!” explained Bill Coggins breezily.

    “Yeah. Thank God we weren’t too late for it!” added Bill Michaels fervently. –After the initial staggering to the oasis in search of life-saving liquid Professor Michaels had headed straight for the macho peer group at the array of smoking barbecues. Angie Michaels, it would have been true to say, hadn’t been sorry to see him go. She’d joined Laura, who was sitting on a sofa with a bottle of rum gazing at the view of Adam McIntyre in a white tux, and started helping her.

    “Um—is it done?” asked Michaela.

    “Dunno!” explained Bill Coggins breezily. At his right elbow, Ariadne gave a loud giggle. At his left elbow, Bill Michaels sniggered.

    Michaela looked helplessly at the foil-wrapped bodies on the barbecue.

    Euan came up beside her. He ignored the peer group, and said kindly: “I’ll test them for you, Michaela.” He tested several, found one that was just right, ignored the Coggins pained cry of: “Oy! That was my one!” and put it on Michaela’s plate. He grabbed another one for himself and led her away.

    “I dunno about you,” he said in a thoughtful voice as they ate, “but I came for the nosh.”

    Michaela looked at him gratefully. “So did I,” she admitted.

    “Never been to one of their big parties before. Are they always this foul?”

    Michaela thought it over. “Yes, I think so. Well, I’ve only been to a couple. They were awful. But Polly doesn’t mind if you leave early.”

    “Good,” he said simply. He shovelled in food hungrily, not betraying by even a glance that he was wondering angrily why the fuck Sol had come, if it wasn’t to see Michaela. Not to say bloody well look after her. Possibly to cause all who knew him a swingeing embarrassment? Well, that was the flaming result of it, the flaming nana, whether or not it had been his intention.

    The strings of little coloured lights twinkled cheerfully, Xavier Cugat tinkled in the background, and the guests were now mellowed by food. Well, some of them were.

    “Hullo, Sol,” said Phoebe unemotionally.

    “Hi, Phoebe, how are you?” replied Sol limply.

    “Fine, thanks; how are you? How’s the store?”

    “Oh, just fine,” he said limply.

    Phoebe let a short pause occur. “Oh, of course, it’s Akiko, isn’t it? How nice to see you again,” she said calmly.

    “Hullo, Phoebe! Ver-ree nice to-ah see you, too!” she gasped.

    Phoebe looked hard at the small Japanese form clad in a luridly bright green satin Spanish-American garment complete with huge sleeves of combined frills and puffs plus, if she was not mistaken, shoulder pads as well. “What a pretty dress. Latin-American, is it?”

    “Yes! Polly say is for ur-joke!” she gasped.

    “I see,” she said, smiling nicely. “—The psittacine touch is authentic,” she noted to Sol.

    “Yeah, I was admiring them parrot earrings, too,” he said immediately. “Polly lent them you, huh, Akiko?”

    “Yes! She say Jake is buy-ah in Sydernee for ur-joke!” she gasped.

    “Yes, very amusing,” said Phoebe. “—I’d advise against the pav,” she added to Sol, passing on.

    In her wake there was a short silence.

    Finally Akiko said in a very small voice: “She is-ah still-ah mad.”

    Sol gave a very faint sniff.

    “No?” she said dubiously.

    “Wal, mad as fire that no-one told her to get herself up like Carmen Miranda tonight, yeah.”

    Another short silence.

    “But she is ah-come with ver-ree nice man!” said Akiko, reverting relentlessly to the real point at issue.

    “Uh—yeah.”

    Akiko looked at him anxiously.

    “Forget it. –Say, now, sounds as if Vicki’s putting on some more dance music, there: why don’t you go ask Euan to dance, huh? Cheer him up a mite?”

    “He is-ah sad because Ginny is-ah not-ah come.”

    “Ye-ah, well... Maybe. Or because Vicki dumped him— No?” he said, as she shook the parrot earrings hard.

    “No, that is nev-ah serious!”

    “Oh. Well, anyroad, where is he?”

    “I do not-ah see him.”

    “Me neither,” he admitted.

    “You and me could-ah dance-uh, Sol!”

    If it had only been the Latin-American crack and the “Oh, it’s Akiko” crack and the pavlova crack he might not have taken pity on the kid. But somehow that goddamn “psittacine” crack had made him see red. Maybe because they were both strangers in a strange land? Wal, call it fellow-feeling, anyroad. “Yeah, why not?” he agreed.

    The strings of little coloured lights twinkled cheerfully, and music that most of those present didn’t recognise as genuine Forties swing played in the background. Adam McIntyre had finally managed to escape the gushing Phyllis, Lady Harding. Out on the poolside terrace the famous film star looked round in vain for his pretty auburn-haired girlfriend.

    “Bloody Ralph Overdale’s kidnapped her,” boomed a familiar bass from behind him.

    Jumping, he gasped: “What?”

    “Overdale,” elaborated Derry Dawlish sourly. “Dragged Georgy off for a dance.”

    Adam gave the famous director a very sour look. “Why the Hell didn’t you stop him, Derry?”

    “Why didn’t you?” he returned smoothly.

    “Because that bloody woman that looks like a mad parrot had buttonholed me again!” he hissed angrily.

    At this, alas, instead of commiserating with his star, the great director shook all over his considerable bulk for some time.

    “Hey, Polly; need a hand?” said a mild American voice.

    Polly raised a flushed face from the stove. “Only from those who can make real coffee!” she admitted with a laugh.

    “Uh-huh.” Sol inspected the array of coffee-pots on the bench. He unscrewed one competently.

    “Thank God: you do know what you’re doing!” said Polly with a laugh.

    “Yep,” he allowed. “I guess you’ve forgotten, like with this real toney socializin’ high life of yours,” he said, looking at her mournfully, “but the very first time we met, we agreed we both knew how to make coffee. You said you learned it in France,” he recalled.

    “Mm. And you said something about not your mother’s knee but several other joints, which at the time,” said Polly coldly, trying not to laugh, “I foolishly failed to take as due warning.”

    Sol sniggered slightly. “Uh-huh. Say, you got anything approachin’ a coffee grinder?”

    “No: Sir Jacob’s automated that,” she said sadly. “Here.”

    “Shit; I ain’t never worked one o’ these.”

    “That’s a lie, Phoebe’s got one that’s almost as up-market,” said Polly calmly.

    “Uh-huh. –Say, we are talkin’ about coffee grinders, are we?” he added in alarm.

    Taken unawares, Polly gave a shriek and collapsed in muffled hysterics.

    Sol grinned. “Seeing as how I managed to do that, do I get a grape?”

    “Stop it!” she gulped, shaking. She tore the hat off. “It’s driving me potty, actually: these bananas of Euan’s seem to get heavier with every passing second.”

    “Uh-huh. Even minus that one your little girl ate.”

    “Did you see that?” said Polly weakly.

    Sol’s shoulders shook. “Mm-hm.”

    “Classic, I thought,” said Polly detachedly.

    “Mm-hm.”

    Smiling, she said: “Just grind up enough to fill each container.”

    “Sure, I can manage that, I guess,” he said amiably. He began to grind vast quantities of coffee, pausing only to say: “I didn’t have the heart to tell the kid about the exponentially increasing weight of bananas on the hat on a semi-tropical night.”

    “No,” said Polly, smiling at him. “It was a lovely idea. And lady-finger bananas! Where on earth did he find them? I’ve only seen them in Queensland and Fiji!”

    Sol ground coffee for a bit. “Well,” he finally said with a twisted little smile: “if you promise you won’t let on you know?”—Polly nodded.—“He got up around four a.m. three mornings running, so’s he could drive into the city markets—the wholesale markets, I guess—because he thought that’d be the only place he might find ’em.”

    She swallowed.

    “You better not go on back out there without that hat on,” he recommended.

    “No. Well, I wasn’t going to.”

    “No,” he said with a little smile. He watched as she began to put coffee-pots on the stove. “The kid was real thrilled that you’d bothered to ask him, now that Vicki’s dumped him.”

    “Stupid little—” She bit her lip, and broke off. “Well, she is,” she said weakly.

    “Yeah, sure: I’d say he was worth several of her, huh?”—Polly nodded silently.—”She’d have driven him crazy out of his skull with boredom after less than a year of marriage, if they had gone on with it,” he said conversationally. “There’s considerable more to Euan than meets the eye. Guess I wouldn’t have encouraged him to go on with the boatyard thing, else. No matter how good a worker he was,” he admitted with a wry grin.

    “Abe would be shocked!” said Polly with a gurgle.

    “Sure, sure,” he agreed: “goes against the capitalist grain to choose your staff because you can stand their company for more’n about five minutes without havin’ a fit of the screaming meemies, huh?”

    The watched pots, of course, were doing nothing. After a while Polly said in a small voice: “Sol, if I—if I ask you something that’s none of my business, will you promise not to be offended?”

    “Wal, a promise like that might be difficult to keep, however willin’ the spirit was,” he drawled. “I’ll just say this: anything you want to ask, ask.”

    She bit her lip. “Really?”

    “Really. I guess we’re two adults who like each other, Polly. Ask me anything.”

    “Well, I was wondering why you—you’ve been ignoring Michaela all evening.”

    Sol hesitated. Finally he said: “I did say ‘Hi’ when I got here—well, after I found her, y’know? Which wasn’t that easy: she sure can hide herself away but good.”

    Polly sighed. “Yes. Um—well, since then?”

    He shrugged slightly. “Since then, I guess Phoebe turned up with Laura and Jim.”

    “I didn’t invite her!” she said desperately, turning scarlet. “I would never— Jim rang up and said they’d been landed with his Australian cousin—his family must be like mine: the man just turned up on their doorstep—and would it be all right to bring him, and of course I said yes, and a partner—”

    “Yeah, sure. I realised that, Polly,” he said mildly.

    She gulped. “Truly?”

    “Yeah. But—well—I guess it would be embarrassing for Phoebe to see me with Michaela: it hasn’t been that long, has it? And even more embarrassing for Michaela.”

    Polly’s jaw sagged. “You—you can’t really have thought that? That Michaela would be embarrassed to—to be seen with you in front of Phoebe?”

    “Wal, sure,” he said, staring at her. “And not only that. She’s so shy an’ all: and it ain’t as if—well, she thinks of me as just a friend, I guess.”

    “My God,” gulped Polly, suddenly sitting down on a kitchen chair.

    Sol eyed her warily. “Gracie—that’s my mother—Gracie always did say I didn’t know beans about what made women tick, but—”

    “How could she possibly— I mean, even if Michaela was slightly embarrassed by the situation, Sol, she couldn’t possibly feel worse about being seen with you than about you ignoring her all evening!”

    Sol was rather flushed. “I haven’t been ignoring her, I thought I explained?”

    Polly groaned. “Well, you’ve been giving a pretty good imitation of it: at least five of Michaela’s supporters have come up and hissed angrily ‘Why’s he ignoring her?’”

    Sol stared glumly at his feet.

    After a moment she said kindly: “It’s not too late to rectify the matter.”

    “Should I feel it needs rectifyin’,” he noted. “Yeah. Only, do I?”

    Polly took a deep breath. “Although dramatically I always find a performance of Hamlet quite satisfying,”—Sol gulped—”I’ve always failed to find that hesitation stuff—‘To be or not to be’, y’know?” she said pointedly, “psychologically convincing. Only strangely enough,” she said grimly, “I’m beginning to change my mind.”

    Lamely he replied: “I guess I’ve always been like that. I guess it’s my besetting sin. Wal, Gracie would tell you it was. And Abe,” he added as an afterthought.

    She gave him a not unkindly look. “Mm.”

    “I suppose it’s because I can always see there’s more’n one side to every question,” he said glumly. “Well, more’n five, most times.”

    Polly twitched. “I’ve been accused of that,” she said in a hollow voice. “It’s not just questions, either, it’s seeing more than five sides to every motivation.”

    “Uh-huh. Can make for a sort of feeling of insecurity in your emotional life, don’t you find?” he said mildly.

    “You could say that. –Help!” She made a leap at the stove and rescued a coffee-pot or fifteen. “It sort of helps, being married to a very stable person,” she volunteered in a dubious voice.

    Sol didn’t remark on the “sort of” or the tone, he just said mildly: “I guess that might be the only thing that could.”

    “Yes. –See all those millions of coffee cups?”

    Sol nodded dumbly, he’d never seen so many little coffee cups: the kitchen table was covered in ’em.

    “They’re not ours,” she said, readin’ his mind without no trouble whatsoever: “they’re the caterer’s.”

    “Uh-huh. Bob said something about ‘a miserable dreep in an apron,’” he recalled. “Where is he?”

    “I sent him home, he had one crying jag too many,” she said grimly.

    “Sorry I asked. What you want me to do with all them cups?”

    “Put them on all them trays, with one coffee-pot per tray, and get on out there with them. And before you pass a remark, I know we do not have sufficient coffee-pots to provide coffee to all them cups,” she said sweetly; “we’re going to make the coffee in relays.”

    “Are you mad at me?” he asked plaintively.

    Polly sighed. “No. Just with life.”

    “Yeah. Well, If Michaela’s still here I’ll go talk nicely to her—okay?”

    “Don’t do it for me,” she warned through her teeth.

    Laughing, he said: “No, I sure won’t! I’m soft but I ain’t that soft!”

    “I’m glad to hear it. Though not entirely surprized. Abe once described you to Jake as ‘like one of them immoveable things that meet that dad-blamed force thing that cain’t budge it no-wise.’ Just after you’d turned down his idea of opening a chain of combined golfing-supplies stores and McDonald clones all up and down the country, I think it was.”

    “It woulda been,” he said, trying not to laugh.

    “Well, go on!”

    “Huh? Oh—sure.” He began setting little coffee cups on trays. “Cream and sugar?” he suggested timidly.

    “‘Milk and sugar,’” corrected Polly heavily. “You’re in Wonderland, now, you know.”

    “It sure does feel, times, like I fell down the rabbit hole,” he noted.

    “Mm. Well, I frequently feel like that, and I was born here,” she admitted.

    “Jeez, and here I been thinkin’ all this time it was the effect of early exposure in an unprepared state to that Laura and Jim in their Sergeant Pepper Flower-Power gear!” he said indignantly.

    Polly choked, and set a coffee-pot down hurriedly.

    “Boy, that sure was a sticky evening,” he said reminiscently, leaning on the edge of the table. “Before you arrived, of course,” he added politely. “Shoulda been warned, I guess.” He shrugged.

    “Rats,” said Polly crossly. “Your mind’s as good as Laura’s or Jim’s, any old day!”

    “Uh—thank you, Polly,” he said weakly.

    “And better than Phoebe’s,” said Polly, firmly but not as if it was a point particularly to be remarked upon. More like as if it was self-evident to all but the purblind, y’know? Sol gulped, that one was sure unexpected. Guessed he must be purblind.

    “She doesn’t actually like that, you know,” she added, eyeing him wryly.

    He rubbed a hand across his face. “I thought I’d thought of every conceivable reason for— Jesus, Polly, are you taking the Mick?”

    “No,” said Polly simply. “And while we’re on the subject, she isn’t the sort of person that can see more than five possible sides to every motivation. Or question.”

    “’Specially not before breakfast,” he agreed.

    Polly had to swallow. “You’d know,” she conceded weakly.

    “Yeah. Wal, I could see I was driving her crazy, but I never thought that might be one of the— No,” he finished lamely.

    “Well?” replied Polly, hefting a silver tray.

    “Huh? –Say, don’t you take that thing, Polly, it looks like it weighs near as much as the hat.”

    “Ooh, the hat!” gasped Polly, surrendering the tray and making a grab at the hat.

    When she had it on again Sol set the tray down. “Before I go on out there and embarrass Michaela half to death, there’s just one thing I’d like to say.”

    “What?” said Polly warily.

    He grinned. “Just thanks.”

    “Oh,” she said weakly. “You’re welcome. Only don’t blame me, you’re doing this of your own free—”

    “Yeah,” he said, grinning. “Stop seein’ fourteen sides to every question. Or motivation.” He put a hand very gently under her chin and remarking by the way: “Gee, this hat’s sure weighing you down some, all rightee,” put his lips very gently on hers. “Thanks,” he repeated with a sigh, releasing her.

    Polly hadn’t drawn away and she hadn’t tried to make the kiss any more than he’d meant it to be, just the merest touch of the lips. She smiled into his eyes and said: “Good luck, Sol. Someone as nice as you deserves to be happy.”

    Sol went very red and grinned sheepishly. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t have minded if he’d kissed her properly. But he wasn’t going to: for one thing there was that line, clear as daylight, that Sir Jake had drawn right acrosst his yellow vinyl kitchen floor, and for another, even though he’d gotten to know her a lot better than he’d ever dreamed he might, back there that first evening at Phoebe’s, he was under no illusion: she was still Not For Him.

    After the expected string of personal questions Corrie had asked Phoebe to dance. By this time she’d been quite expecting that he wouldn’t: he’d visibly blenched when she’d revealed she was a headmistress. Pathetic wanker.—Well, Jim’s side, of course.—However, she consented to dance, because that would possibly put a stop to the questions. Well, also because he was six-foot-four and a hunk, but Phoebe was under no illusion that anything might come of it: even though they were about the same age and in his own sphere he was presumably a competent human being who ran his bloody place near bloody Coonawarra competently (those pants, even though horribly Australian, were not cheap, and nor was that watch, which wasn’t Australian), he was quite evidently scared shitless of her.

    Sol had desperately sought Michaela for some time. She didn’t appear to be out on the patio, not even hidden amidst the forest of greenery just outside of the family-room, or in the family-room, or in the Florida room. He’d waited a bit, in case she’d been in the john at the time of searching, and then systematically combed the whole area again. But there was still no sign of her.

    He went through the tall wrought-iron gate in the railings that closed off the cloisters at the far end of the pool and out onto the west lawn. It sure was pretty: there was a crescent moon and lots of stars and only one or two discreet garden lights in amongst the shrubs so’s you wouldn’t fail over your feet. She wasn’t there. He skirted the house, crossed the front sweep, and went right round, past the formal garden. Two slim bodies that he didn’t recognize were kissing under the moon and the stars, but that was it. Shit. She must have gone home.

    He gave up and went back to the patio, where he sat down glumly on a cane chair. One of them peacock-tail-back ones, May-Beth Meyer from his apartment block back in Fort Lauderdale had one of them: sometimes he felt real to home here, y’know?

    Meanwhile, the unfortunate Adam McIntyre, having located his girlfriend in the arms of bloody Ralph Overdale on the dance floor, had been gleefully kidnapped by Phyllis Harding before he could so much as draw breath, let alone cut in. She was now simultaneously gyrating and gushing at him. He didn’t manage to look as if he was enjoying either the dance or the conversation. Famous actor or not.

    Michaela had, indeed, gone home. She’d stood it all quite well, really. It had helped that Euan had sat with her for quite a while. And Polly had come and talked quite sensibly for a while about pots, that had been all right. And then a lady in a pretty frock had talked to her about pots, too: Michaela couldn’t remember her name but she was a nice lady and had once bought a pot of hers that at the time had been one of the best she had ever done: grey with fawn bits, not a colour combination that she often used. Actually the lady’s dress was quite like the pot.

    When nice Margaret Prior had gone off to talk to someone else, Michaela had sat on quietly behind the sheltering greenery for some time. Not thinking, really. Though with a part of her mind she was wondering about going back to grey with fawn and with another part she was hoping that she wouldn’t have to talk to Hugh.

    After quite some time the fat man with the dark beard who was someone famous had come up to her and asked her about packing pots. Then he’d wanted to know where her kiln was. Not asking him why he wanted to know, Michaela had replied slowly: “You’d better ask Polly, I don’t think I can explain.”

    This had appeared to satisfy him: he’d gone away again. Michaela had sighed with relief, she didn’t like talking to strangers.

    Nothing else had happened after that for some time, and then nice young Barbara Michaels had brought her an extra helping of pavlova, explaining that there was masses left in the kitchen. Fortunately she hadn’t wanted to talk, and had gone away again. Michaela hadn’t registered that the very good-looking young man with Barbara had come with the film stars.

    She’d finished the pav and was thinking about going, when Jake had found her. He sat beside her without saying anything for a while. Then he said: “Derry Dawlish find you?”

    “Is that a fat man with a beard?”

    “Mm.”

    “Yes.”

    “Good. Get enough to eat?”

    “Yes; stacks, thanks,” said Michaela politely.

    “Good.”

    There was a musing silence.

    “I told her not to ask bloody Hugh Whatsisface and young Roberta Nicholls, if she was asking you, but she gets the bit between her teeth,” said Jake at last.

    “It’s all right, Jake,” said Michaela in a strangled voice.

    Jake perceived it wasn’t, really. Not that he’d thought it was. He patted her knee heavily.

    After some time Michaela said hoarsely: “Can I go?”

    “Eh? Oh, Hell, yes! –I’d go meself if I had anywhere to go to,” he muttered sourly. “Uh—yeah, sure, Michaela. You pop off. Uh—and listen,” he said, as she got up.

    She paused expectantly.

    Jake heaved himself up, grimacing. “I’ll tell Pol not to ask you to any of these bloody does where we have crowds of idiots over. You could just come along quietly and have tea when it’s just us, eh? Wouldja like that?”

    “Yes. Thanks.”

    He patted her shoulder. “That’s all right, sweetheart. Off you pop.”

    Michaela disappeared with a very relieved look on her face.

    Xavier Cugat was still indefatigably at it, but Phoebe had had more than enough of dancing with an Australian who interspersed bouts of personal questions with bouts of dead silence. True, he was not a bad dancer, but— And besides, she herself had run out of personal questions to ask him. So she’d escaped. She was in no doubt that he’d been pretty relieved to see her go.

    She’d lurked in a downstairs bog for a while, wondering if it was worth hanging round waiting for the Hayes-Fisher ménage to drag itself away from Jake Carrano’s booze, or if she’d do better to get a taxi home. Well... She could always have a swim in the meantime, she supposed without enthusiasm. It was pretty silly, after all, to come to an up-market patio party on Jake Carrano’s patio and not swim in yer actual patio pool. –Was that an actual dolphin mosaic they had in the middle of it? At the back of her mind lurked the thought, only half-acknowledged, that she’d look bloody silly turning up at School on Monday with no explanation with which to counter Yvonne’s interrogation as to why she hadn’t swum in the pa-ti-o pool... Further to the forefront of her mind was the thought: Why the Hell did bloody Meg have to be here? Which was pretty unfair, really, Meg was a decent sort...

    Phoebe returned to the patio, but lurked behind a screen of greenery with a whisky in her fist. After some time she became aware that a slim American figure had emerged from a neighbouring clump of greenery and was hesitating.

    “Sit down, I don’t bite,” she said with a sigh.

    Sol sat down beside her looking nervous. Another wanker, thought Phoebe grimly, why in God’s name does every male I meet turn out to be a feebleized wanker of the first order?

    He didn’t say anything so after a while she took a gulp of whisky and said: “I thought you were playing with the kiddies?”

    “Yeah, I was. I’m havin’ a breather, now,” he drawled.

    Phoebe gritted her teeth.

    Sol hesitated; then he said quietly: “Look, Phoebe, I’m real sorry it didn’t work out between us.” He swallowed. “I guess it was me,” he said glumly.

    Phoebe sighed. “No, it was both of us. Well, both of us in combination, I suppose.”

    “Mm,” said Sol with a little twisted smile at the “I suppose.”

   Phoebe didn’t realize she was quoting herself and raising memories in him: she said: “Well, no hard feelings, then?”

    “No.”

    To her surprize he didn’t offer to shake hands on the strength of it. Whether it was this factor or the whisky or both, Phoebe couldn’t have said, but after another mouthful she said: “Look, stop me if this is entirely out of line, but I hope to God I haven’t fouled up all your plans. Uh—I mean, coming out here, and so forth,” she said lamely, as he looked at her enquiringly.

    “Well, I wondered about that, myself,” he returned thoughtfully.—Phoebe began to feel rather less kindly towards him. It was the tone that had never—well, in more recent months, say the last year—failed to enrage her.—“But I guess I’d have come out here anyway. I guess I was ready for a change, mm?” he finished mildly.

    “In your lifestyle: quite,” said Phoebe grimly.

    “Uh-huh.”

    There was a short pause.

    “Well, I’m glad it wasn’t because of me you upped stakes,” she said lamely.

    “No...” he said slowly. And rather as if there was no personal angle at all to this discussion, recognized Phoebe with some annoyance, “No,” he said with a little sigh: “I guess it was more kids and ducks, huh?”

    “Wha— Oh,” she said limply. “Yes. Well, I’m long past wishing to provide the one and very far from wishing to provide the other, I’m afraid.”

    Plus and the sort of nice lady that cain’t hack it in the wilds of Wai-kika-moo-cow, and why the Hell couldn’t I see that at the time! thought Sol, not for the first time in the past year. He sighed, and got up. “I guess so,” he said mildly. He held out his hand. “Well, all the best, Phoebe.”

    Phoebe closed her eyes for a split second. “Sol, I’ve no wish not to be civilized about this,” she said, opening them wearily, “but I am not, for God’s sake, going to shake your hand!”

    “I thought it was the expected cliché in these here circumstances,” he said meekly.

    “Get out of here,” said Phoebe weakly, sagging on her cane sofa.

    “Okay,” he replied meekly, going.

    For a split second or so it came back forcibly to Phoebe why she’d liked him so much and— Hell. She drank off rather a lot of what remained in her glass, rather fast. Oh, well: water under the bridge. And no sense in brooding about it.

    ... Kids and ducks: ye gods! And why the Hell hadn’t she realized at the time—! Only she supposed she had, really. She just hadn’t admitted it to herself. Well, S,E,X had been in there, too, doing its usual job of blinding the little victims to everything that even faintly smacked of the sensible or rational.

    Xavier Cugat was at it again but instead of dancing the rumba the younger generation was in the pool.

    “Damn, I could’ve shown off me rumba,” grumbled Ralph to Derry Dawlish. –It wasn’t that either was particularly fond of the other, it was more that there was scarcely another body here with whom one could converse, they had both discovered.

    “That was what I was thinking,” agreed the great director.

    Their eyes met.

    “Shall we?” murmured Ralph, shoulders shaking.

    “Only if you’ll let me lead,” said Derry, choking slightly.

    “Darling, I’ll have to, there’s no way I could push your bulk around,” replied Ralph frankly.

    Sniggering, the famous film director held out his arms. Ralph melted into them.

    They rumba-ed.

    The Valkyrie-like Veronica Riabouchinsky collapsed next to Tom on a cane sofa with a loud sigh. “You know your wedding reception?”

    “Er—yes,” he whispered timidly.

    “You can drop that,” she recommended mildly. “No, what I mean is, practically the same crowd, eh?”

    With the merciful exception of her bloody brother-in-law Weintraub and his wife, did she mean? “Er—yes,” Tom managed.

    “Just as well she didn’t ask Helen and Nat, eh?”

    Where angels wouldn’t! Tom swallowed. “Well, yes.”

    There was a ruminative silence.

    “That was one of the worst bloody afternoons of my entire existence,” revealed Helen Weintraub’s sister.

    Tom looked at her with some sympathy. “Yes. I’ve never ceased to thank my lucky stars that I got Jemima away before it all blew up.”

    She nodded. “Mind you, I missed Nat actually thumping bloody Ralph,” she noted regretfully.

    “That would have made it better, yes,” agreed Ralph’s brother cordially.

    There was another ruminative silence. Tom had an idea what might be on her mind, so he didn’t break it.

    Finally Veronica admitted: “We heard this daft rumour, um, that your brother had got off with young Ginny Austin.”

    About three feet away behind her screen of tropical greenery Phoebe’s mouth tightened. She would have walked away long since, only her feet were killing her: the smart bronze sandals that matched the dress were new and, as she’d bought them locally, agonizing.

    Tom said to Veronica with a laugh: “Well, it’s true that he had her immured in his bloody flat for what seems to have been about six weeks, as far as we can gather—”

    Phoebe didn’t wait for the rest. She got up, feet or no feet, and hurried off. Her face flamed, her ears flamed and she felt very sick indeed. Just when she’d got round to thinking that possibly— Well, it was typical, of course. Not only could he not keep his hands off anything in skirts, he wouldn’t bother to think there might be any reason for keeping his hands off— Well, there hadn’t been any overt reason, but…

    Why had she thought that possibly he— Oh, sod the bugger!

    Phoebe went off to the Florida room and since no-one but Jim seemed on be on duty there, ordered him to pour her a large Scotch. Without any muck in it.

    Meekly Jim obeyed, wondering now what the Hell?

    On their cane sofa Tom and Veronica burst into roars of laughter, but Phoebe was downing her whisky in the air-conditioned comfort of the Carranos’ Florida room, so she missed this. And even if she’d seen it she would have drawn the wrong conclusion from it.

    By the poolside Tom sighed and removed his specs, as Veronica went off, still grinning broadly over the tale of Ralph’s fiasco with the twin. He looked sourly at the pool as Ralph and the famous film director Derry Dawlish—who incidentally resembled nothing so much as a whale—well, a hairy whale—embarked upon a new splashing game which was apparently designed to see which of the young ladies in the pool could squeal the loudest before Sir Jacob’s crystal beakers shattered. Had Jemima Puddle-Duck gone to sleep upstairs in the nursery with Baby Dirk?

    “What is the attraction of these kiddies’ games?” he wondered aloud.

    “It’s got something to do with sex!” said Jemima with a loud giggle from just behind him.

    Tom screamed, and leapt. “Yeah. –Don’t do that,” he said weakly.

    “He’s fast asleep,” she reported.

    “Good.” He squinted up at her. “Could go home and fuck like a pair of crazed rabbits?”

    “Um—yes. All right,” said Jemima in a strangled voice.

    Only just remembering in time to nip upstairs and grab Dirk Overdale, they went.

    Nobody was yet offering to drive Phoebe home so she’d got into the patio pool. Line of least resistance or something. After a while something foully smooth came up behind her as she panted and clung to the rail and said in her ear: “Remember other times in other pools, darling?”

    “Go and play with your toys, Ralph,” replied Phoebe grimly.

    “I’d rather you did, darling.”

    “Sod off. Buzz off home to your piece of crumpet,” said Phoebe through her teeth. Her knuckles whitened on the rail.

    “Er—my little chez moi does not at the moment feature any pieces of crumpet,” said Ralph.

    If Phoebe hadn’t been in a seething fury she’d have noticed something odd in the tone but as it was she merely snarled: “Do that again and you’ll live to regret it! About fifteen very painful seconds.”

    Ralph gave a very faint snigger and ceased pressing it against her bum. He gave her a doubtful look but as Phoebe was determinedly glaring in the other direction she didn’t see it. “Darling, I don’t know what rumour you may have picked up, but—”

    “Does it matter? Shove off,” she said tiredly.

    “Pity. We could have had a lovely wee private fumble for old times’ sake,” he murmured.

    “You could have tried,” said Phoebe grimly. “I can assure you you wouldn’t have been capable of any red-haired twins, now or in the future, if you had, though.”

    She thrashed off to the other side of the pool and hauled herself out while Ralph’s jaw was still sagging.

    He raised his eyebrows very high. Did he detect a slight note of jealousy under the animosity? Heh, heh, serve her right for turning it down all those months when he’d been offering it to her on a platter. –Garnished with parsley, yeah.

    In spite of his telling himself this sort of thing, all his instincts were screaming at him to leap out and run after Miss Fothergill bellowing such idiot phrases as: “Wait, Phoebe: I never!” and: “It was you all the time!” and: “For God’s sake, forgive me!” and: “Can’t we give it another go, for Christ’s sake?” He didn’t, however. For one thing it wouldn’t have been seemly in the middle of an up-market Carrano Latino-Hawaiian barbie and for another thing Phoebe would have been crushingly embarrassed by it and for a third thing he had a fair idea, since she seemed to have got hold of the rumour that him and Ginny dunnit, that she wouldn’t have been ready to listen.

    Ralph got out of the pool slowly, frowning.

    Sol was with Akiko again. Well, when he’d found her, that balloon-like Dawlish character had been leering at her on the dance floor, so he’d cut in. Akiko had now located the awninged swing on the patio. Sol thought since it was there they might as well use it. Giggling terrifically, Akiko agreed. Sol was of the opinion she’d had so much rum punch and sangría that she hadn’t understood a word. Though she understood the body language. Actually, he’d had so much punch and sangría himself that he didn’t care if she understood a word or not, he was just glad she understood the body language.

    “Body language,” he said, kissing her lightly.

    “Yes! I ver-ree like!” she giggled,

    Uh-huh. Sure. “Say, see this here—uh—not-frangipani?” he said idly, fingering a spray of the thing growing in a pot by the swing. “I could teach you how to make a tropical lei of this! Hawaiian-style, ya know?”

    “Sure! I ver-ree like!” she giggled.

    Uh-huh. Sure. Sol began to make a lei. It was harder than you’d think from them things you saw all over, down Waikiki. “Say, you ever been to Waikiki?” he asked idly.

    “No; is very pretty, huh? I ver-ree like to go, one-uh day! –With nice-uh man!” she added, giggling more than ever.

    Uh-huh. Sure. Yep!

    Soon the lei was almost long enough to be draped round Akiko’s neck. Sol draped it anyroad, because for it might fade iffen he left it much longer. Tragically a flower dropped right off of it and fell right down between—”

    “Say, we’ll have to rescue this! Cain’t let a thing like this happen to a thing like you!”

    “Yes! I ver-ee like!” she giggled,

    Uh-huh. Sure. Sure. He felt around for the errant bloom. Ooh! “That’s not it, huh?”

    “Yes! I ver-ee like!” she giggled,

    Uh-huh. Sure.

    “Gee, that’s not it, now, is it?”

    “Yes! I ver-ee like!” she giggled,

    Mm-mm! Yeah. Yes, sirree, bob!

    “Say, I can’t see that ole flower anywheres,” he said sadly, delicately peeling back the green frilled top that had kinda slipped lower off of that shoulder during the course of the evening. “Cute as a bug,” he noted.

    “Yes! I ver-ee like!” she gasped, this time round.

    Uh-huh. Sure. Sure she did. Jesus, they were just so— Sol got ’em both out, hadda see if they matched.

    “Boy, they match all right,” he whispered, stroking ’em.

     Akiko gulped.

    “Is very nice? You very like, huh?” he asked anxiously.

    “Yes, I ver-ree like,” she whispered.

    Wal, gee, couldn’t have guessed that, the way they was both heavin’ up and down some and them cute little nipples were jes’ standin’ up like— He was standing up pretty good himself, so at this juncture he got his mouth over one of them perky ones and got her hand on his—

    “Nice!” gasped Akiko.

    Sol wasn’t too sure whether she meant what he was a-doin’ to her or what she was a-doin’ to him but it sure was nice. Ya coulda said. Yeah.

    “You’re not going, are you?” said Polly on a weak note.

    Phoebe laid the phone down and turned. “Yes; I’ve just rung for a taxi. I did try to find you but you weren’t in evidence.”

   “Didn’t you come with Laura and Jim and that cousin of Jim’s?” said Polly weakly.

    “Yes. But the cousin’s joined a male enclave in the Florida room and the Hayes-Fisher ménage has gone off to the big indoor pool, where rumour has it,” said Phoebe, giving her a hard look, “that acres of middle-aged flesh are now on display. And frankly, that sort of thing’s never been my ‘bag.’”

    Ignoring the quote marks round “bag”, Polly agreed serenely: “Nor mine. I like it when it’s just me and Jake, but then he’s got a very good body. And of course I like looking at acres of young flesh, who wouldn’t? But I’m certainly steering well clear of the indoor pool right now.”

    “There you are, then.”

    “We could offer you a bed for the night, you know,” she said feebly.

    “No, thanks, I’ve got a heap of work to do tomorrow morning. –The local taxi company appears to be under the impression that you won’t let ’em past your front gates, is that correct?”

    “N— Well, it entails the driver getting out and speaking into the gate-phone, but of course they’re all too lazy, you know what taxi-drivers are. Jake actually rang them up and pointed out they’d lost his custom for eternity after I’d tried to get a taxi one very wet day when I was pregnant with Katie Maureen and they pulled that one on me, but it made no impression.”

    “No commercial acumen whatsoever,” summed up Phoebe without surprize, shrugging. “Well, I’d better start on the hike down to the gate, I suppose.”

    “I could drive you that far, I’m not that drunk,” offered the hostess mildly.

    “I won’t say no,” admitted Phoebe.

    “The Land Rover’s just outside: come on.”

    The two ladies went outside and got into the sacred macho vehicle. Polly felt in a secret recess under the driver’s seat and after some grunting produced a key. “He thinks I don’t know where he hides it, the twat,” she explained.

    “Yeah,” agreed Phoebe weakly as they set off with a jerk.

    After they’d negotiated the top gate—Polly let Phoebe get out and do it without argument; Phoebe couldn’t help reflecting that she’d never seen her play Kitchen, either, in fact she had never seen her indulge in any of the highly popular self-effacing social transactions endemic to the country, most especially to its female citizens—after that, then, Polly said without emphasis: “What about the Australian cousin?”

    “In the Australian pants. Well,” admitted Phoebe with a faint sigh, “the pants are quite fanciable, especially with those long legs inside them—”

    “He’s got a nice bum, too,” interrupted the expert.

    “Yes. But the head seems to be stuffed full of popular myths about woman’s rôle and the price of wool. And I seem to have reached the age where the legs won’t compensate for it any more.”

    “Mm. Well, of course they aren’t really myths: what that type of man sees as woman’s rôle is precisely what ninety-nine point-nine percent of females in Australasian society encourage them to. I’ll grant you that there’s a minute female minority that get to the age of forty-five or even fifty-five and then see the error of their ways, only by then it’s a bit too bloody late, isn’t it: they’ve indoctrinated their sons and daughters.”

    “You put these things so well,” sighed Phoebe as they drew up by the wrought-iron front gates.

    “If not particularly succinctly or originally!” said Polly with a laugh in her voice.

    “I wasn’t going to say that!” said Phoebe in alarm. “Do these gates need to be opened ‘manually, or, once a year’?”

    “That’s one of Jake’s favourite records!” returned Polly with a gurgle.

    “God, my generation really is showing,” she muttered. “Well?”

    “No, you point this thingy at them,” said Polly scientifically, pointing it.

    “Christ. Well, why hasn’t he automated the upper gate?” asked Phoebe numbly as the elaborate front gates duly swung open.

    “Dunno. Got something to do with automated gates not going with the genuine railings round the horse paddock, I think. In other words, just another aspect of the macho mystique.”

    “How do you stand it?” said Phoebe unguardedly.

    Polly replied with a laugh in her voice: “I’m not like you. Their macho little games actually amuse me!”

    Phoebe sighed. “Yes. I seem to recollect we had a conversation rather like this once before, didn’t we? Loads of macho do-it-yourself shelving were in it somewhere.”

    Polly replied neutrally: “On the one hand, yes. And macho cartons of Californian plonk on the other.”

    “Yes,” Phoebe admitted.

    After a moment Polly added: “And I suppose I find something... comforting in the macho stuff, too.”

    Phoebe’s ears were rather red but she replied calmly enough: “Father-figure.”

    “Exactly. My father wasn’t young when I was born, and my brothers are all a lot older than me. I suppose I grew up expecting men to be like that,” said Polly tranquilly.

    Phoebe had to swallow. “Yes.”

    “Don’t ask me how I can be so clear-sighted about the macho idiots at the same time,” said Polly with a laugh in her voice, “because I can’t explain it!”

    “I wasn’t going to,” Phoebe assured her hurriedly. “Do I gather some have asked, in the past?”

    “Oh, many have. Many.”

    “Mm,” said Phoebe with a sigh that she didn’t realize was there.

    Polly flicked a sideways glance at her but didn’t speak.

    Eventually Phoebe said: “I’m thinking of selling the flat, did I mention it?”

    “No; where are you thinking of moving to?”

    She shrugged. “Dunno. I thought of a house, but I doubt if I’d ever have time to keep the garden tidy. And I don’t know if I can face the hassle of unreliable lawn-mowing firms.”

    “Mm. I do know a man who’s very reliable,” said Polly cautiously, “but he only works up here—well, anywhere on the North Shore.”

    “Dunno that I could face the Bridge every day.”

    “No. Devonport’s nice—well, Narrowneck, where Angie and Bill Michaels are, is super—only you’d have all the bother of getting to School from the ferry.”

    “Mm. –Do you know Phil Laidlaw?”

    “From university? Yes,” said Polly cautiously.

    Phoebe smiled a little. “I don’t much like him, either—well, most of what the Department of Education teaches is total bullshit, damned hard to take someone seriously when they spend their lives preaching bullshit—but he’s due to retire in another three years, and he seems to think that if I finish off my Ph.D. thesis...”

    “Mm. Say you finish it in two years: you could get in a year’s lecturing, that’d be a help when you applied for the chair.”

    “Yes. I’d revise the curriculum radically, of course.”

    “It needs it.”

    “Mm. There’ll be a decent job coming up at Training Coll, too. Do you realize I’ve been at St Ursie’s for over fifteen years, now?”

    Polly replied calmly: “I’d say now was the time to make a change, then.”

    “Yes. I really feel,” said Phoebe, frowning into the night, “that I’ve given it all I can. I don’t want to stay on and dwindle into a Miss Stephenson.”

    Polly shuddered. “No.”

    “God, the way she’d let the place run down—! Well, never mind. The poor old dear was pretty well gaga, at the end. Demonstrates the dangers of spending your entire working life in the one institution, I suppose.”

    “She can’t have: wouldn’t she have had to do her Country Service?”

    Phoebe betrayed no surprize at Lady Carrano’s intimate knowledge of the weird and wonderful ways of the New Zealand education system: she merely replied: “Yes. She was a St Ursie’s girl herself, went to Training Coll, did her Country Service somewhere way out in the wop-wops—Puriri Primary, I think,”—Polly swallowed—“and came straight back to the good old School.”

    After a moment Polly said dazedly: “Didn’t she do a degree, though?”

    “Lor’, no! Rose through the ranks: primary teacher, Head of Infant School, Head of Junior School, then headm—”

    “I get it,” she said in a hollow voice.

    “More than the poor bloody girls did. Well, by the time your friend Veronica would have gone through,” said Phoebe with a twinkle, “they had a really good maths teacher and a couple of well-qualified women on the arts side. But old Belle Stephenson just kept on keeping on. Took the littlies for nature rambles round the playing field every Friday arvo regular as clockwork. Apart from that she did no visible work, but on the other hand I suppose that’s something to be thankful for.”

    “Yes. Well, I must say it sounds even worse than Taka’ Grammar when Jake was there,” admitted Polly.

    “Boy, thanks.”

    “That was it, actually: it’s a mixed school, so they’ve always had relatively decent maths and physics teachers,” Polly explained.

    “You ain’t telling me a thing, kid.”

    There was a short silence. Finally Phoebe said: “Did I only imagine I called a taxi?”

    “No,” replied Polly, sighing. “There’s probably only the one on duty tonight.”

    More silence.

    Finally Phoebe said: “Look, the effects of the alcohol seem to have worn off; would it be a bloody cheek to ask to borrow this vehicle?”

    “No,” said Polly simply, opening her door: “it’s all yours. And don’t bother about returning it, Jake’ll get someone to fetch it. –It’s a four-wheel-drive, of course, but don’t worry about that, since yer not goan up-country.” She leered at her.

    Wincing, Phoebe conceded she wasn’t going up country, added that she had driven a similar vehicle in the past, and as Polly had now scrambled out, slid over into the driver’s seat,

    “Go on,” said Polly cheerfully. “I’ll go back to the house and ring the taxi company and tell them where to put it.”

    “Hang on: I’ll drive you back.”

    “No, it’s a beautiful night: I’ll walk back very slowly thanking God I’m not in the pool with all that middle-aged flesh!” she said with a laugh.

    “Yeah. Well, thanks, Polly. I’ll see you.”

    “See ya!” said Polly cheerfully, flipping a hand.

    Phoebe drove off carefully. She wasn’t in the least intoxicated, didn’t feel in the least over-confident, in fact not even cheerful—and you could take that any way you liked—but she didn’t fancy being stopped by an officious macho fool of a traffic cop and having to explain what she was doing with Sir Jacob Carrano’s Land Rover.

    The skinny-dipping suburban middle-aged set had moved to the sauna, since it was there. Keith Nicholls had shown them the correct procedure: you heated it up like billy-o until you couldn’t stand it, then belted for the pool. Shrieking like crazy as you leapt into the freezing water. Well, freezing after the heat in the sauna, Meg, he’d explained clearly. They’d all thought they could manage that. As it turned out, they all could. June in particular managed the shrieking bit extremely well, but after the amount Bob had got down her from that bottle of his, no-one was particularly surprized.

    “Oh, dear: rook, Eu-an is-ah no dance!” squeaked Akiko.

    Nup, and one of us hadn’t expected he would be dancin’, neither. Guess that proves one of us is still sober enough to count, huh? Something like that. Sol let her help him unsteadily out of the big swing seat—it seemed, on the whole, not the preferred move, no, but possibly the better part of valour—and let her lead him unsteadily over to Euan’s side.

    Before Sol could ask him if he was sober enough to drive home, Akiko squeaked: “Eu-an, you want-a be dance?”

    “Eh?” he said dully. “Oh—uh—sure, Akiko. If you like.” He gave Sol a wary glance.

    “Go right ahead, I’ll just rest these weary ole bones on that there cold, hard— What is that you were settin’ on?” he said as Euan rose.

    “Eh? A cushion, of course. They’ve got heaps of them.”

    Sol peered at it. “Uh-huh. Your cushion it was apricot.”

    Akiko must’ve been more up in pop songs of the fast-vanishing past than Euan was, because while he merely looked vaguely disgusted she gave a loud giggle. Or perhaps it was merely that she was extremely drunk.

    They danced away. Well, wiggled their bodies at each other. Sol sat down on the cushion with a sigh. Jesus, what a… Well, at least he’d had the sense to get off of that dad-blamed swing and stop. Just.

    “I think they’ve all gone, Jake,” reported Polly, coming into the Florida room and finding the poker school still hard at it. In the expected haze of cigar smoke.

    Sir Jacob gave a faint sniff. “Looked in on the big pool a bit back: that lot have packed it in. Either be upstairs fucking like bloody rabbits or flat on their backs snoring. –One or the other,” he clarified.

    “Um—yes,” said Polly weakly. “Um—where’s Angie, Bill?”

    “Dunno. Bed, I s’pose,” said Professor Michaels indifferently.

    “Um—where’s Corrie?” said Polly feebly. “I was dancing with him a bit back. I thought he came in here to play poker?”

    Sir Jacob removed the cigar. “Him and his hard-on,” he noted.

    Bruce Smith choked, he wasn’t as inured to him as Bill Michaels and his old cobbers were.

    “Took Whatsisname and his wife home. His cousin, I think he said,” explained one of the old cobbers.

    “Oh. Well, good,” said Polly limply.

    There was a short pause. Sir Jacob reshuffled the cards and dealt rapidly.

    “What about Meg and Bill?” she said weakly.

    Jake removed the cigar. “I—told—you,” he said with heavy patience. “Upstairs. Fucking like rabbits.” He replaced the cigar.

    “Or dead to the world, of course,” noted Bruce Smith.

    “One o’ them: yeah,” he agreed. He blew a smoke ring.

    “Um—well, where’s Derry Dawlish, then, Jake?”

    “No idea,” he said without interest.

    “Have you looked in the spa pool?” she quavered.

    “Eh? Yeah. Drained it. Someone’s gonna be missing a bloody expensive Cartier watch tomorrow,” he noted. “Why?”

    “He was in it, at one stage. Um, I think I’ll go to bed, then. Good-night.”

    “Yeah. G’night,” he grunted.

    She retreated to the passage door. “Um, you don’t know where Bob and June are, do you?”

    “I TOLD you!” shouted Sir Jacob. “In BED! Now, will ya geddoudavit?”

    Weakly Polly got.

Next chapter:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/theres-gotta-be-morning-after.html