Part IV. Sex, Lies, & Dog-Eared Polaroids
31
Many A Slip
Ginny hadn’t lied to Ralph about the young men she’d had sex with being bad at it. After that chat over coffee she’d asked herself crossly why on earth she’d let on to him about it: it was none of his business... He was just a nosy old woman, really! In spite of telling herself this several times as spring drew nearer, she didn’t manage to convince herself that Ralph Overdale was anything like a nosy old woman. After that first encounter she’d been very careful not to turn up at his flat to do his cleaning round about that time of day again. When Vicki had come back from the mountain and Ralph had noted casually that her sister had done him very nicely, she had generously offered to swap him with Twin for another of their Willow Grove customers, but Ginny had refused, very crossly.
Last year Ginny had fallen into the habit of discussing almost everything in her life with David Shapiro after their Japanese classes on Tuesday afternoons; but now that he was in Japan there was no-one she could talk to in quite that way. She missed him horribly and was glad, in a sulky, cross sort of way. that her timetable was very different this year and that Tuesday afternoons were very full: a Latin Three lecture from two to three, then a Greek Two tutorial and finally a Latin tutorial at four. So there was no time at all on Tuesday afternoons for thinking about those Tuesdays of last year. But she thought about David a lot at other times, and was very bitter that there was now no-one in her life with that cool, analytical, and highly intelligent mind. To whom she could talk.
She threw herself fiercely into her work, ignoring completely her twin’s continual complaints that she was turning into a boring varsity snob and/or old maid. But though work was stimulating enough on one sort of level it wasn’t on others, and Ginny felt restless, bored, and unsatisfied.
“Gin,” requested Polly firmly.
“Crikey, not you as well?” replied Laura, pouring.
Polly just groaned.
“Here,” said Laura.
“Ta,” she sighed, taking it.
“What’s up?”
“Apart from missing your Thursday nights with old David Shapiro,” interpolated Meg drily.
Polly stuck her tongue out at Meg. “Oh—the blasted twins, mainly, Laura.”
“Are they all right?” gasped Meg.
“YES!” she shouted. “Not them, you idiot: Vicki and Ginny!”
“All right: who’s Vicki seduced now?” asked Laura resignedly.
“Um—not her,” said Polly weakly.
After a moment Meg managed to say: “John Aitken always has reckoned Ginny’s the sexier one.”
“He says that because she’s the one with the boobs!” cried Laura scornfully. “Look at Darryl!”
They all thought of Darryl’s mammary prominences, especially now that she was pregnant, and nodded earnestly.
Then Polly admitted weakly: “Actually, Jake says the same thing. And before you point it out, I admit he’s got the same proclivities as John”—they glanced at hers and nodded, especially Laura, who’d had the privilege of rendering them in acrylic—“but he is an expert.”
“Well, go on, Polly, tell us the worst!” urged Meg.
“I can’t, because I don’t know what it is.”
“WHAT?” they screamed.
“Sorry; no, what I mean is, I sincerely doubt the worst has happened yet. What I mean is, I think she’s working herself up towards the worst.”
“Ugh,” said Meg.
“Yes, but what has happened” cried Laura.
Polly sighed heavily. “Well, according to Vicki, she started off by sleeping with Adrian Revill, before he went to France.”
“Good-bye present: yes,” agreed Laura, nodding.
“Well, isn’t that all right?” said Meg in contusion.
“No. because she wasn’t in love with him, you idiot!” shouted Polly.
There was a short and somewhat confused silence.
“Isn’t it usually rotten the first time, without making it worse by doing it with someone you’re not in love with?” Polly demanded.
The ladies cast their minds back. It was a Hell of an effort. Especially for Laura: hers had even further to go.
“Um—ye-es... I always thought that was just me,” said Meg sheepishly.
“WHAT? Rubbish!” cried Polly.
“You’re right, Polly—if it’s the time I’m thinking of,” conceded Laura.—Meg gulped.—“Well, there were quite a few really foul ones, way back then,” Laura conceded.
“Dirty fingernails,” said Polly faintly, closing her eyes for a moment.
“UGH!” screamed Meg.
“I fought those ones off tooth and nail,” said Laura simply.
“I didn’t always notice until too late,” admitted Polly.
“Look, can we talk about Ginny?” said Meg with her eyes screwed shut and a sick expression on her face.
“Where was I?” said Ginny’s cousin in confusion.
“Mel Gibson,” prompted Laura faintly.
“Oh, yes, of course. –What a waste: I’d’ve known what to do.”
“We don’t doubt that for a moment, Polly,” said Laura faintly.
“No, but I mean I don’t think he’s very experienced at all: I could’ve helped him,” said Polly on a plaintive note. The big greenish eyes sparkled naughtily.
“We know that, Polly,” groaned Laura. She went over to the sideboard and refilled their glasses on the strength of it. “Well, was that all?” she asked, coming back and sitting again down. “One roll in the hay with Mel Gibson?”
“What? No!” replied Polly scornfully.
“Oh—‘No’,” Laura reported to Meg.
Meg swallowed quickly. “It would be ‘No’,” she agreed. “Of course. I mean. Ginny’s this century’s answer to Madame— Um, I forget,” she said weakly. “You know, in Les liaisons dangereuses.”
“You didn’t go to that thing, did you?” gasped Polly.
“Stop getting side-tracked,” ordered Laura grimly, taking her glass off her and holding it out of reach. “Speak: who else has Ginny seduced?”
“Let herself be seduced by, more like,” said Polly glumly.
“WHO?” bellowed Laura.
Polly groaned. “Guess.”
“Col Michaels!” said Meg breathlessly, eyes shining.
“Yes. I mean, No. I mean, he was Number Three,” groaned Polly.
“You don’t mean Phoebe’s nephew, drippy Dickon?” gasped Laura.
“Yes, yes, and yes,” moaned Polly, throwing herself face down on Laura’s white Indian cotton Habitat-Mod sofa and hiding her face in a William Morris-y cushion. “Can I have my gin now?” she said into the cushion.
“Definitely not,” said Laura, drinking it noisily.
“Crikey: three. Since Adrian went to France?” asked Meg.
Polly groaned affirmatively.
“Not since he went,” said Laura pedantically.
Polly groaned affirmatively.
“Yes,” Laura contradicted pedantically: “Adrian can’t have done her after he wented.”
“Uh-uh,” groaned Polly negatively.
After a moment the penny dropped and Laura screamed: “You mean there’s been ANOTHER ONE?”
Meg got up and staggered over to the gin.
“Who?” gasped Laura as Polly sat up and fanned her face.
“You don’t know him. I don’t think you do, either, Meg. I know him slightly from varsity: he’s very nice.”
“Aye-aye,” said Laura, eyes bolting from her head.
“Idiot,” said Polly mildly. “He was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream last summer, that’s how Ginny—”
“Not Adam McIntyre?” they gasped.
“NO!” shouted Polly. “Was he still here after Adrian left, you pair of besotted middle-aged telly-fixated moos?”
“My telly is middle-aged,” admitted Laura. Meg choked.
“No, but it is all sort of mixed up with that, of course,” Polly then conceded, sighing. “What I mean is, it would never have happened if Adam McIntyre hadn’t come out for the play and got mixed up with Georgy Harris.”
They looked blank. Then Laura recalled: “Hang on! I know! Phoebe actually met the blue-eyed wonder, he was with Ralph Overdale and a girl. That must have been her!”
“Who?” said Meg in terrible confusion. “Not Ginny?”
“No,” sighed Polly. “Give us a gin, Laura, for God’s sake—and don’t bother about the bread, thanks. It was Georgy Harris, Meg. The point is, Ginny didn’t give a damn about Stephen—that’s his name—but she had a thing with him anyway, knowing all the time that he was in love with Georgy.”
“Wait,” said Meg keenly.—Laura groaned.—“This Stephen bloke didn’t sort of go after Ginny to, um, spite this Georgy girl, did he?”
“‘Hey, there, Georgy girl’,” sang Laura, sotto voce.
“No—well, I admit he must have been on the rebound, and of course Ginny’s very pretty,” conceded Polly. “But that was all there was to it. I can’t believe either of them seriously felt a thing for the other.”
“Well, it’s all very complex, isn’t it?” said Meg brightly. “I mean, cause and effect—interrelationships: you know!”
Laura rolled a frantic eye at Polly.
“Don’t worry, she gets like this when she’s had a few gins,” said Polly serenely.
“A few,” muttered Laura in a shaken voice.
“It is complex, Meg,” agreed Polly calmly. “But anyway, the end result was that Ginny had a fling with Stephen, and then, according to Vicki, she gave him the push and waltzed off with Dickon Fothergill.”
“What the Hell does the girl want, if it isn’t too much to ask?” demanded Laura.
Polly looked judicious. “I think it is too much to ask, at this stage. She can’t possibly know yet what she wants, herself.”
Laura sighed heavily. “No. Well, go on, tell us a bit more about this Stephen. How old is he?”
“I think I’ve met him,” said Meg suddenly.
“I don’t think you have, Meg,” said Polly kindly. “You went to the play with Phoebe, didn’t you? You’d have seen him, he was Quince.”
“Oh,” said Meg blankly.
“I get it!” said Laura pleasedly. “Ginny was a fairy wasn’t she? That’s how she would have—”
“YES!” shouted Polly.
“—met him,” finished Laura. “Well, go on, tell us more. What’s he like?”
Polly began: “But she’s dumped him, there’s no point—”
“Yes, there is! Go ON!” they both cried.
Polly’s account of Ginny’s fling with Stephen Berry, if somewhat rambling and disjointed, was accurate enough in its essential points: which were, that Stephen was several years older than Ginny, about twenty-seven or -eight, and that they had taken up with each other some months after it had become clear that Georgy Harris was only interested in Adam McIntyre. Polly’s theory was that Ginny had made a play for Stephen and that he’d let himself be seduced more or less on the rebound from his passion for Georgy, but she wasn’t entirely correct. Ginny hadn’t made a play for Stephen, but after Adrian had gone to France that sort of unsatisfied, bored feeling had come over her again, much more strongly, and she’d begun to have thoughts along the lines of: maybe it would be better with somebody else; and: everybody else was doing it, why shouldn’t she; and: if she never tried it how would she know if she liked it; and that sort of thing. For his part, Stephen was heart-sore and lonely, and Ginny was very pretty with lovely red hair (not the same shade as Georgy Harris’s deep auburn, true), and besides was young and fresh and unsophisticated, very like Georgy. And human nature was human nature.
“Hang on!” gasped Meg at the conclusion of the narrative. “Dickon’s a lecturer, right? I mean he’s Dr Fothergill! Higher up the pecking order!” she discerned smugly on a note of dénouement.
“Eh?” said Laura.
“Um... because Stephen’s only doing his Ph.D.?” groped Polly.
“’Course!” said Meg, looking down her nose.
Polly groaned. Laura groaned. Then Laura said: “Has she got the point?”
“Which?” groaned Polly.
“Any,” groaned Laura.
“No.”
“Yes, I have!” cried Meg, very pink.
“Go on, then,” suggested Laura nastily.
“Um—well, she’s playing around,” said Meg somewhat feebly. “Love ’em and leave ’em. Showing her power as a woman!” she finished strongly.
“Meg,” groaned Polly: “she’s gone berserk, that’s the point.”
“Fallen out of her tree. Sleeping with blokes she doesn’t give a stuff for,” groaned Laura in clarification.
“Yes,” said Meg smugly. “Demonstrating her power as a woman. My goodness, if I had that figure and that hair, so would I!” She gave a mad giggle.
“Gin,” diagnosed Laura grimly.
“Second stage,” agreed Polly. “MEG!” she shouted. Meg blinked. “This is GINNY we’re talking about!” yelled Polly.
“Sweet little Ginny,” clarified Laura grimly. “Doesn’t know what men are, right? Never had one till she let young Mel Gibson have a go, right?”
“Um—ye-es... Isn’ he beautiful? ’Specially in his scarlet shirt and green bummer— drat, cummerbum, I mean bund,” said Meg hazily. “Beau’ful.”
“Smashed,” diagnosed Laura grimly.
“If there’s any point in spelling it out to you, Meg, at this stage,” said Polly heavily: “she’s making it worse for herself.”
“Um... Why?
Laura sighed. “Give up,” she advised her other guest. “Have another grog.” She got up to get her one. “How many blokes did you sleep with that you didn’t fancy in your early twenties?” she asked, coming back with the glass.
“Um... really fancy?” asked Polly cautiously.
“Yeah.”
“Millions,” said Polly muzzily. “All foul. Millions an’ millions. Kept hoping one of ’em ’ud be Mister—um, not Right, din’t care ’bout that—Mister Got It.”
“Yeah,” said Laura glumly. “Me, too. Even married one of ’em, I ever tell you that?”
“Millions of times,” said Polly glumly. “Millions.”
Laura drank gin, nodding. “Dumb, eh?”
“An’ me. I married one, too,” said Meg gloomily.
Laura and Polly weren’t too smashed to exchange startled glances: Meg never referred to her first husband. Well, husband, as she and Bill weren’t actually married.
“He was awful,” added Meg glumly.
“Yeah. I never married one. Only Mannie was awful,” said Polly. “I lived with him for ages, it was like—um—being in jail. With a jailer that couldn’t do it good. An’ kept blaming me.”
“That American?” asked Meg. –Laura wasn’t too drunk for her eyes to stand on stalks, she’d never heard of that one!
“Yeah. I was quite old then,” revealed Polly mournfully. “Older than Ginny. Mush older. Well, not all that. Mush older in experience.”
“I was quite young when I married the creep,” said Laura dully.
“Sho was I,” agreed Meg. She paused. “Well, not all that young, how old are the twins?” she asked herself confusedly.
There was a confused pause. Polly muttered under her breath. Laura counted on her fingers.
“Never min’,” decided Meg.
“Anyway, Ginny’s gone nuts,” said Polly definitely. “Sleeping with all these creeps, she’ll be lucky if it doesn’t put her off for life. Hic! –Pardon. Life.”
“Never put me off,” said Laura fairly. “It was bad, but never agsherly put me off.”
“Nor me, but I’m not as senshitive as her,” explained Polly earnestly.
“No,” they agreed earnestly.
There was a long pause. During it Meg advised Laura to bring that bottle over here, and Laura did, but apart from that nothing was said.
“But why’s she doing it?” asked Meg finally in huge confusion.
“Why? Oh, why! Dunno, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, haven’ you been listening?” Polly reached for the gin. “Even Vicki doesn’t know why. Nobody knows why. She’s gone potty, that’s why,” she ended darkly.
“Fed up with not knowing what it’s all about?” ventured Laura after a certain period of puzzled silence had elapsed.
“Not four of them, Laura!” cried Polly.
“I think,” said Meg judiciously.
“What?” they cried, as she stopped.
“Crossed in love!” she said brilliantly, beaming.
There was a short, puzzled silence.
“Who with, though?” said Polly blankly. “Charlesh Brown-hic!-loe?” She giggled madly.
“Not old David Shapiro?” croaked Laura.
“—Mad,” said Polly briefly to Meg.
“Yep,” agreed Meg. She looked surreptitiously at her watch: would Bill and the kids turn up to collect her before she was ready, or before they’d dragged the lot out of Polly? And would Laura would ask her for more gory details, so as she wouldn’t have to?
Finally Laura said heavily: “What about Numbers Three and Four, Polly?”
“I think Dickon was next. Though I have an idea she went out with Col Michaels a couple of times in the middle of that.”
“You can’t leave it at that!” noted Laura. “Not and live”
Polly looked pointedly at the bottle.
“Oh, go on, then,” said Laura, pouring her another and waving the tonic at it. “I don’t know how you’re going to get home,” she noted by the by.
“You don’t want to hear this story, do you?”
“YES!” she shouted.
“Yes,” agreed Meg sadly. “Poor Acolyte.” She got out her handkerchief and blew her nose. “Hurry up before Bill gets here,” she added.
Polly looked mildly surprized, but told what she knew. It wasn’t much, but the ladies received it avidly.
“… Vicki was terribly cross about it,” Polly concluded: “so her narrative wasn’t exactly crystal clear.”
“Like someone else’s,” noted Laura sourly. “Well, in your opinion, did Ginny fancy Col Michaels more, less, or the same as— No, hang on: in your opinion,” she said keenly, leaning forward: “is Col Michaels more or less fanciable than Drippy Dickon?”
Polly eyed her drily. “Well, since Angie isn’t here, I must admit that I’ve always found Col pretty bloody fanciable, myself.”
“Always?” croaked Meg.
“Well, since he hit puberty, yes. Which is about as long as I’ve known him,” replied Polly calmly.
Meg sagged into Laura and Jim’s William Morris-y armchair, unable to speak.
“Come on, Meg!” said Laura with a laugh. “I thought you knew her?”
“Not that well,” she muttered.
“Apparently not,” agreed Polly, looking amused. “Well, I wasn’t surprized when Vicki said Col had asked Ginny to go out with him—I always did think he fancied her.”
“And you could perfectly understand her fancying him—we’ve got that,” agreed Laura.
“I suppose he is quite attractive,” said Meg weakly. “For a boy.”
“When he smiles that sidelong smile of his and gives me one of those sideways looks out of those long grey eyes,” said Polly with great precision: “I should shay sho: yers. Well, my hormones certainly leap up and dance the fandango—and before you say anything, yes, the little sod knows perfectly well that they do: blokes like that always do.”
“I haven’t had enough experience,” decided Meg sadly.
Laura and Polly gulped. Laura then gave Meg another gin: charity began at home.
Col had leaned on the grimy Formica table in the Caff and said casually, looking down at Ginny sideways out of his long grey eyes: “Why not ditch Doc-tor Fother-gill tonight and come out with me instead?”
Ginny went very red. Partly because he was Jenny Wiseman’s boyfriend, and he knew she knew it, and partly because slim Col, in his draped trou’ and nice cream Aran-knit that somehow made his skin seem browner and his hair seem blonder, giving her that look, made her go all trembly inside. “Why not? Why, ya mean,” she said in a rude voice.
Although Col did indeed know the effect he had on ladies who were aware they had hormones, he wasn’t too sure he had the same effect on fairly innocent girls whose experience of men reached no further than the inept Stephen Berry or the very wet Dr Fothergill. He concealed his inner uncertainty, however, and drawled: “Because I could give you a better time than he could.”
Pouting horribly, Ginny retorted: “He said he’d take me to a very nice restaurant.”
Col felt very annoyed indeed: little bitch. But he replied smoothly enough: “I could take you to a very nice restaurant.”
“Yeah, in ya jeans,” noted Ginny.
“Black tie, I thought. Though I’ll wear my jeans if you prefer me in them.” He looked at her mockingly, raising his eyebrows.
Ginny’s lips tightened. Finally she said scornfully: “I bet you haven’t even got a dinner-jacket!”
“True. I’ll borrow that one Gwillim scored on one of his modelling stints.”
Ginny was suddenly very angry. Though at the same time she was still very excited. “All right, then, Mr Big: do that!” she said furiously.
“I will. But not tonight, Josephine: they’ll probably need more than a half hour’s notice at The Royal. What about tomorrow?” he said just as Ginny was sagging in her seat with relief at the thought that he’d been joking after all.
“All right. Tomorrow,” she said angrily, neglecting to point out that Dickon had already taken her to The Royal Hotel’s restaurant.
Col waited for her to say something about Jenny, but she didn’t. He smiled slowly. “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said, strolling away from her.
Ginny couldn’t speak: her throat had closed up. She sat there, very flushed, her heart hammering wildly.
The following night at The Royal she was too excited either to notice the restaurant’s awful pale puce and silver décor or to be able to eat much, though she denied angrily to herself that Col was having any such effect on her.
Col was also very excited, but he had a young man’s healthy appetite, and not unnaturally, he now thought he’d cracked it. He ate a large meal—after all, they charged you for what was on your plate, not how much of it you got through—and confidently drove Ginny home afterwards as far as his front gate. There he remarked casually that Jenny was staying in town with a girlfriend.
“Have you had a row?” said Ginny suspiciously.
Col shrugged. “One of many. I’m not domesticated enough for her,” he explained. “I think this last do was about me chucking my clothes all over the floor. Or leaving dirty plates all over the sitting-room. Something like, that. Anyway, she did her nut and pushed off.”
“That means the place’ll be a tip,” noted Ginny with satisfaction.
“Yeah, well, come on in anyway and ignore it!” he said with a laugh.
“No,” said Ginny in a tight voice.
Col shrugged. “Okay, don’t.” He leaned over suddenly and put his mouth on hers. Ginny resisted for about two seconds and then let him kiss her.
“Don’t you believe in kissing a bloke back?” he said, panting slightly.
“It depends who the bloke is,” she replied in a nasty voice.
Col very nearly lost his temper disastrously. “Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Well, try this one on for size.” He kissed her again and this time slid one hand up under her skirt.
“Don’t!” said Ginny crossly, turning her mouth away from his. “I don’t want— Ooh!” she gasped.
“Mm-mm,” agreed Col as his finger slid up her.
“Don’t,” said Ginny very faintly.
Col didn’t reply. He kissed her slowly and gently, and suddenly she clutched his back very tightly and gasped. And came on his finger. Just like that.
“Cor,” said Col, very mildly, gently withdrawing his finger.
She didn’t react, just panted into his shoulder. He smiled and after a moment said softly: “Urgent, was it?”
Ginny gulped and sat up straight. “No, it was an accident,” she said tightly.
He let out a yelp of strangled laughter. “Oh, yeah?” he gasped.
“Yes! And take me home!” cried Ginny furiously.
“Is that playing fair?” he drawled, nostrils flaring.
“No! And doing that to me when I never wanted you to wasn’t playing fair either!” cried Ginny angrily. “Take me HOME!”
“All right,” he said grimly. “If that’s what you want.” He let the clutch in, tight-lipped.
Ginny had unconsciously expected him to insist. She had had a very clear vision of herself spending the night in Col’s flat with Col. She swallowed, and was silent.
Col was still angry with her when he pulled up outside her place. But he took a deep breath and said steadily: “Ginny, if you could come like the clappers when I barely touched you, don’t you see that it means that I turn you as much as—as you turn me on?”
“No. And anyway, it’s only chemistry,” said Ginny tightly.
“Only— Yeah, too right! Hasn’t anybody ever told you that’s all there is?”
“No. Possibly because I don’t know anyone else as devoid of all moral sense as you, Col Michaels!” said Ginny furiously. “What about Jenny?”
“She doesn’t turn me on half as much as you do—never has.”
“You’re unspeakable!” cried Ginny, wrenching at the door handle.
Col put his arm across her and held onto the door. “No, I’m not: I’m only human, like you. Look, Ginny, everyone makes mistakes, and this thing between me and Jenny’s a mis—”
“I don’t want to hear!” cried Ginny, clapping her hands over her ears.
“What is it with you: are you afraid of sex per se, or afraid of sex with me, or just afraid of any sort of commitment?” cried Col angrily.
Ginny glared, and took her hands away from her ears. “No. I’m just not interested. And open that door. Or I’ll scream, and Euan’ll come out and bash you!”
“Euan— Oh, your sister’s latest,” he said limply. “Would he?”
“Yes, because he’s got some sense of decency!” hissed Ginny furiously.
Col thought he saw what the matter was. He bit his lip. “Look, Ginny, I didn’t mean to two-time Jenny, I just thought that—that if you liked me, we might see if it would work. And—and then I was gonna tell Jenny, and— Um, well, anyway, if I break up with her, will you come out with me again?”
“NO!” shouted Ginny. “You’re a moral nullity and I despise you!”
“Well, that’s pretty clear,” he said, lips thinning. He opened the door and gave it a vicious shove. “All right, get out.”
Ginny got out forthwith.
“Look, you’re making a mistake, Ginny!” he said in a last-ditch effort, scrambling over into the passenger’s seat. “Can’t you admit that if we both turn each other on like crazy there must be something in it?”
“No,” said Ginny grimly. “And don’t you ever dare to ask me out again, Col Michaels!” She ran up to the front door and knocked on it loudly.
Col watched numbly as the door opened and a large male figure said in a puzzled voice: “Forget your key? It’s a bit early, isn’t it? Didn’t ’e match up to the high standards set by Doc-tor—”
“Get out of my way, you nerd!” choked Ginny. She gave him a shove and ran inside.
“—Fother-gill,” ended Euan weakly, peering uncertainly at the car.
Col scrambled back hurriedly to his own side and drove away before the nerd could wander down and sneer at him or interrogate him or ask him in for a beer, or whatever it was that nerds like Euan Whatsisname did in such circumstances.
He gave it one more go, about a week later, but Ginny was very hard, bitter and unforgiving.
He and Jenny continued their relationship but their rows, which had been pretty frequent anyway, got more frequent and a lot more bitter as the year wore on towards spring.
“What’s Dickon like?” asked Vicki cautiously as the twins sat on the lawn outside Puriri Campus’s D Block at lunchtime. It was pretty cold, but at least it wasn’t raining, and a watery sun was shining.
Ginny biffed a crust at a seagull and hunched further into her parka. “Boring. Whaddaya think?”
Vicki ate filled roll in which beetroot featured largely with unnoticing hunger. “Then why don’t you dump him?”
“Nobody else is offering,” said Ginny grumpily.
“What about that nice Stephen?”
“He’s as boring as Dickon! All he can talk about is his stupid thesis. –That or that stupid Georgy Harris!”
Vicki objected cautiously: “I thought she was very nice.”
“Hearing about her isn’t, though,” said Ginny drily.
“No. Um—well, don’t you fancy him, then?” said Vicki weakly.
“No, I just said, he’s boring!” cried Ginny angrily.
“Oh.” Vicki munched beetroot roll. “What about Col Michaels?” she said at last.
Ginny went very red. “What about him?”
“Well, he isn’t boring, is he? Isn’t he the type that can talk the hind leg off a donkey?”
“Who says that isn’t boring? Anyway, he’s a smart-aleck.”
This was true. Vicki sighed. “I thought you liked him more than the others.”
“What if I do? If he thinks I’m gonna go and be his household slave like poor Jenny, he’s got another think coming!” she said fiercely.
“Heck, did he ask you to live with him?” she gasped.
“Yeah. And I told him where to get off,” said Ginny with satisfaction.
Vicki swallowed.
“I mean, now that Ted and Felicity are engaged, Jenny’s practically our sister!” Ginny pointed out.
“Yeah. Well, I see what you mean.”
Ginny finished her curried-egg wholemeal bread sandwich. “That was horrible, I hate curried egg. I wish the Caff had decent food,” she grumbled.
“Yeah. What’s in that other sandwich?”
“Tomato sauce and pale pink plastic, and you’re not getting it.” Ginny took a big bite of it.
“Pale pink plastic what?” asked Vicki wistfully.
“Dunno.”
Vicki sighed. “Darryl was right, we oughta make our lunches, it’d be miles cheaper.”
“Yeah. All right, we can start on Monday. We can make them over the weekend and shove them in the fridge.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll put some cheese and stuff on the shopping list. We’d better get some more Vegemite, too.”
“Yeah. –Felicity said we could have some of that weird feijoa chutney her and Anne made last year,” Ginny reminded her.
“That stuff that Anne put the green food dye in?”
“Yeah. Well, it tastes all right.”
“Okay,” decided Vicki. “I’ll go round there on Saturday.”
“Mm.” Ginny munched on her sandwich.
“Twin, why don’t you dump Dickon?” said Vicki cautiously. “I mean, if you’re not keen on him it seems a bit mean,” she said, going rather pink.
“What, to go on letting him feed me? I’m paying for it, aren’t I? Isn’t that the usual sort of charming barter the so-called non-sexist society of the Nineties still goes in for?” She gave a hard laugh.
“Don’t be awful,” said Vicki uneasily. “Anyway, that wasn’t what I meant. Um, it doesn’t seem fair to go on letting him think you like him. You know: giving him hope,” she hoarsely.
Ginny went very red.
“Do you see what I mean?”
“YES!” she shouted.
Silence. A seagull waddled up and looked at them hopefully.
“Piss off,” said Ginny to it in a nasty voice. “All right, I’ll give him the push, if that’ll make you happy,” she said to her twin in a nasty voice.
Vicki looked at her anxiously. “It isn’t me, it’s you.”
“Gee, and I thought it was Doc-tor Fother-gill’s happiness you were worried about,” she sneered.
“I am! Don’t be horrible! What’s wrong with you, Twin?” cried Vicki, near tears.
“I don’t know,” admitted Ginny in a low voice.
This time the silence lengthened and the seagull and his friend, another seagull, gave them both up as a bad job and waddled off to prospect another clutch of lunchers.
“I’m sure you’d be much happier if you dumped him,” said Vicki at last.
“All right, I will,” agreed Ginny, going very red again.
“Good,” she said with a sigh.
“I’ll just—I’ll just concentrate on work for the rest of the year; I’m fed up with stupid guys, anyway!” she said grimly.
“Good,” said Vicki.
Ginny sighed. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Um, I think you oughta give it a chance,” her twin ventured cautiously after a moment. “I mean, you haven’t really been looking very long, have you?”
“No.”
Silence again. Eventually Vicki said: “I gotta go, we’ve got Anatomy at two o’clock.”
They got up and Vicki picked up the plastic raincoat they’d been sitting on.
They walked slowly over to the path. “Euan reckons we might go down to his uncle and aunt’s in Nelson for mid-semester break,” said Vicki on a cautious note.
Ginny replied coldly: “Like when you’re supposed to be swotting for exams: yeah. What about your housework clients?”
Vicki sighed. “I suppose Roberta’d do Sir Ralph Overdale, if you won’t.”
“Mm,” Ginny agreed.
Vicki didn’t notice the fact that her twin had turned a glowing tomato shade. She looked at her watch, gasped: “Heck! See ya later!” and dashed off towards D Block.
Ginny was only going to the Undergraduate Reading Room, as she didn’t have a class this afternoon. Not that it had anything worth reading in it, but she had her textbooks with her. She walked slowly towards it, telling herself crossly that she was an idiot, a total idiot: just because Vicki had mentioned Ralph Overdale’s name— Anyway, he was a beast and a pig, and what was more he was a wolf, everyone knew that, even Jemima admitted it, and after all he was her brother-in-law! Nevertheless her whole body went on feeling hot and trembly and excited, and Ginny went on feeling very cross and had great difficulty settling down to her Latin Three reading.
Meg blew her nose again.
“Young gels,” sighed Laura sentimentally.
“Breaking their hearts,” agreed Polly mournfully, sniffing sadly.
The ladies ate little cheesy biscuits reflectively…
“Well, that was one twin,” noted Laura. “Didn’t you mention twins, plural, about—uh,”—she glanced at the bottle—“four inches back? What’s wrong with the other one?”
“Has Vicki broken up with Euan?” gasped Meg.
“No! Well, not as of half-past nine last night,” conceded Polly. “No, just the usual: scraping through her exams by a whisker, getting all her assignments in late—you know. Driving all her friends and relations bonkers, in fact. Well, particularly the one that Aunty Miriam rang up at nine o’clock of a Saturday evening and ear-bashed, just when her and her husband that she hardly ever sees because he’s always off in foreign parts wheeling and dealing thought they were gonna have a nice early night for once.”
“Ah,” said Laura wisely, nodding.
Polly took two little cheesy biscuits. “Yeah,” she said sourly.
“Give me another gin and tonic,” groaned Meg, holding out her glass to Laura. “If yeshterday was Saturday, tomorrow’s gonna be Monday.”
“How bad can it—hic!—sorry—be?” replied Laura airily, obligingly taking the glass.
Meg gave her a filthy look. “All right for you: you don’t have to work for her.”
“Have Phoebe and Sol busted up, then?” asked Polly with interest.
“We don’t know: Phoebe’s not talking,” groaned Laura.
“No, she’s just in an unshpeak— unspeakably filthy mood,” sighed Meg.
“At least she’s old enough to look after herself—I suppose,” said Polly dully. “But still, you can’t help feeling sorry for her.”
They goggled at her.
“Um—well,” she said on an uneasy note, “it’s just that every time we’re up at Carter’s Inlet and we look in at Sol’s shop, Michaela seems to be there.”
“One had heard a rumour to that effect,” acknowledged Laura. She looked hard at Polly. “There was also a rumour about a Japanese handmaiden.”
“Akiko,” admitted Polly, biting her lip. “Um—yes.”
Meg blenched.
“Roll on Monday,” said Laura nastily.
“Laura!” protested Polly with a laugh.
“Sorry, Meg,” said Laura, pulling a horrible face. “Nothing personal. It’s just that I’m getting bloody sick of— Oh, well.”
“Poor Phoebe,” agreed Polly, nodding sadly.
“NO! How much gin have you HAD, woman?” shouted Laura.
“Um—lots. But you an’ her started before me!”
“It shouldn’t have addled a brain like yours, then,” said Laura grimly. “Don’t expect me to feel sorry for bloody Phoebe: she’s apparently on course to make a cock-up of yet another relationship with a perfectly decent bloke. Well, I’m not saying that all the others were decent,” she amended hastily. “but you can’t deny that Sol’s a—a one-off!”
“Do you mean one-off?” asked Meg dubiously.
“One in a million?” suggested Polly doubtfully.
“Yes. Any. Both,” said Laura glumly.
Meg’s hanky came out again. “Yes. He ish,” she said. “Oh, blow!” She suited the action to the word.
“It’s enough to put you off your gin,” noted Laura sadly, looking at it and not doing anything about it.
“Yes,” agreed Polly, sniffing sadly. “I really like Sol. But I have to admit we haven’t seen a sign of Phoebe up there all winter. Something must have gone wrong, all right.”
Laura got her hanky out and trumpeted into it.
“Blast,” said Polly sadly, getting hers opt.
Meg already had hers out so she just quietly wiped her eyes.
Jim came ambling cheerfully into his Habitat-Mod sitting-room and stopped short. “Blimey O’Reilly, what is this?” he croaked.
“Gin,” said Laura sadly, blowing her nose.
“Laura made us,” said Polly sadly, sniffling.
“Yesh!” agreed Meg eagerly, breaking the mood somewhat.
“I bet,” he said. He picked up the bottle. “Bugger me!” he said in a shaken voice, looking at the level.
“See?” hissed Laura viciously. “Men!”
“Yeah,” they agreed.
Jim found they were all glaring at him. He retreated to the doorway. “Look,” he said from the very-similar-to-almost-Persian runner in the not-quite-kauri hall: “don’t you lot expect me to drive you all the way up the Coast.”
“Wanker!” cried his helpmeet angrily.
Jim got out of it. He wasn’t too sure what it was all about, but he had a fair idea. He went out into the garden in spite of the fine drizzle, and communed with a bonfire of dank leaves.
In the sitting-room, after a certain amount of glum sitting Laura asked dully: “How’s Michaela, Polly?”
“We haven’t seen her for ages,” reported Meg aggrievedly.
Polly sighed. I haven’t seen much of her, either. I think she’s pretty unhappy over Hugh, still. When’s he due back, Meg, do you know?”
Meg reported that June said round about November. “I suppose he’s only been away for four months or so,” she ventured, counting on her fingers.
“Mm.” Polly hesitated. Then she said uncertainly: “From what Vicki was telling me, it seems to be Roberta who’s keeping in touch with him, rather than Michaela.”
“Really? You mean writing to him?” gasped Meg.
“Mm.”
“Who’s Roberta?” asked Laura blankly. When they’d straightened that one out she said: “I see.”
“She is interested in his subject,” said Polly on an uncertain note.
Laura made a rude noise.
“You’re probably right,” conceded Polly, sighing. “Gels will be gels.”
“Don’t start that again,” warned Laura.
“Make a cup of coffee, then,” suggested Polly, looking at her watch.
“When did he say he’d pick you up?” she asked, getting up obligingly.
Polly made a face. “After he’d popped into the office. But we’re due over at Wal Briggs’s for tea, so he won’t want to be too late. –Old cobber,” she clarified.
“Got it,” acknowledged Laura sourly. She exited, muttering about wankers.
After Laura had produced the coffee the ladies returned to the subject of Michaela. But they didn’t get much forrarder, because nobody seemed to have heard much at all.
Perhaps they’d spoken to the wrong persons on this topic. Bryn and Euan both knew a bit more—but it would have been very hard to get it out of either of them, admittedly. Even for one with Polly’s hormones.
“Gidday,” Bryn had said cheerfully as he came into the fuggy warmth of the good fish and chips shop up Sir John Marshall Av’ and discovered Vicki and Euan perched there on the narrow bench that was all the shop provided for its multitudes of customers to wait on while their food cooked. Not that there were multitudes tonight: Wednesday wasn’t a particularly good night in the fish and chips trade in Puriri. Actually there were only Vicki and Euan and a small Maori boy who now he came to look at him, Bryn felt seemed vaguely familiar.
“Aren’t you Dwayne Morrison?” he said to him.
Dwayne Morrison nodded cautiously.
“Your mum’s looking for you, she’s screaming blue murder,” said Bryn cheerfully.
“Where?” asked Dwayne after the obligatory trying to look as if it was some other Dwayne Morrison entirely in question.
“All up and down Coronation Road. Well, first she looked for ya all up and down Kapenga Av’ and now she’s looking for ya all up and down Coronation Road.”
Dwayne thought this over. “Aw,” he said in a bored voice.
“One chips, two potato fritters,” announced the fish and chips shop proprietor in a bored voice, putting a hot package of clean newsprint on the counter.
Dwayne got up and paid his money. He was turning to go when a small, freckled pakeha boy of about his own age poked his head through the plastic streamers that veiled the doorway and gasped: “Hey, Dwayne! Your mum’s looking for you!”
Dwayne didn’t answer, he was eagerly burrowing in the top end of his hot, odorous package.
“Gi’s a cherp?” asked his friend plaintively.
They went out.
“Kids,” said the proprietor glumly.
Bryn, Vicki and Euan jumped: they had all been absorbed in the drama.
“Whadd’ll it be?” asked the proprietor.
“Um...” Bryn looked at the prices and did arithmetic, his lips moving silently. The proprietor just waited, his face a perfect blank. He got a lot of custom from students with late classes at the campus, or students from the university hostels who couldn’t take another evening of hostel food. Not so much on Wednesdays, though. Finally Bryn decided: “Two sausages and one chips. Um—no: hang on.” His lips moved again. “Yeah, two sausages and one chips,” he confirmed.
“Two chips and one sausage’d be more filling,” offered Euan as the proprietor put two thickly battered sausages in his frying basket.
“Yeah, but the sausages are quite good, though,” replied Bryn.
“I like the pineapple fritters,” offered Vicki.
“Plutocrat,” said Bryn glumly. “By the way, I thought Wednesday was one of your nights waitressing at the Cheese Basil?”
“Not in winter,” said Vicki with a sigh.
“That right? Don’t the nobs from The Hill eat in winter?”
“Hilarious,” noted Euan without animus.
“Yeah,” agreed Vicki. “I suppose they eat at home more, you great clot,” she said to Bryn, as he was still looking at her enquiringly.
“Too cold to poke their noses out from their central heating and nip into their heated Jags,” explained Euan.
“They wouldn’t have to, haven’t they all got those garages where you just go through a door from the house?” asked Bryn.
“Nah: most of ’em have got those garages where you break your way in through a solid concrete wall with a pick-axe every time you want the car,” said Euan.
“Hah, hah,” noted Bryn.
“Two chips, two fish, one pineapple fritter, one crabstick,” noted the proprietor, putting a large, odorous package of clean newsprint on the counter.
“Crabstick?” said Bryn in a hollow voice. “You come into a fortune or something?”
“No,” said Euan, handing the proprietor a twenty-dollar note. “You know that American bloke that runs a boating-supplies place up Carter’s Inlet?”
There was an infinitesimal silence. Then Bryn said: “Sol Winkelmann? Yeah, what about him?”
“He’s got more painting jobs than he can handle by himself, none of those marina types can hold a paintbrush, so I’m working for him in the weekends. It’s good, the pay’s good.”
“Hard yacker, though,” said Vicki.
“Painting boats, ya mean,” deduced Bryn.
“No, portraits in oils,” groaned Euan.
“I thought Prof Michaels had a berth at that marina?” said Bryn keenly.
“Uh—yeah. So what?” replied Euan.
“He can handle a paintbrush.”
“Well, he’s the exception that proves the rule, then!” said Euan cheerfully. “Hey, you know that Ralph Overdale type, he’s Tom’s brother or something?”
“Yeah. What about him?” said Bryn.
Euan told him in great and some would have said unnecessary detail about the finer points of Ralph’s floating casting-couch. Bryn made the mistake of supposing it was one of the boats Euan was painting for Sol.
“No! They hate each other!” gasped Vicki.
“Wouldn’t say that,” said Euan in the temperate tones of the Kiwi male whose female belonging had made any sort of statement verging on the extreme. Or even the definite.
“Of course they do, Euan! You know!” she said in tones heavy with significance.
Euan looked bored. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Um—maybe we could go back to Bryn’s place,” she said brightly.
“Why?” replied Bryn immediately.
“Our place has got her twin in it in the filthiest mood you’ve ever seen,” explained Euan unemotionally.
“Mine’s got Roberta and Michaela in it in the filthiest moods you’ve ever seen,” rejoined Bryn unemotionally.
“Blow,” said Vicki sadly.
“Has Roberta got exams or something?” asked Euan foggily.
“No!” cried Vicki scornfully before Bryn could speak.
Euan just looked at Bryn.
“No. Well, dunno. Don’t think so. She’s been in it for months. The mood, I mean.”
“See!” said Vicki triumphantly to her boyfriend.
Bryn eyed her uneasily.
“Yeah,” said Euan in the voice of the Kiwi male terminating a conversation his female belonging had unwisely initiated. “Um, well, if you come back with us, it’ll be three to one,” he pointed out to Bryn.
“Okay.” They all sat down on the very narrow bench.
After a while Bryn ventured mildly: “I was thinking of going up to Col’s, actually.”
“I wouldn’t do that!” gasped Vicki in horror.
Bryn hadn’t been addressing her, he’d been speaking over her head to Euan, but nevertheless he replied mildly: “Why not? Has he got the flu or something?”
“No, don’t you know?” gasped Vicki.
“Look out, this is bloody boring,” warned Euan over Vicki’s head.
“Col and Jenny keep having awful rows because he went out with Ginny!” gasped Vicki.
“Oh,” said Bryn blankly. He ruminated on this. “I thought she only went out with him a couple of times and then she dumped him?”
“Once,” said Vicki succinctly.
“And then she dumped him,” agreed Euan drily.
“Well, one proper date,” elaborated Vicki.
“Proper date with a black tie. Looked good in that broken-down Holden of his,” noted Euan.
“Black tie? Why?” asked Bryn, utterly puzzled.
“Been reading too many Mills & Boons,” explained Euan briefly.
Bryn goggled at him and he said with a grin: “Not Col, ya cretin. Ginny!”
“She does not!” cried Vicki.
“All right,” proposed Euan: “you tell me what made her go barmy and tell poor old Col she wouldn’t go out with him unless he got himself up like a dog’s dinner.”
“She just wanted to go somewhere nice,” said Vicki on an uncertain note.
“This was in addition to going somewhere nice with Doc-tor Fother-gill,” noted Euan over Vicki’s head.
“Aw, him,” said Bryn.
“Yeah,” said Euan.
“He’s all right,” said Vicki valiantly.
They looked at her tolerantly.
“Um—well, a girl’s entitled to, um, play the field,” said Vicki, less valiantly.
“With the entire First Fifteen,” noted Euan drily over her head.
Bryn sniggered.
“Euan! That was quite uncalled for!” cried Vicki angrily.
Euan’s face didn’t take on the sheepish look of the Kiwi male reprimanded publicly by his female, it just looked totally indifferent.
After a while Vicki said gamely: “If you ask me, I think she’s missing Adrian.”
Euan made a rude noise.
“Bullshit,” Bryn agreed.
“Yeah: total bullshit. Likewise crap,” agreed Euan.
“Likewise cobblers,” added Bryn.
“Yeah.”
Vicki looked sulky. “All right, Euan: you explain it!” she said crossly.
“Me? I wouldn’t bother to even try to explain it!”
Bryn sniggered.
“Well, something must have set her off!” cried Vicki, very flushed.
“Anyway, she’s dumped Col,” said Euan over her head.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” his peer agreed.
Bryn had walked to the fish and chips shop so he got into the back of Euan’s Fiat Bambina with his knees jammed under his chin for the short trip to Pukeko Drive.
“All that socializing with Doc-tor Fother-gill never meant she was keen on him, you realize,” said Euan over his shoulder as they ground up Sir John Marshall Av’.
“Eh? Oh. That’s what Roberta reckons, too. I thought—” Bryn stopped.
“What?” asked Vicki.
“Nothing.”
“What?” she insisted.
“Um—well, wasn’t your sister keen on that Latin professor a while back?” he said uneasily.
“Him! Heck, no! There was nothing in that!” she cried.
“Oh,” he said humbly. “I just thought maybe it was that that was making her go a bit—um—silly.”
“Thank you, Dr Freud,” concluded Euan.
Bryn grinned sheepishly.
“It’s Roberta that’s keen on him, that’ll be why she’s in a rotten mood, he’s never taken any notice of her, you know,” said Vicki.
“Yes. he has,” replied Bryn incautiously.
“What?” she gasped.
“Um—well, I dunno if you’d call it notice... Um, he asked her to be in their stupid winter play: you know, the one they do in Greek, and she said no.”
“Really?” gasped Vicki.
“Yeah. Well, she’s got a lot of swot. Anyway, who wants to be in a stupid play in Greek?”
“Heck, she must of gone off him!” she gasped.
“Fascinating,” said Euan in a bored voice. He turned into Pukeko Drive.
There was a short silence, during which Bryn misguidedly allowed himself to hope the subject was closed.
“Well, why’s she in such an awful mood, then?” Vicki wondered in a puzzled voice.
In the back, Bryn shifted uneasily.
“Must be swot: I mean it’s her final year, isn’t it?” said Euan.
“No, you idiot! She’s got another year to go, and then she’ll have a year as a house surgeon!” she snapped.
“Takes ages, eh?” he said thoughtfully.
“Well, our lives are in their hands, ya know,” said Bryn in a silly voice.
Vicki had just been going to say more or less that. She scowled, and was silent.
“She wants to do orthopaedic surgery, that’ll take yonks longer,” added Euan as they ground along Pukeko Drive.
“Yeah,” said Bryn in a strangled voice.
“Doesn’t Hugh Morton do that?” asked Vicki.
“You oughta know, you’re the nurse,” replied Bryn in a nasty voice that really, if Vicki had stopped to think about it, was most unlike Bryn.
However, she merely retorted sharply: “Hah, hah.”
“Of course, he might not come back from the States,” offered Bryn on a hopeful note.
“What? What about poor Michaela?” gasped Vicki.
“They’ve busted up,” he pointed out uncomfortably.
“Yes, but they could get back together when he comes b—”
“Shut up,” said Euan definitely.
“Yeah,” concurred Bryn gratefully.
Vicki pouted. But as they’d both told her to shut up, she did.
Neither Bryn nor Euan broached the topic again that evening. In fact, they studiously avoided it. In fact, when Vicki even so much as gave a sign of approaching the topics of Michaela, Hugh, or Roberta, they headed her off. Their eyes didn’t meet on these occasions, and nor did they exchange words on the topic when Vicki was out of the room. Nevertheless Euan concluded glumly that his theory that Roberta wasn’t mooning after the Latin type, she’d fallen for bloody Morton, was in a fair way to being confirmed, if that was what good old Bryn thought. Better hope Vicki didn’t catch on, they’d never hear the last of it. And Bryn concluded glumly that he was right, all right, if Euan had spotted it too. Roberta was all right, so why was she wasting her time on ancient creeps like Hugh Morton?
Sir Jacob had arrived, greeted the ladies jovially, not appearing to notice they were all pissed, and whirled his wife away. Probably in the Merc but neither Meg nor Laura had the strength to totter out to the front door and look.
Laura wandered unsteadily over to the end window but it was all fogged up, so she couldn’t see if Jim was still mooning over his fire or not. “Wanker,” she muttered.
Possibly taking this as a cue, Meg immediately returned to the subject of Phoebe.
When she’d run down. Laura noted sourly: “We’ve already said all this. Several times.”
“Yes, but... But Sol’s so nice,” she protested faintly.
“You mean, why isn’t she up there every blessed waking minute of every weekend and then some, hanging onto him like grim death?”
Meg nodded fervently.
“Well, I would be, if I was in her shoes,” admitted Laura.
Meg nodded fervently again.
Laura shrugged. “Don’t ask me to explain the obscure workings of Phoebe’s psyche, I’ve only known her all her life.”
“Is it a case of... of not wanting something so much once she’s got it?” ventured Meg.
Laura just shrugged.
After a minute Meg ventured: “You know Polly said Michaela was always up there at Shol’s, um, Sol’s shop?”—Laura closed her eyes and winced horribly.—“Yes, well, I mean, what if—um…” Meg gulped. “You know,” she said faintly.
“Well, yeah, I do know what you mean,” admitted Laura, “but apart from that time when Phoebe had just met him and she had Michaela over to prod Polly into buying her stuff, I can’t recall ever having seen Sol and Michaela together. So I can’t give you an informed opinion—sorry.”
Meg glared.
“But if you want my uninformed opinion,” said Laura kindly, “I’d say if Phoebe ever gets the slightest suspicion that his thoughts might be wandering away from her gracious, well-groomed self in the direction of anything as down-market as Michaela, she’ll be in the filthiest mood ever known to humankind.”
“She’s in a pretty filthy mood already,” said Meg weakly.
Laura just eyed her blandly.
… “Sex,” Jim Fisher decided darkly at last.
The bonfire just smouldered sullenly.
“Tell ya what: be better if that bloody Winkelmann type had stayed on the far side of the fucking Pacific,” he muttered.
The bonfire just smouldered sullenly.
“For all concerned!” said Jim loudly. “Especially ME!” he said very loudly in the direction of the closed and fogged-up end window of the sitting-room.
Next chapter:
https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/welcome-back.html
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