Nuts In May

19

Nuts In May

    “It’s very awkward,” said Louise, frowning.

    Phoebe repressed a sigh. “Mm. Well, uh, can’t these nieces or nephews or whatever they are manage by themselves?” She broke off: Louise was shuddering.

    “Three of them between the ages of fifteen and nineteen let loose in my house?” she squawked.

    This time Phoebe did sigh. “You invited them,” she said heavily.

    “No, I— Well, I agreed they could come,” she said sulkily.

    “Quite.”

    “Only I’d forgotten we weren’t having May holidays this year!” she cried.

    “What’s the fifteen-year-old doing having May holidays? Shouldn’t it be at school?”

    “He. Um... Maybe they haven’t switched to semesters in Australia... Well, I don’t know, Phoebe!”

    “You’d better take the rest of the week off,” said Phoebe heavily.

    “Um, thanks. Um—what about the office?”

    “Get onto the temp agency. –The decent one.”

    “Ye-es... It’s hard to train someone up for such a short period.”

    “I don’t require her to understand your idiosyncratic filing system, Louise: only to answer the phone, take messages competently and type the odd letter, preferably without spelling mistakes in every other word,” said Phoebe in a hard voice.

    Swallowing, Louise said: “Um—she could leave the filing, I suppose...”

    Phoebe took a deep breath.

    “I’m going,” said Louise hurriedly, disappearing.

    Phoebe sighed. She looked at her desk calendar for approximately the fifteenth time that day. Under Friday’s date it still said: “Meet S 8.30 a.m.” Bugger. She'd assumed she’d be free: Louise wasn’t the only one to have forgotten they weren't having May holidays. Well, at least not having a break had given her a good excuse to turn down Laura’s invitation to Jim’s birthday lunch. And what Grammar was doing having a week off in May, when all the schools were supposed to be on the new semester system, she’d like to— No, she wouldn’t, actually.

    Funnily enough no May break was being enjoyed at humble Maungakiekie Street Primary School—of course nowhere near the plutey precincts of your actual Maungakiekie, commonly known as One Tree Hill. Though apparently one of its teachers was taking one.

    “Where the fuck are you going?” asked Bill sourly, having wandered over the rutted playground in the direction of his friend and subordinate’s permanent prefab in the hope of sharing his misery, only to find him about to get into his M.G.

    Tom stuck his nose in the air. “My free afternoon, remember?”

    Bill glared.

    “You awarded me Tuesdee as me free afternoon, oh Great White Headmaster.”

    Bill looked hopefully up at the sky but it remained treacherously forget-me-not blue. “All right, then, bloody get going before I flaming do ya!”

    Tom got into the M.G. and drove off.

    Bill walked slowly back across the playground, tenderly nursing the Hokum Pipe, which as usual gave every evidence of being about to utter its last dying gasp, pondering the knotty problems of (a) whether Meg might have been right when she said she was sure Tom and Jemima were planning a baby, (b) whether Jemima might have dropped a hint last Sunday to Isabel Blakely when they’d invited her to Number 10 for afternoon tea, and (c) whether he could pump Isabel tactfully. Only when he got to the staffroom and saw her meek, spinsterish face above its usual Liberty print shirtwaister, with a cardy today, since it was May, he knew he couldn’t.

    “That’s a nice cardy, Isabel,” he said weakly. “You knit that?”

    Very pink and gratified, Isabel, who had knitted it, told her Headmaster a terrific lot about the cardigan pattern. Probably served him right, thought Bill dully. Boy, it was Hell, not having May holidays.

    The temp said hesitantly on the intercom: “It’s a gentleman for you, Miss Fothergill: a Mr Weintraub. Shall I put him through?”

    “Oh—er, yes; thanks, Simone— No, hang on: Sir John isn’t here yet, is he?”

    “No, Miss Fothergill,” said the temp in the voice of one peering out the window while simultaneously trying to speak into the intercom. “I can’t see his car yet— You did say it’s a blue Rolls, didn’t you?”

    “Mm. Electric blue,” said Phoebe on very dry note which the temp failed to register.

    “Yes. Well, there’s no sign of it yet, Miss Fothergill. Would you like me to ring his office?”

    “Yes, would you, please, Simone? And put Mr Weintraub through.”

    Simone duly did. She was an efficient girl, and it was a pity that the school didn’t have a permanent place for her, really...

    “Sorry to ring you at work!” said the familiar hearty voice.

    “That’s okay,” said Phoebe cautiously.

    She heard Nat swallow. “Uh—look, the thing is... Well, I’m taking a few days off next week, going down the bach at Taupo for a bit of fishing and—uh, well, Helen doesn’t want to come and Mel’s all fixed up to go and stay with Pauline for a bit, so— Well, anyway, wouldja fancy it?” he ended, sweating a bit.

    There was a short silence. Then Phoebe said: “This is a bit sudden, isn’t it?”

    “Yeah, well, didn’t know if I could get away till today... You have got next week off, eh?”

    “Ye-es... I don’t know, Nat, I’ve got a lot to do...” She swallowed. Of course, she could burn her bridges good and proper: tell him Sol was coming back and she had every intention of not letting him out of her sight for the next week. Which would be blitheringly stupid, because he’d given no indication that he cared if he set eyes on her during said week! Besides which, he’d probably be swamped with business, setting up his blasted shop—ordering bits of boat or fishing rods or whatever it was you did in order to set up a ruddy boating-supplies store in the middle of nowhere up bloody Carter’s Inlet!

    “Just an idea,” said Nat sadly.

    “Mm.” On the other hand, she could burn her bridges good and proper with Sol, and go off for a dirty week at the bach with Nat! Or she could go and not let on to Sol... Having her cake and eating it, too? What with Easter in Sidders with the Knight, she’d been doing a fair bit of that lately...

    “Um—let me think it over, Nat,” she said weakly. “I might be able to get away for a few days. Can I ring you at work—um—would tomorrow be too late?”

    “No, that’d be fine!” he said eagerly.

    “Mm. Well, I’ll see what I can work out. I can’t promise anything, mind.”

    “No,” he said, sounding flattened. “Well—see ya, old girl!”

    “’Bye,” replied Phoebe with a little smile in her voice that had got there quite by itself.

    She hung up, and sighed a bit. She was very fond of Nat, really. But he wasn’t free and he never would be, and coming about fifth in a man’s life—after the wife, the kids, the house and the job—without even mentioning the car and the boat that all too frequently needed things doing to them when in her opinion he could have been much better employed— Well, it wasn’t much chop. And did she want to go on like that for—well, the foreseeable future? Because Nat, never mind his declared intention of dying in the saddle at ninety, wasn’t getting any younger: in fact, he must be... Phoebe frowned but couldn’t remember: he never spoke about his exact age. Not far off sixty, though. Realistically, how much longer could he keep it up? –So to speak! Phoebe smiled a little, and moved her pen set around her desk. (A tenth anniversary present from the Board of Governors—at the Chairman’s prompting, she was in no doubt: the set was gold and electric blue.)

    “Miss Fothergill? Sir John Westby’s here,” said the intercom.

    Jumping, Phoebe replied weakly: “Thanks, Simone: ask him to come through, would you, please?”

    The eminent gynaecologist came in beaming, shook hands in that extra-warm way of his—ugh—and suggested that since it was nearly lunchtime they might as well go to The Golden Lamb, what did his dear Phoebe think? His dear Phoebe thought that he must have booked already: you couldn’t just walk into The Golden Lamb and demand a table. Since she had to eat, she agreed to this, but pointed out she had to be back by two: she had the Third Formers for Human Biology this afternoon.

    “Ah!” he said, chuckling.—Phoebe swallowed.—“Sex Ed., eh?”

    Phoebe swallowed again. “Mm. Don’t call it that, John, some of the parents might object.”

    “Teach it yourself, do you?” He produced a mild leer.

    Phoebe had taught it at St Ursie’s for nearly fifteen years, having discovered what a hash her then Sports Mistress had been making of it. She was pretty sure Westby was aware of this. “Yes,” she said heavily, getting up.

    Sir John was far too proper to say anything dirty, or even faintly off-colour, in reply. He came and helped her into her jacket—in a warm, lingering sort of way—and said in a wistful voice: “It is my subject, you know... Sing out if you ever need a hand, won’t you?”

    “Yes,” said Phoebe in a shaken voice. “Thank you, John: I’ll remember that.”

    The naïve might have thought that in a city the size of the greater Auckland conurbation it would be possible to have a private life, but as Phoebe wasn’t, she didn’t. True, she did jump when a voice addressed her on the Friday at the Auckland International Airport with: “Hi, Aunty Phoebe: what on earth are you doing here?”

    Phoebe looked at him limply. “What on earth are you?”

    Panting a little, Dickon set down a bulging briefcase and explained in detail exactly which ecological conference at which Australian university he was about to take off for, who the keynote speakers were, and what he himself was speaking on. Adding: “Are you meeting someone?”

    “Mm. Off the—uh—the Honolulu flight. It’s late.”

    “Mine doesn’t go for a bit; shall we sit down?”

    “All right. No, not there: the Koru Club.”

    “The bar? At this hour? Anyway, I can’t, I’m not a member—”

    “I am.” Phoebe towed him away.

    ... “Hullo,” she said weakly.

    Polly looked up, smiling. “Hullo, Phoebe! How lovely to see you! Hi, Dickon, how it’s going?”

    “Good,” he replied hoarsely, going very red.

    Resisting an impulse to roll her eyes in despair at her idiot nephew’s general idiocy, Phoebe sat down in an armchair. Not on Polly’s sofa, because next to Polly was a very small red-haired person clutching a yucky rusk.

    “Dickon! ’Port car!” it cried.

    “Yeah; how are you, Katie Maureen?” he replied in a sort of stupid squeak, sitting down beside her.

    Resisting the impulse to roll her eyes madly, Phoebe said weakly: “So this is the famous Katie Maureen.”

    “Otherwise known as Butch,” its proud mother replied without emotion, glancing indifferently at its workmanlike denim overalls and awful, indescribable haircut.

    “Um—what happened to her hair, Polly?” croaked Dickon, as Katie Maureen clambered onto his knee.

    Polly groaned. “Super Glue and Johnny in combination. Poor Nanny was in tears.”

    “Christ,” said Phoebe simply.

    “Mm. At first we thought we’d have to shave it all off. Then we decided we could salvage the top bit.”

    “Didn’t you try Super Glue remover?” said Phoebe very faintly.

    “Yes. It doesn’t work all that well on hair.”

    “It makes her look like a boy,” said Dickon, faintly.

    “I’M NODDA BOY!” she bellowed.

    Phoebe’s idiot nephew replied quickly: “No, of course not, Katie Maureen, you’re a very pretty girl. Um—it’s just that your hair’s very short, isn’t it?”

    She looked smug. “Johnny done it. He was bad. Daddy smacked him.”

    Grinning, Phoebe said: “I’m glad to hear he belongs to the old-fashioned school when it comes to parental discipline. –Do they allow kids in here?”

    “Well, they’ve never chucked us out,” said Polly simply.

    “I see. Are you meeting Jake?”

    “Yes, off the flight from the States, but his plane’s been delayed: it was late taking off from Honolulu.”

    “Oh,” said Phoebe limply. “I’m meeting that.” She waited for Polly to ask her who she was meeting, but she didn’t.

    “Where are the twins, Polly?” asked Dickon.

    Smiling a little, Polly said: “Well, Johnny’s still in disgrace: he wasn’t allowed to come. And Davey lost interest when I told him we’d be coming home in the station-waggon, not the Group’s helicopter.”

    “Helicopper all busy!” cried Katie Maureen.

    “I see,” said Dickon, looking at her with great affection. His aunt felt a bit rocked. Well, she supposed groggily, it was about time he settled down and got a few of his own... God, talk about time flying...

    “What?”

    “I said the coffee’s foul, but would you like one anyway?” repeated Polly, getting up.

    When Dickon’s offer to get them had been duly refused and they’d both admitted they would like coffee, thanks, and she’d gone off to the bar, Phoebe said: “That’s a sight you don’t see every day.”

    “No; isn’t she lovely?” replied her idiot nephew, very red but game.

    Sighing, Phoebe said: “No-one would dispute that point, Idiot Nephew. –She seems to have remembered how stinking hot it always is in the bloody terminal,” she added sourly, staring at the back view of poured-into-’em-style white denims, high-heeled white suede boots and sleeveless buttercup yellow cotton-knit top. The fringed white suede thing that was doubtless the jacket was slung carelessly over the arm of the sofa. It matched the big squashy suede shoulder-bag slung carelessly on one shoulder. Yes, well. “I didn’t mean that: I meant the sight of a billionaire’s wife getting two insignificant pedagogues a cup of foul airport coffee.”

    “I wanna drink!” cried Katie Maureen suddenly.

    Jumping, Dickon said: “Uh—I’m sure Mummy’s getting you one, Katie Maureen.”

    Katie Maureen pouted. “Orange zhuishe,” she muttered.

    “Mm, I expect so. –Isn’t she sweet?” he said.

    Phoebe sighed. “Yes, since we seem to be conversing exclusively in stereotypical rôle-reinforcing clichés this morning, she is very sweet, Dickon. Has it occurred to you that you could produce one of those? Given the appropriate co-operation, of course.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?” he replied, a glowing crimson.

    “Nothing,” said Phoebe, sighing. “But if you like kids, why not settle down and have a few?”

    There was a short silence. Apart from Katie Maureen finishing her rusk: not nice.

    “It takes two,” Dickon said finally in a tiny voice.

    His aunt was about to wither him when she noticed that he was blinking and swallowing a bit. “Mm. Well, there’s nothing wrong with you: I expect you’ll find someone in due course,” she said mildly.

    Dickon swallowed loudly and didn’t reply.

    Fortunately at that moment Katie Maureen choked down the last bit of rusk and cried: “C’n I go in your ’port car?”

    “Um—no, not today, Dickon has to go on a great big plane today,” he replied in a soppy voice.

    “I’m going gray big plane!”

    “What a lie,” her mother returned mildly, coming back with a tray of refreshment. “Come on, have an orange drink, Butch Carrano.”

    Katie Maureen apparently didn’t understand the insult. Either that or she figured the orange drink was worth it. She accepted it greedily and after a few shrieks of “ME! ME!”, loudly over-ridden by Polly’s: “NO! The glass is too BIG, Katie Maureen! Let Dickon— LET DICKON HOLD IT!” she condescended to let Dickon hold it for her while she drank. Kind persons would have called it drinking.

    “She’s still at the sludge-pump stage,” Polly explained mildly.

    Twitching slightly, Phoebe admitted: “I’d noticed.”

    “Meg reckons it’ll only last another eighteen years or so,” added Polly, grinning.

    Meg’s Headmistress sniggered into her foul airport coffee. “When do your twins start school, Polly?” she then asked kindly.

    Polly replied in a sour voice: “Next November. And if their besotted male parent has his way they’ll be starting at Queen’s Junior School.”

    This was more or less the male equivalent of St Ursula’s. Phoebe replied cautiously: “Oh?”

    Polly’s mouth firmed. “Puriri Primary,” she said in an evilly determined voice.

    “Big school!” cried Katie Maureen.

    “Uh—yeah.” Looking guilty, Polly admitted: “We had a look at it, didn’t we, darling?”

    “This would have been quite recently, would it?” asked Phoebe airily.

    “Yeah, it was behind Sir’s back, actually,” admitted Polly, glancing cautiously at her daughter.

    “I bet it’s the second thing she says to him,” said Phoebe immediately.

    “What’ll the first be?” asked Polly with a laugh in her voice.

    “Boys was bad?” suggested Dickon, giggling.

    “Something along those lines,” agreed Phoebe on a grim note.

    “I can assure you, it’s not acquired behaviour off me,” said Polly, even grimmer.

    “No. Bloody depressing, isn’t it? Sometimes I think all my years of attempting to knock sense and the rudiments of decency into those empty feminine heads at School are just so much wasted effort.”

    “Hormones’ll win every time,” Polly agreed. “Mind you, I read a book a while ago that reckons none of it’s to do with hormones or genes or chromosomes at all: it’s all acquired behaviour, from the instant the parents discover the infant’s sex. Hang on, I made a note of it.” She scrabbled in the white suede bag and eventually produced a small white notebook and handed it to Phoebe, open at the relevant note.

    “I’ve read that,” Phoebe acknowledged with a little smile, handing the notebook back. “Pass it on to Meg, she might like it. It was quite consoling. For at least half an hour. And then you meet one of Them.” She gave Butch Carrano an evil look.

    “I know,” said Polly, sighing. “Still—all is not lost: recollect the author’s a woman!”

    They looked at each other and chuckled.

    Eventually a tinny adenoidal voice announced: “The Yoverseas Deparchewer Leeounge is Neeow Open” and they accompanied Dickon to the barrier, where Katie Maureen embraced him fervently and Phoebe’s nephew, turning the obligatory maroon, said to her mother: “Can I?”—and embraced her gently back.

    “Wet,” groaned Phoebe as his thin back disappeared.

    “Mm. Sweet, though. –Shut up, Katie Maureen, Dickon’s GONE!” she cried over the infant’s bellows of “BYE-BYE, DICKON! BYE-BYE, DICKON!”

    “Dickon all gone,” she acknowledged sadly.

    “Yes. Gone to catch his plane.”

    “See plane go!”

    Groaning, Polly said: “Oh, all right: if you want to look at miles of airport roofs I suppose we can trudge up there. –Don’t feel you have to come, Phoebe.”

    Phoebe sighed. “I haven’t got anything else to do; I might as well.”

    … “My God!” she gulped.

    Giggling, Polly said: “You’ve never been up here before, have you?”

    “No. Jesus, how do they dare to call it the Viewing Area?”

    “There is a view.”

    “Of airport roofs,” said Phoebe faintly. “Acres of them.”

    “See PLA-ANE!” cried Katie Maureen.

    Apart from roofs, all you could see a very small strip of airport runway, on which it was possible a plane might appear. Given the right wind conditions, presumably. Katie Maureen stared fixedly at it…

    “This’ll be it,” said Polly at last with a sigh.

    “Yeah: and in ninety minutes’ time we’ll see the first debarking passenger,” agreed Phoebe sourly.

    “No, Jake’ll be through quite soon: they always let the First Class and Business Class passengers off first.”

    Phoebe knew that, after the trip to Sidders at Sir Ralph’s expense; however, she merely groaned and said: “I’ll come down with you; I can’t stand another instant of grey airport roofs!”

    “Lotsa roofs,” agreed Katie Maureen sadly.

    Polly picked her up and kissed her. “It’s always like this, darling: had you forgotten about the roofs?”

    “PUMMEE DOWN! I WANNA WALK!” she bellowed.

   They walked—perforce very slowly—to the escalator.

    “Me! Go on a essalator BY MYSELF!” she roared.

    “No. –NO! It’s against the RULES!” roared Polly. “Hold Mummy’s hand!”

    “NO! NO!”

    Polly wrenched her up bodily.

    “PUMMEE DOW-OWN! PUMMEE DOW-OWN!”

    “Behave!” panted Polly.

    “Can you balance all right in those boots holding her?” asked Phoebe, looking in some dismay at the pitch of the “Down” escalator.

    “No,” she decided, backing away. “Grab her hand, Phoebe, I’m gonna take these off.”

    Phoebe grabbed the infant’s sticky paw and watched numbly as Lady Carrano hauled off her trendy white suede boots. Under them she had on very ordinary white socks. “Uh—aren’t there any stairs?”

    “Not that I’ve ever discovered. I’d hate to be stuck up here in a fire,” said Polly grimly. “Could you carry my boots, please, Phoebe? –Ta.”

    Phoebe carried Lady Carrano’s boots down the escalator while Lady Carrano carried the purple, writhing, bellowing Butch, who had duly refused again to go down nicely holding her mother’s hand. “I can see why people like you have nannies,” she said drily at the bottom.

    The next hurdle was of course the milling crowds milling around where the passengers from the Honolulu flight were due to emerge. As they began fighting their way through them Phoebe panted: “He has seen the hair, has he?”

    “Yes, thank God. The only little surprise waiting for him this time is the Super Glue down the nursery plumbing!” she panted.

    “What?”

    “Johnny threw it away after the row over the hair. He thought he was doing the right thing—well, we think so. Only unfortunately he threw it down the nursery bog.”

    “Christ!”

    “That’s more or less what the plumber said,” agreed Polly.

    Phoebe began to laugh weakly. She was still laughing weakly when they burst through the remnants of the crowd, none of whom appeared to be there for the purpose of meeting First Class or even Business Class passengers off the Honolulu flight, Katie Maureen screamed “DADDEE-EE!” and Polly gasped: “It’s Sol! So that’s who—”

    Gulping, Phoebe said: “Yeah. What on earth is he—”

    Screaming, Katie Maureen hurtled forward and threw herself at her father. Laughing, Polly hurtled forward and threw herself at her husband. He was quite capable of handling the pair of them at once, Phoebe noticed dazedly.

    “Hey, Phoebe,” Sol greeted her mildly. He put down a bulging carry-on bag (loosely defined) and mopped his streaming brow.

    “What in God’s name were you doing in First Class?” she returned weakly.

    Sol’s long mouth twitched. “Jake, here, found me. He was lonely.”

    Phoebe swallowed loudly.

    He glanced drily at the fervently embracing Carranos. “Say, is this the way ya do it out here in Noo Zealand?”

    “Um—yes,” said Phoebe limply. “I suppose so.”

    Sol looked at her uncertainly. Phoebe smiled weakly. She took a step forward.

    From her father’s shoulder Butch Carrano ordered: “You give your Daddy a big kiss now!”

    “Yeah. Give us a big kiss, Phoebe,” agreed Sol, grinning all over his thin face.

    Phoebe gave him a big kiss. It seemed the only thing left to do.

    “Seems a decent joker,” admitted Sir Jacob, manoeuvring the big station-waggon out of the carpark.

    “Of course he is! –Where on earth are we going?” asked Polly limply.

    “Go HO-OME!” cried an anxious voice from the back seat.

    “Yeah, we’re going home, sweetheart,” he lied. To his wife he said: “Thought we might as well nip over to the air-freight place and get his stuff for him. Seeing you had the waggon. Got a little something to pick up meself, actually,” he added.

    “What?” she cried indignantly.

    “Calm down. No extravagant pres—” He stopped abruptly.

    “Prezzies! Prezzies!” cried the voice from the back seat.

    “Um—yeah, Daddy’s got a wee something for you in his bag—we’ll unpack it when we get home. –When we get HOME, sweetheart!” he bellowed. “Um—’s nothing much,” he said guiltily to his wife. “Just a wee—um—F,R,O,C,K.”

    “B,E,S,O,T,T,E,D  F,A,T,H,E,R,” she replied sourly.

    “Yeah, well: only got the one wee girl, haven’ I, eh?” He patted her knee. “Plus the one big girl, of course!”

    Polly sighed loudly. “Well, what is it?”

    “Eh?” replied Sir Jacob, easing his crotch. “The usual, isn’t it?”

    “Not that!” she choked.

    “Give ya some tonight,” he promised. “No, well, only some Californian plonk.”

    “How much?” she said in a hollow voice.

    “Eh?”

    Swallowing, Polly said: “If there’s so much that you sent it air-freight, how much is there?”

    “Aw, not that much! Shit, if I’da sent it by sea you’da had a right to— No, well, a few dozen.”

    “God,” she muttered.

    “That reminds me: don’t let me forget to get hold of some of this year’s Coonawarra reds, they reckon it was a decent vintage. –Coonawarra. Make a note of it.”

    Polly got out her little notebook and made a note of it. “That’s not Californian, is it?” she said dubiously.

    Sir Jacob choked.

    “LOOK OUT!” she screamed.

    “I can see it!” he replied irritably as an airport lamppost hurled itself at them. “It’s Aussie, you cretin.”

    “Oh,” she said meekly.

    During the remainder of the short drive over to the air-freight area Jake told her a lot about just what constituted a good Coonawarra red. He was pretty sure she wasn’t listening, but that didn’t stop him for an instant.

    “What?” said Phoebe weakly.

    “Over there—go on. Uh—well, Jake offered... Well, gee, he insisted, really,” said Sol in a feeble voice, as they followed the large Volvo station-waggon over to the air-freight area. “I guess I’m not much good at turning down offers from these Kiwi millionaire-guys, honey.”

    Phoebe waited for him to explain that this was because he was only a simple Yankee boy, but he didn’t. “Well, where are you going to put all these crates of shelving?” she asked feebly.

    “Shelving and books,” he corrected solemnly. “Uh—gee... I guess maybe we could hire a U-Haul and— No?”

    Phoebe sighed heavily. “No. Imprimis, although—possibly alone of my compatriots—I do recognize the term ‘U-Haul’, we do not have that service in the Antipodes. And secundus, my garb might bely it, but I am actually supposed to be at work.” She shot a glance at her watch. “As of half an hour ago. I hope to God that temp’s had the sense to tell Meg or Ellen I haven’t made it.”

    “Ugh—yeah,” he said groggily. He glanced at her jeans and sweater. “You look okay... I’m sorry, hon’, I did ask Susan if it was your May vacation, and she said sure it was.”

    “Oh. Well, it is the university’s, yes. We’re in the middle of switching from terms to semesters— It’s too complicated to explain. Anyway, I suppose we might manage to hire a trailer or something, but—” She broke off. “I don’t mean what you mean by a trailer!” she said loudly. “And before you ask, I don’t know the American word!”

    “Gee, I guess it’s an impasse, then,” he replied mildly.

    Phoebe bit her lip.

    “Honey, we don’t have to collect all this junk today, I’ll just tell Jake—”

    “No, we might as well, I suppose,” she said with a little smile, remembering Meg’s and Laura’s (separate but identically horror-struck) descriptions of the Carranos’ cellars, “that Polly and Jake could always store the stuff for you for a few days.”

    “Yeah. Sure. He’s a decent guy, huh?”

    “Mm. –Would you say he deserves Polly?”

    There was a short silence. Phoebe peered out of her window. The big pale fawn Volvo had disappeared beyond an enormous truck, but soon it hove in sight again. She negotiated the truck carefully.

    “‘Deserves’ in what sense?”

    Biting her lip, Phoebe replied in a strangled voice: “Any way you care to take it, Sol.”

    Slowly he replied: “Wal, now... In some ways I don’t guess any guy ’ud deserve that. Boy, she can be a hard case when she gets goin’, huh? Only I guess with you bein’ kinda over-exposed to that Laura, you might not have notice—”

    “I’ve noticed,” said Phoebe drily.

    “Yeah. Well, on the other hand, I guess he is the sort of decent guy that does deserve somethin’ real sweet and pretty and affectionate like that in his bed of a cold winter night, uh-huh.”

    Phoebe swallowed loudly. “‘Sweet and pretty and affectionate’?”

    “Wal, Hell, Phoebe, honey, we just seen a demonstration of it!”

    Phoebe was silent.

    “Well, didn’t we?” he said with a little laugh in his voice.

    Phoebe sighed. “Yup,” she conceded.

    Smiling, Sol said: “I guess they’re really in love, huh? How long they been married, now?”

    “Five years, so Meg informs me.”

    “I guess it look likes it’s taken, then.”

    “Mm. He can handle her, all right.”

    “Yeah, and I’d say she can handle him, all rightee.”

    “I suppose so,” she conceded, lips twitching.

    He leaned back in his seat and sighed. “Say, I’ve missed that, hon’!”

    Phoebe debated telling him not to call her that, but somehow didn’t make up her mind to it. “Um—what?”

    “That way you say ‘I suppose’. –‘I suppose so’; ‘I suppose that Polly and Jake can store the stuff.’” He sighed.

    Shaken, Phoebe said: “Don’t Americans say that?”

    “I don’t guess so,” he drawled.

    “God, will you let up for a minute, Sol!” she cried.

    He smiled, and touched her denim knee gently. “I wasn’t getting at you, hon’.”

    Phoebe’s face was very red. She swallowed hard, and didn’t reply.

    … “Hell’s teeth!” she said. “How many books have you got?”

    “Uh—well, a few more than you, maybe... We could maybe just take the shelving, it’s all in these here flat crates—”

    He and Jake bustled off with busy male expressions on their faces. Polly came up to Phoebe’s side. “Are these his own books?”

    “What?” said Phoebe blankly.

    “Not boating or fishing books for the shop, I mean.”

    “Oh! Um—I think they’re his own, yes... How on earth do you know about the shop?” she croaked.

    “Old Sir Jerry Cohen told Jake about it at the Club. Jake encouraged him, because if he didn’t he was afraid he might insist on playing chess. He’s so awfully bad that it’s very hard to lose to him,” she explained. Phoebe had a spluttering fit. When she was over it Polly added: “And when Jake got hold of the passenger list and realized it must be Sol, he went and winkled him out of Tourist Class and got all the most minute details out of him. He loves anything to do with business.”

    “I think I see,” she said weakly. “At least, I understand everything but how he got hold of the passenger list.”

    “He bullied one of the stewardesses into showing it to him, how else?”

    Phoebe swallowed.

    “He was bored, there were only a couple of old ladies coming on to New Zealand in his section, so—”

    “I’ve got it, thank you, Polly,” said Phoebe in a hollow voice.

    “He’s like that,” said Lady Carrano mildly.

    “Mm.” Phoebe looked round for Sol. She sighed.

    Polly’s mouth twitched. “They’ve gone into a macho huddle with that man in the overalls.”

    “God! How do you stand it?”

    “I like it. I like men, I think they’re adorable.”

    Phoebe gulped.

    “Sol’s really sweet,” offered Polly, smiling at her.

    “Yes,” she croaked. “Um—well, as you’re so fond of them all, Polly, would you like to interrupt them to ask the man in the overalls if there’s a phone anywhere I could use? I think they must be thinking I’ve gone AWOL, at School.”

    Polly was pretty sure Meg O’Connell, for one, wouldn’t be thinking any such thing. However, she merely replied mildly: “I wouldn’t mind, but it’d be quicker to use our car-phone.”

    Groaning, Phoebe said: “Sorry. Forgot my humble eccentric movement was momentarily impinging on the periphery of your ultra-exclusive filthy-rich circle. Lead on, Macduff.”

    Polly led on, smiling slightly. “Can circles be said to have peripheries? Isn’t a circle merely a periphery?”

    Grinning, Phoebe warned: “Don’t get semantic on me, I’ve had an overdose of that already this morning from S. Winkelmann.”

    Polly choked.

    … “Rats!” said Sir Jacob breezily. “Bob’ll give us a hand!” He then produced a full-blown scheme which included such details as dropping Sol’s bags off at his motel, dropping his own wife and child off at home, collecting Bob Grey, and continuing on north to Carter’s Inlet where they could store the stuff at the Carranos’ bach—

    “Don’t be an idiot,” said his wife mildly into the tingling silence that had developed outside the air-freight hangar. “Phoebe and Sol haven’t seen each other for months.”

    “Sorry.” He grinned at them. “Righto, then: we’ll just take the stuff up to our place— No, tell ya what, Pol, let’s go on up to the bach anyway!”

    “You’ve been travelling all day,” replied his wife weakly.

    “So?”

    “Um—what about Nanny and the boys?” she said in a feeble voice.

    “What about them?” he returned without emotion.

    “Um...” Polly looked at him with a guilty giggle.

    “Get in. Only take half an hour more than what it would to get home anyway.”

    “Half an hour?” said Phoebe faintly, as Polly obediently got into the laden station-waggon. Normal people took closer to an hour to get from Pohutukawa Bay to Carter’s Inlet: the last bit of road, from the main north highway westwards to Carter’s Bay and then up the inlet, deteriorated exponentially the further you went.

    “’Bout that!” Sir Jacob replied breezily, inserting himself into the driver’s seat. “Give us a bell when ya feel like collecting the stuff, eh?” he said loudly to Sol.

    “Uh—yeah. Thanks very much, Jake.”

    “No sweat! See ya!”

    They bade the Carranos good-bye in faint voices as the big waggon pulled out under the nose of a startled Subaru towing a trailer. Phoebe felt so limp she didn’t even point out to Sol that that was a trailer.

    “You really gotta go to School, huh?” he said in a saddish sort of voice—Phoebe was pretty sure it was saddish—as she drew up outside her block of flats.

    “Yes. Are you sure you can drive this thing? I can always call you a taxi.”

    “Gee, not a taxi! Not all the way up to Puriri, honey!”

    Phoebe looked at him cautiously. “Is this, um, native canniness? Or inside information from Susan?”

    “Wal, now... I guess it’d be both, now you come to mention it.”

    She sighed. “Well, come in, I’ve just got to get out of these jeans: I won’t be long.”

    Sol followed her inside without saying anything.

    “Make yourself a cup of— Oh: there’s only Instant,” she said guiltily. “Well, just—” She glanced at her watch and gasped: “Just forage, or something, Sol; sorry, I’ve got a meeting—”

    Sol sighed slightly as she rushed into the bedroom and closed the door. He walked slowly into the kitchen.

    “Hey, refrigerator,” he said to the refrigerator. “Remember me?”

    The refrigerator, in the manner of its kind, just sat there and looked stolidly at him.

    “Hey, cooker,” he said to the cooker. “Remember me? I’m the guy that made real coffee on you. Like for breakfast once or twice? No, I guess you don’t remember back that far.”

    He looked sadly at the kitchen table, pulled out a chair and sat down. He didn’t bother to say hey to the kitchen table, it didn’t look like the kind of kitchen table that remembered the odd visiting American from months back.

    In the bedroom Phoebe slapped muck on her face in proper headmistressly quantities, hurtled into a decent suit, suitable for impressing members of the Board with her headmistressliness, and ruthlessly brushed out and re-did her hair, thinking as she performed all these automatic activities that she was doing it all wrong: now he’d think she didn’t really want him, or something... Why couldn’t she show some true affection; be—be spontaneous, like—like ruddy Polly Carrano, for Christ’s sake!

    In the kitchen Sol sat glumly at the table. After a while he said sourly to the cooker: “I guess you ain’t a cooker, at that. But I’m dad-blamed if I can remember what they call you.” He’d have worked in an “Aw, shucks,” too, only he thought of it too late—and he was sure ’nuff lookin’ round for the spittoon, honk, splat.

    At the back of his mind he couldn’t help telling himself sourly he was doing it all wrong, giving her quite the wrong impression: why the Hell couldn’t he—well, drop the persiflage? ...Shit. How come some folks—there he went again—some people were utterly spontaneous, like—like Jake and Polly Carrano, Goddammit—whilst others… He didn’t know whether it was he was plain afraid of showing his feelings, or terrified of revealing himself only to be rebuffed—had she looked pleased to see him?—or what. Whatever it was it wasn’t good. Uh-uh. Nope. No, sirree.

    … “If I take this up to Puriri, how you goin’ to manage?” he said cautiously, as Phoebe leapt out of the car before St Ursula’s imposing stone frontage.

    “I’ll get a taxi, or something—I must rush, I’ve got to check the agenda, Louise is away, there’s only a temp. Um—look, ring me later if you feel like coming back into town for dinner.”

    “Yeah. Okay. Uh—I gave you the motel’s number, huh?”

    “Yes. Look, I’m sorry— Damn,” she muttered as a tall blonde woman appeared in the front doorway and bellowed: “Phoebe! About time!”

    “Okay, then, Phoebe. See ya,” he said. And drove away.

    The meeting of the Board of Governors of Saint Ursula’s School had a brief adjournment at three o’clock for afternoon tea. Shrewsburys out of packets. Admittedly Phoebe had intended to ask Simone to pop out and get a few little cakes from the bakery which did quite nice little cakes and was only five minutes’ drive away, but— Tough tit. Phoebe watched with enjoyment as the Queen Mother politely ate a Shrewsbury with evident distaste. She then excused herself and went to make a phone call. Or three.

    “Oh,” said the female voice that had answered The Blue Heron Motel’s phone. “Well, I could put you through, but… Is it urgent? Because he did ask me for a wake-up call at five o’clock. He was looking awfully tired!” she confided in a breathless sort of way.

    Was he? Had he been? Phoebe couldn’t have said whether he had or hadn’t been and went rather red on the strength of it. “No, it’s not urgent. Don’t disturb him, if he’s sleeping off his jetlag,” she said, somewhat brusquely.

    “He said he’d come non-stop all the way from Miami with only a three-hour break in Los Angeles!” the voice confided.

    Phoebe went distinctly redder and said: “Did he? More fool he.” And hung up abruptly. She sat there for a few minutes, red and hot and trembling. He hadn’t told her any such thing! Then, gritting her teeth, she rang Nat.

    Before she could say more than “Hullo, Nat,” he said eagerly: “Ya will come, eh?”

    “What— Oh, Taupo,” said Phoebe limply. “Um—no, I can’t, Nat. I’m sorry.”

    “Oh,” he said sadly. “Too busy, eh?”

    Possibly this was a simple-minded attempt at a probe, because after all Susan Harding was his wife’s niece and it was very likely the Weintraubs had heard from Susan that Sol was coming out this week. However, Phoebe didn’t pause to ponder the point, she just said hurriedly: “No, it’s not that. I mean— Well, look, I’m sorry, Nat, but Sol’s come back.”

    “I see,” he said sadly.

    Phoebe bit her lip. “Um—yeah. I think we’d better end it, Nat,” she croaked. “He’s come out here to settle.”

    “Well, bugger the bastard!”

    “Look, to tell you the truth, I’m not sure what he wants, or— Anyway,” said Phoebe lamely, “I just thought I’d give it a—a fair go.”

    “Ya don’t need to spell it out,” replied Nat heavily.

    “No. Sorry. It has been great, Nat; I mean that.”

    Nat sighed. “Yeah. It’s been that, all right. Oh, well. All the best, eh?”

    “Thanks,” said Phoebe, finding her eyes had filled with tears like an idiot. “You, too.”

    “Yeah,” he said dully, hanging up.

    Frowning, Phoebe hung up. She blew her nose briskly. “Now,” she said grimly to herself: “Before I lose my bloody nerve—”

    “Sir Ralph Overdale’s consulting rooms,” fluted a silly voice that was almost as silly as the voice of Hugh Morton’s receptionist that time Louise had been in such a flutter over Michaela’s Mystery Man. About ten aeons, ago: yes. Phoebe was so used to dealing in her professional life with silly fluting voices on phones that she automatically assumed her dealing-with-silly-fluting-voices-on-phones manner and got put through to Sir Ralph with virtually no delay.

    After that, however, it wasn’t so easy.

    “Miss Fothergill! How delightful!” he said cordially.

    Phoebe had rung him at work before and she knew the owner of the voice didn’t listen. Or not for more than the first five seconds, or Ralph would have sacked her long since. Had that been for the benefit of the first five seconds, or not? She hesitated, then said: “Pas devant les domestiques?”

    “Eh?” he replied gormlessly.

    Phoebe took a deep breath. “Is this the right moment for a private word?”

    “Well, as propitious as any, I suppose,” he replied dubiously. “I’ve got a very rich prostate coming in in about half an hour, have to break it to him gently that even if I insert the bloody fibreglass tube he’s insisting on he’ll never be the same stud again.”

    “Fibreglass?” said Phoebe numbly, forgetting in the stress of the moment that not only was Ralph like that, he very probably had discovered from his extensive spy network not only that Sol was due this month but that his plane had already landed. And was therefore being even more like that.

    “Or words to that effect,” he said blandly.

    “Look, shut up! I’ve got something important to say!” cried Phoebe angrily.

    “Go on, then,” he said in a completely neutral voice.

    Phoebe was now positive he Knew All. And was making her sweat, the bastard. “All right, I won’t beat about the bush,” she said grimly. “I’ve rung up to say we’d better break it off.”

    “Ah,” said Ralph blandly. “The eagle has landed.”

    That was really very neat. What with the flight motif and symbols of rabid Americana and the momentous nature of the occasion. And either his mind worked as rapidly as she’d always been in no doubt it did, or HE ALREADY KNEW.

    “I’m glad you’re taking it so well, Ralph,” she replied cordially.

    To her disappointment he didn’t lower himself so far as to say “Taking what?” Instead he returned courteously: “Oh, not at all.”

    Phoebe took a deep breath. “I never pretended it was anything—”

    “Nor you did!” he discovered in amazed admiration.

    “All right, Ralph, would you rather I just let you find out by ringing up at seven in the morning and having him answer the phone?” she shouted.

    “Goodness me, no; besides, one knew you wouldn’t, Phoebe: you have the instincts of a gentleman.”

    Phoebe might have been intending to throw him some small crumbs of comfort by telling him she’d also broken up with Nat. But at this one she said instead: “All right, Ralph: if it needs spelling out, he’s my age, free, unattached, and without encumbrances. Not another bloody middle-aged married lecher looking for a bit on the side without involvement of any kind—on his part.”

    “Of any kind on his part,” said Ralph in a wondering voice. “Isn’t that so much of a redundancy as to verge almost on a contradiction, dear heart?”

    “Shove it, Ralph!” shouted Phoebe furiously, hanging up with a crash.

    After she’d done so, and recovered somewhat from the heaving-bosomed, red-faced trembling fit, she made an awful face and admitted: “Shit, shouldn’t have let him get my goat. –Oh, well, sod him, he did it on purpose, he knows he can rile me up, and if that was how he wanted it to be, too bloody bad!”

    On this note of unprejudiced realism, she got up and went back to the Board. Burnt bridges an’ all.

    Ralph had winced as Phoebe crashed her receiver down—even though he’d been expecting it. Sod the bitch. Well, if she imagined the Yank could give her what she wanted, not to say needed, she had another imagine and a half coming, did the militant Miss F. Unfortunately it might take her some time to discover this. And when she did—or if she did: there was always the infinitesimal possibility that he might be wrong—or if, having done so, she actually admitted it to herself, another story entirely—when and if, then, would she in fact Turn To Him?

    Ralph sniffed sourly. He pressed the button on his intercom and said: “Coffee might be an indicated move at this juncture, Jane. Or is it too early?”

    Jane—her name was actually J,A,Y,N,E but Ralph wasn’t prepared for a moment to tolerate that in his reception area—agreed in the appropriately servile manner that of course it wasn’t too early, Sir Ralph. Who was more pleased about the ruddy K, Audrey or Jane, it would have been hard to say. Jane’s stock had gone up tremendously, it would appear, with the other Personal Assistants and Prayvate Secretaries with whom she associated exclusively (in both senses of the word). On the other hand, so of course had Aud’s with the other wives of the Remmers and Titters butchers and bone-cutters.

    And indeed, Jane brought the coffee in within the space of five minutes. Of course it wasn’t as good as bloody Hugh’s always was. But then Jane had acceptable legs, whereas Hugh’s Miss Quimby was apparently powered from within by a small silicon chip: at least, Ralph had never noticed anything approaching legs in her vicinity.

    “Jane,” he said thoughtfully as she was about to depart with due humility.

    “Yes, Sir Ralph?” she replied eagerly.

    “Supposing I were to find more congenial employment in a more congenial part of the world—well, Sidders, at a pinch,” he said thoughtfully: “would you find it easy to get another—er—position?”

    Jane’s face fell about ten feet, poor bitch. Gratifying, really. But she managed to get out: “Oh, I’m sure, after the experience of working for you, Sir Ralph—”

    “Mm.”

    “Are you—are you thinking of going Offshore, then?” she gulped, forgetting to call him by the handle for once. Though not forgetting to imply that his life’s ambition was apparently to anchor himself fifty yards off the EnZed coast on a small raft.

    Ralph wrinkled his nose. “Oh, well—pastures new, mm? I have had a nibble from St Vincent’s... Well, I’ll think about it. Dare say the facilities would be no better there, really.”

    “Oh, no, Sir Ralph! The Mater has a world-wide reputation, and Greenlane—” Blah-blah.

    He let her get through it and then dismissed her kindly but firmly. Reflecting as she tottered out on the four-inch patents that Personal and Prayvate Persons of her ilk considered appropriate office wear and that Ralph only tolerated in view, as it were, of the legs, that there went one other that was feeling almost as bloody as he was at this precise moment.

    He hadn’t really said it to her on purpose at all. It had just come out of his mouth because running away very fast to a better life in Sidders was the first thing that had occurred to him when the blow had actually fallen. He was in no doubt that Phoebe, to name but one, would never have believed in his innocence for a moment, however.

    Motherly Molly Collingwood who owned The Blue Heron Motel in Puriri had hung up with a hand that shook a little. The commanding lady that had asked for Mr Winkelmann had sounded awfully cross... Oh, dear. Had she said the wrong thing?

    “What’s up?” her student helper asked her in that abrupt way she had. It was only shyness, Molly knew that: she was a lovely girl. So she smiled at Roberta Nicholls’s anxious face and said: “Oh, nothing, really, dear. It was a lady for Number Seven.”

    Roberta dumped a huge armful of soiled laundry on the motel’s office floor and said: “Didn’t you say he asked not be disturbed until five o’clock?”

    “Yes. I told the lady and she said not to bother him, it wasn’t urgent.”

    “That’s okay, then!” said Roberta bracingly.

    “Mm,” Molly agreed dubiously.

    “I’ve done Number Three,” offered Roberta.

    “What? Oh! Yes, dear. Thank you.” Molly looked weakly at the heap of laundry. “Well, you could take it through to the back, Roberta, dear.”

    Roberta heaved it up again. “Did you make them pay the extra?” she said indistinctly over it.

    “Um... Well, no, I didn’t, dear, in the end. I mean, it wasn’t their fault that their plane didn’t leave until this afternoon... And it seemed awfully mean to make them pay for a whole extra day, when there was no-one else coming in...”

    “You’ll never make a profit that way!” Roberta informed her cheerfully, striding out to the back.

    Molly sighed a little. What had she been— Oh, tidying up the shelves! She got on with tidying up the shelves in the combined little shop and office. The motel never did very well in the off-season, and it was a bit of a worry, really. Their restaurant always did quite well, that was a blessing. Not so much for lunches in winter, of course—though now that the teachers from up the Varsity had got to know about it there were always some of them... Molly stood staring vacantly out of the office window with a tin of spaghetti in her hand. The lady who’d rung for Mr Winkelmann had sounded, well... She was in no doubt that the caller was a lady. Very much so. You could tell just from her voice. One of those terrifying ladies in suits that never did anything stupid and always knew the right thing to say and never let shop people put one over on them and—and could stand on step-ladders to change light-bulbs…

    Mike Collingwood came in and goggled at the sight of his wife apparently turned to a pillar of salt. “What’s up?”

    Jumping, Molly gasped: “Nothing! A lady rang for Mr Winkelmann!”

    “Number Seven?”

    “Yes. He asked not to be disturbed until five o’clock,” she murmured.

    “Ya didn’t put her through, I hope?” he said with a little smile.

    “No... She was cross.” Molly swallowed. “She was one of those bossy ladies, Mike,” she said in a small voice.

    Mike scowled. They hadn’t been married long—second time round for both of them—and he was still very protective of his Molly. “Was she rude?”

    “Not that!” she said quickly. “Upset, really.”

    “Cor. Must be the girlfriend, then,” he said, winking at her.

    “Yes,” said Molly without enthusiasm. “I suppose so. He seems like an awfully nice man,” she added.

    “I think I got that,” drawled Mike.

    Molly looked at him uncertainly. “I just thought that lady sounded, um, a bit too bossy for him,” she explained.

    Roberta emerged from the back regions, announcing: “I’ve put that load in the washing-machine. You oughta send it all to the laundry, it’d be miles more efficient.”

    “It’s overheads, dear,” Molly murmured. “We do in the busy season, of course.”

    “It’s interesting,” said Roberta, leaning on the counter. “When the tourists come you get more business, so you send the sheets and stuff out, so the laundry company does better business...”

    “Crikey, she’s latching on to the way commerce functions,” said Mike faintly.

    “Shut up,” replied Roberta, grinning at him. “Who’s too bossy, Molly?” she added.

    Molly blinked at this unexpected reversion to an earlier topic, so Mike explained: “The dame that rang for Number Seven—the American bloke.”

    “If he’s the bloke I think he is, Michaela knows him. He likes pottery.”

    “See?” said Molly immediately.

    Trying not to laugh, Mike replied: “Yeah. Well, that makes him an okay joker, eh?”

    “Yes, it does,” said Molly firmly. “And anyway, he is, I can tell.”

    “And you can also tell that this dame that rang him up is all wrong for him,” agreed Mike, winking at Roberta.

    “Yes!” said Molly crossly, very pink and glaring.

    Mike gave in. He leaned over the counter, kissed her forehead. “Yeah. Okay. You always are right about people, I admit it.”

    Molly bridled a bit and blushed a bit. She didn’t contradict him, though, he noted with amusement.

    Sir Jacob woke with a start around six-thirty and said groggily: “Where the fuck—? Aw. We came up to the bach—yeah.”

    Since their holiday home up at the far end of Carter’s Inlet, though comfortable, consisted of one large main room, a slip of a children’s room in which Katie Maureen was now asleep, and a minute lean-to kitchen and bathroom, Polly was present. In fact she was perched on a divan by the windows, gazing dreamily over the darkening Inlet.

    “That’s right,” she said with a gurgle in her voice. “And the boys aren’t here, before you ask, because we decided we could have a break from them.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed sheepishly. “Musta dropped off,” he added sheepishly.

    “You got in there, wiggled it around for about two seconds, went off with a bang, and fell into a coma. If that’s what you call dropping off, then yes: you dropped off.”

    He raised himself on one elbow on the big bed and peered at her groggily in the gloom. “Sorry. Uh—no bloke performs at his best when he’s been travelling for—”

    “I realize that, Sir Jacob,” she said with that gurgle in her voice again.

    “Bet that Winkelmann type never performed like bloody Casanova, either,” he said sulkily. “He’s no spring chicken, ya know!”

    Polly peered at her watch. “I shouldn’t think he’s had time to perform at all, yet. Phoebe said the School Board meetings usually go on till around five-thirty.”

    “Shit,” he replied simply. “Uh—whaddis the time?”

    “Sixish.”

    “Oh. Well—um—we could have dinner,” he said hopefully.

    “There isn’t anything to eat,” Polly explained, trying not to laugh. “You seem to have forgotten that after you’d stuffed your face at lunchtime down at The Royal K you were so eager to get up here that you vetoed going back to Carter’s Bay to get some groceries.”

    “Did I? Uh—yeah, so I did. Bugger.”

    “I’ll nip down to the Bay for fish and chips,” she said.

    “Uh— No, I’ll—”

    “Rubbish. Stay here and keep an eye on Butch. She should be waking up any minute now.”

    “All right, then.” He yawned. “Could have a shower, too... We got any grog in?”

    “There’s some beer in the fridge,” his wife replied on a certain resigned note. “Added to which, the back of the waggon is half full of Californian plonk, in case you’d forgotten.”

    “Eh? Aw—yeah. So it is.”

    “And half full of Sol’s shelving,” Polly added, coming over to the bedside table and picking up his wallet.

    “Yeah. Well, he could collect it tomorrow, eh? He reckoned he was gonna—” He yawned again. “Gonna come up to Kingfisher Bay and have a look at the shop.”

    “Ye-es... Do you mean there is a shop?”

    Sir Jacob shouted irritably: “We passed it on the way to the flaming Royal Kingfisher, are you blind?”

    Polly returned composedly: “I must be.”

    Sighing, he explained: “That wee block of three shops just along from the marina, slap-bang on Kingfisher Parade.”

    “Oh, them!” In an evil voice she added: “The spot where any sensible person would have opened a dairy—yes, I know the shops you mean.”

    “The hotel—”

    The Royal Kingfisher Hotel on the point at tiny Kingfisher Bay had been built by Carrano Development and was owned by another of the Carrano Group’s many subsidiaries. “We know the hotel’s got the food concession for a five hundred-mile radius, Jake!”

    “Look, gimme the flaming car keys, I’ll go,” he said, sighing.

    “I don’t mind going,” replied Polly. “I just think it’s stupid that with three motels up Manuka Grove you wouldn’t build them a dairy!”

    “The hotel dining-rooms have gotta show a profit.”

    “Monetarist!” she replied sourly, going out.

    … “You did WHAT?” she screamed, half an hour later.

    “I wanted to know if they were gonna turn up here at crack of dawn tomorrow, what’s wrong with that?” he demanded loudly.

    Polly collapsed limply onto the edge of the bed. “Oh, Jake,” she said sadly.

    Huffily he replied: “They’re not made of flaming china, are they? All I said was—”

    “You not only ordered Phoebe to bring Sol up here in time for drinks and lunch tomorrow, you said she could spend the night with him at The Blue Heron and then they wouldn’t have to make such an early start!”

    “What’s wrong with that?”

    Swallowing, Polly said: “Their relationship may be—no, almost undoubtedly is—at a very delicate stage, hadn’t that occurred to your simple male mind?”

    “Uh—no,” he said, eyeing her uneasily. He cleared his throat. “Sounds like balls to me,” he ventured.

    Sighing, Polly replied: “If you want some fish and chips, go and wash your hands.”

    “Me hands don’t need— Oh, all right.” He went.

    “I think it’s her!” hissed Roberta, putting her hand over the mouthpiece of the motel’s phone.

    Mike rolled his eyes wildly. “Who, her?”

    “For Number Seven!” hissed Roberta.

    Mike held up his left wrist. He waved it wildly at her.

    Roberta stared at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly open.

    “Put her through!” he choked. “If ya can, without cutting her off,” he added snidely.

    Roberta was good on the phones, now; Molly had taught her. She stuck her tongue out quickly at Mike and said into the phone: “One moment please; putting you through now.” And put the caller through.

    “Did she sound bossy?” asked Mike mildly, leaning on the counter.

    “Um—yes,” admitted Roberta sheepishly.

    Mike gave a choke of laughter. “She’s never wrong, ya know!”

    Roberta felt obscurely that this was a sexist thing to say, though she couldn’t put her finger on just why. At the same time, confusingly, she thoroughly agreed with him: Molly Collingwood was very clever about people.

    “Um, maybe he likes bossy women; I mean, maybe he can handle them, or—or likes being bossed around or something,” she fumbled, thinking of Mum and Dad.

    Mike loathed bossy women; his first wife had been one. Plus a ball-breaker, plus— Well, never mind, Roberta was much too young and innocent to understand, even if he’d felt like talking about it. So he merely replied drily: “I suppose there’s gotta be a few about who do, otherwise the gene would have been bred out by now.”

    “Ye-es... Not if you view the woman as the sexual aggressor,” she said dubiously.

    “Yeah! The huntress type!” choked Mike.

    “Don’t laugh! Why not? What I’ve always wondered—” She stopped, going very red.

    “Go on. –Or don’t go on, if it’s something frightfully medical,” said Mike drily.

    Still very red, but looking him in the eye, Roberta said: “All right, then! What I’ve always wondered is how their men can manage to, um, do it: you know. Once they’ve hunted them down, I mean!” she ended with a nervous laugh.

    Mike replied thoughtfully: “The same thought has more than once occurred to me... Well, speaking from me vast experience”—he eyed her sardonically—“I never did manage very well. Especially when I got told what I was doing wrong all the time.” He grimaced sourly. “Tends to have a direct physiological effect.”

    Roberta gulped.

    “Presumably the corresponding male gene—uh—represents a need to be dominated,” Mike ended, drier than ever.

    “Ooh, yes... Help,” she said faintly.

    “Help, indeed,” Mike agreed sedately.

    “I hope I didn’t wake you up, Sol,” Phoebe said in a nervous voice.

    “No, I was awake. I tried to call you, a bit back: that meeting musta gone on forever, huh?”

    “Yes. Westby and the Queen Mother just about came to blows over whether the gels should wear hats or berets in winter,” she said glumly.

    “I get it!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yes.” Phoebe swallowed.

    “What, honey?” he said softly.

    “Um—well, look, Sol, I’m sorry about this, but— Well, we’re under orders from Sir Jake!” She gave a mad laugh.

    “Uh—how’s that, again?” he said politely.

     Swallowing, Phoebe said in a voice that came out louder than she’d intended it to: “He’s just rung me and told me to get on up to the motel tonight, so that you and I don’t have to make too early a start tomorrow in order to get up to his bach in reasonable time for pre-lunch drinks!”

    There was a short silence.

    “For God’s sake don’t ask me to run that by you again, my nerves won’t stand it!” she said with a shaky laugh.

    “No... Are you sure he didn’t say ‘pre-lunch drinkie-poos’, hon’?”

    Gulping, Phoebe said: “What in God’s name have you been reading? Noël Coward?”

    “Not lately,” he replied with a smile in his voice. “Wal, I guess you better get on your bike, huh? Being as how we’re under orders.”

    “You’ve got the car,” replied Phoebe weakly. “And I haven't got the cash to pay for a taxi: it’ll cost at least two hundred dollars to go all the way up there. They charge for the round trip if you go over the bloody Bridge, let alone all the way up to the Hibiscus Coast!” He didn’t say anything, so she added loudly and desperately: “That’s what this country’s like, Sol!”

    “Ye-ah...” he said slowly. “Hang on, honey, I’m thinking.”

    Heart racing frantically, hand slippery with sweat on the receiver, Phoebe hung on agonisedly.

    “How much cash have you actually got on you?”

    “Um—half a mo’. ...Sixty-two dollars and a few cents,” she reported.

    “That won’t be enough, huh?”

    “No!” she said angrily.

    “I only got ten dollars left, gas sure costs a bomb out here, huh?”

    “What? Oh, God, I’m sorry, I meant to fill the car up—”

    “That’s okay,” he said mildly. “Now, listen: you know anyone that’s got two cars and might be willing to let you use one?”

    “Dratted Laura and Jim, I suppose,” she admitted heavily.

    “Good. Well, you call them and see if they’ll loan you one, okay? And then call me back.” He hesitated. “I’d offer to drive down and fetch you, but—”

    “No. Not after flying non-stop from Miami. Why in God’s name didn’t you say?” she burst out.

    “Huh?”

    “Why didn’t you tell me you came all the way from Florida without a break? I’d never have let you drive all that way up to Puriri, if I’d known!” cried Phoebe.

    “No; that’s pretty much what I figured.”

    This time the silence came from Phoebe’s end. Finally she managed shakily: “Sol, you could have had an accident. You could have—have fallen asleep at the wheel!”

    “Nope: I drove with the windows open.”

    Phoebe took a deep breath. “You’re an idiot,” she said shakily.

    “Uh-huh,” he agreed. “Now, you ring Laura, okay?”

    “Ye-es... She’ll give me the third degree, you know,” she said uneasily.

    “Wal, now, Phoebe, seems to me ya got three choices,” he said. “One, you can tell her a string of lies about your car bein’ in for servicing; two, you can tell her you’re under orders from Sir Jake; or three, you can tell her the truth!”

    Phoebe swallowed noisily. “What is the truth?” she croaked.

    “Shit, Phoebe, if you can’t tell that, how the Hell can I?” he cried angrily.

    After a few moments during which her heart felt as if it was going to burst out of her neat blouse and smart suit-jacket, Phoebe managed to say: “Are you as nervous as I am, Sol?”

    “YES!” he bellowed.

    Phoebe was instantly possessed of a desire to bawl like crazy into the phone and confess all her stupid recent sins. Up to and including—in fact specially featuring—Sidders with Sir. She swallowed hard and croaked: “Thank God for that.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed shakily.

    There was a long silence during which they both held on very tight to their receivers and breathed heavily.

    Finally Sol said shakily: “Well, you ask ’em, huh? Shall I order dinner? They got a restaurant here.”

    “Okay. Bye-bye, then,” said Phoebe hoarsely.

    “’Bye, sweets,” he said softly.

    Phoebe’s mouth trembled. She hung up very quickly.

    Laura had gone off to some sort of meeting, so Jim Fisher cheerfully insisted on driving Phoebe up to Puriri.

    “Come on in, Phoebe,” said Sol softly as Jim’s car roared off down Pukeko Drive and the sounds of his boys’ raucous argument over which Puriri takeaway outlet to patronise gradually died away into the velvety night.

    “Ta,” said Phoebe feebly. “This is nice,” she said feebly, looking round the clean little unit.

    “Yeah,” he agreed without interest, sliding the glass door to and drawing the curtains carefully over it. “Would you like a Scotch?”

    “Sc— You don’t drink Scotch!”

    “No. I got this duty-free. Abe told me it was the right thing to do, so I done it.”

    Phoebe goggled at him.

    “Oh, Jake confirmed it,” he assured her.

    Swallowing, she said: “You didn’t get it for me, did you?”

    “Wal, you and any other Scotch drinkers I might happen to invite in for drinkie-poos, yeah.”

    “You should have got Bourbon, you idiot, it costs the earth out here!” she cried.

    Smiling slightly, Sol handed her a Scotch. “Bottoms up, old girl,” he said mildly.

    Gulping, Phoebe managed: “You cannot possibly say ‘Bottoms up, old girl’ with an American articulated R. It sounds—”

    “Yeah?”

    “Ludicrous,” said Phoebe weakly.

    “Aw, shucks,” he said in disgust.

    Phoebe choked. She took a hurried gulp of Scotch. It was Black Label: even duty-free that wasn’t— Drat the man.

    “I reserved a table for eight-fifteen,” he said mildly.

    She looked at her watch. “Aw, shucks.”

    Smiling, he said: “Uh-huh. I guess that just leaves us time for this, huh?”

    Phoebe stared at him with her mouth slightly open as he took her glass off her and set it down on the palette-shaped brown Formica coffee table that graced the lounge section (one unmade-up divan bed and one wooden-armed easy chair) of the motel unit.

    “This,” he explained, taking her very gently in his arms and putting his mouth on hers.

    Phoebe shuddered and clung to him.

    Sol kissed her very thoroughly, pressing very tightly against her. “Don’t,” he said gently as she eventually hid her face in his shoulder with a snorting noise.

    “I’m all right,” she said in a strangled voice.

    He stroked her hair. “You’ll feel stronger when you’ve had your dinner.”

    Phoebe replied in a muffled voice: “I don’t know that I want to feel stronger.”

    Smiling a little, he said: “Well, fitter?”

    She looked up with a little laugh at that. “Yeah—fitter!”

    They looked uncertainly into each other’s eyes.

    Sol’s head spun and he wanted desperately to tell her that he was never gonna let her go, he’d spent the last seven months or so in an agony of fear that he’d lost her, he didn’t care if he was only a dumb Yankee boy, couldn’t they try and make a go of it, somehow?

    Phoebe’s heart raced and she wanted to throw herself at him and bawl all over him and—having duly confessed the Sidders and Sir bits—tell him she didn’t want anybody else and she’d only made such a fool of herself over the last few months because she’d been so foully miserable at not hearing from him for so long—

    Neither of them was sure that it would be the whole truth about how they felt if they let go and gave way to these impulses. And both of them were terrified that if they did let go and say all that the answer would be a rebuff. Or at the most a withdrawal. So neither of them did.

    Finally Sol swallowed and croaked: “Well, how’s about that dinner?”

    “Go and have a look in the restaurant, dear, I’m sure it’s her!” gasped Molly, erupting into the motel’s little office where Roberta was reading Ginny’s copy of Middlemarch while she waited for the phone to ring, or guests to come in in quest of the three most frequent needs: instant coffee (chargeable), more toilet paper (supplied free, though the way some of them got through it they must be taking reams of it home with them), or condoms (chargeable, though in Roberta’s expressed opinion the government ought to supply them free).

    Jumping slightly, she said: “Who?”

    “Number Seven’s lady friend!” panted Molly.

    “Oh. Yes, it probably is, she rang him up a couple of times.”

    Molly leaned on the counter, panting. “She’s wearing a beautiful suit!”

    “Is she?”

    “Yes, it’s a sort of pale peachy colour... I think it’s fine wool. And a lovely blouse, very pale shades of blue and green and peach—one of those water-coloury patterns: you know!”

    Roberta smiled. Molly’s bedroom featured curtains and bedspread in just such a pattern, and on the walls hung a couple of pastel flower prints and a large water-colour of a misty winter sunrise in those very shades. “Is she blonde?”

    “Um...” Molly fingered her own short ash-blonde curls dubiously. “No, more sort of a very light brown... Very handsome!”

    “Yeah.” Roberta wasn’t that interested in Number Seven’s girlfriend but as it was obvious that Molly expected her to be she obligingly got up to have a look.

    She came back looking stunned.

    “Did you see her?” asked Molly eagerly, getting up from the switchboard.

    “Yes,” said Roberta hoarsely.

    “Isn’t she smart?” said Molly on a wistful note.

    “Yes. Um—Mike said you’d better go back to the kitchen, it looks as if the chicken pie’s running out.”

    “There’s been a real run on it tonight,” said Molly complacently. “I made the recipe up, did I tell you? It was that nice John Aitken that gave me the idea, he was telling me about a pie he’d had in England.”

    “Yes. Um—he was at that dance,” said Roberta weakly. “He lives over at Waikaukau Junction, doesn’t he?”

    “That’s right, dear!” she beamed, trotting over to the door.

    Roberta sat down limply. “Molly,” she said.

    “Yes, dear?”

    “That lady—” Roberta swallowed. “It’s Miss Fothergill.”—Molly looked blank.—“You know: Phoebe Fothergill, she’s the headmistress of St Ursula’s!” said Roberta, rather more loudly than she’d intended to.

    “Oh, is she, dear? Well, she does look a—a very capable sort of person.”

    “Yes, but you don’t understand!” cried Roberta.

    “What, dear?”

    “She—she’s into Women’s Lib—I mean, she’s one of the leading lights in the Women’s Movement—she was national president a couple of years back—and—and... Well, she’s always making speeches about how girls’ schools need to watch out for the pitfalls of—of stereotyping the pupils without ever giving them a chance to show what they can really do... Did you read that article of hers in the Listener last month?”

    Molly never read the Listener—well, except for the actual programmes—it was miles too intellectual. “No, what was that, dear?” she replied brightly.

    Roberta said weakly: “It was about the erosion of everything the Women’s Movement fought for in the old days—you know, the Sixties and Seventies—by commercial exploitation of all the old stereotypes.” Molly looked blank so she said impatiently: “You know, persuading women that they have to wear stupid high heels and bras and make-up and—and scent and—and girdles and stuff to be feminine!”

    “Oh,” said Molly blankly. She didn’t wear a girdle, herself, Mike said— Her cheeks pinkened and she avoided Roberta’s glance, as she thought of what Mike said about girdles. He wasn’t actually all that keen on bras, either... “What, dear?”

    “What’s she doing with that man,” cried Roberta, very flushed, “when she doesn’t believe in all that traditionalist rubbish?”

    Molly felt rather at a loss. She knew what this Miss Whatsername was doing with that lovely Mr Winkelmann and she perfectly understood, in her innermost being, why she was doing it; but she couldn’t have put it in a way that Roberta would understand to save her life. “Um—well, it’s not the same, dear,” she ventured finally.

    “What isn’t?” cried Roberta angrily.

    Molly gulped. “Um—all those Women’s Lib things, dear.”

    “What are you talking about, Molly?” cried Roberta, very flushed.

    “Um—well, human feelings, I think.”

    Roberta gaped at her.

    “I mean— Well, ladies can say all that, you know: about, um, girdles and um, what you said. Only that doesn’t stop them falling in love with a nice man, Roberta, dear!” she finished desperately.

    “‘Falling in love!’” cried Roberta loudly and scornfully. “You mean she’s an out-and-out hypocrite!”

    “No, that isn’t it at all!” gasped Molly.

    There was a short silence. Roberta looked red and sulky and Molly looked red and helpless.

    “Well, what is it, if it isn’t hypocrisy?” said Roberta sulkily at last.

    “Um—well, you can still fall in love and—and believe all those things,” said Molly faintly.

    Roberta snorted.

    “Um—look at that lovely John Aitken and his girlfriend!” urged Molly, suddenly inspired. “They’re a lovely couple—they quite often come here for lunch. Well, not as often as John did before they started living together, of course, Darryl’s taking very good care of his diet— What’s the matter, dear?”

    “Do you mean Darryl Tuwhare’s living with that man?” said Roberta through trembling lips.

    “Yes, of course, dear! Didn’t you say you saw them at the tennis club dance?”

    Roberta swallowed. “I didn’t take much notice… Molly, are you sure? I mean, they’re not just—just sharing a house, or something?”

    “Oh, no, dear, of course not! She’s terribly in love with him!”

    Roberta’s fists were clenched. “She’s the president of the Puriri Women’s Group,” she said hoarsely.

    “Oh, yes, she’s always been into that sort of thing!” Molly replied brightly.

    Licking her lips nervously, Roberta said in a shaking voice: “How can she go on about—about independence and freedom and—and equality and—and everything she does, if she’s—if she’s... You know.”

    “Well, she is a very independent person, Roberta,” said Molly on a dubious note. “Very capable:”

    Roberta was silent, staring at the floor.

    “A person can still be in love,” murmured Molly.

    “They’re all hypocrites!” burst out Roberta.

    “No, dear, I’m sure—”

    “How can they call themselves independent, free women, if they’re living off a man!” burst out Roberta. “They don’t even know what it’s like! Prating about doing things for yourself and—” She choked. “And all the time they’ve got a man to come home to that’ll see the rent gets paid and put out their blasted rubbish bins and fix their blasted cars and motor-mowers and—and work out their damned income tax for them!”

    Molly jumped. Having Mike to do the tax was just wonderful: after her first husband died she had absolutely dreaded tax-time.

    “I reckon Michaela’s the only woman I know who isn’t a hypocrite!” cried Roberta bitterly.

    “Um—I don’t think that’s quite fair, dear,” said Molly feebly.

    “Well, you’re not a hypocrite,” admitted Roberta: “but then, you don’t claim to be anything you’re not: you don’t go on about sex-stereotyping and how limiting it is and—and all that crap!”

    “No,” agreed poor Molly weakly.

    “They’re despicable!” said Roberta fiercely, lips curling.

    Molly would very much have liked to have left it at that. Only she felt that she couldn’t just walk out and leave poor Roberta all upset, with quite the wrong idea. “It isn’t like that, dear. Um, Darryl would say her relationship’s a partnership, I’m sure,” she offered feebly.

    “Huh!”

    Swallowing, Molly squeaked: “John says so, too. They really do share things equally.”

    Roberta replied with awful scorn: “Oh, yeah! Who fixes the car when it conks out, then?”

    “Well, she does, dear, John isn’t mechanically minded.”

    Roberta’s jaw dropped.

    “It isn’t all one way or the other,” said Molly quickly. “Things are more— Well, relationships are more—more involved than that, Roberta, dear!”

    Roberta swallowed. She conceded hoarsely: “Well, maybe Darryl Tuwhare isn’t a complete hypocrite.”

    “No; and she’s got a very kind heart, under that—that manner of hers!” offered Molly eagerly.

    Roberta just looked blank. Then she said: “Well, she might not be. But as for Phoebe Fothergill!” She gave a bitter laugh. “She actually stood up and said in front of a full lecture theatre—it was one of last term’s Lunchtime Lectures—that the notion that woman’s happiness depended on having a man of her own was a romantic myth, fostered by the male capitalist machine for its own ends!”

    “Oh,” said Molly.

    Roberta snorted. “Just wait and see who pays for her dinner: then we’ll see whether she puts her money where her mouth is!”

    Molly couldn’t quite see why, but Roberta seemed to have cheered herself up a bit by saying this. “Uh—yes. Well, I must scoot back to it, dear, Mike’ll be frothing at the mouth!” She gave a little giggle. “He can’t understand that it’s a good thing when a dish runs out, it means the customers like it! Aren’t men funny?” She disappeared on this.

    Roberta rolled her eyes wildly at the switchboard. “‘Aren’t men funny?’” she quoted bitterly. She stood up suddenly. “Christ! Why does it always have to be bloody Parent and Child? Aren’t any of these idiots capable of a bloody adult relationship?” she cried desperately to the office ceiling.

    Into the answering silence an apologetic light tenor said nervously: “Um—’scuse me. I wonder if I could have a tin of instant coffee? –Just a small tin,” it added hurriedly.

    Very red, Roberta served Number Two with his umpteenth small tin of instant coffee—he and his wife had been there for three days and it didn’t seem to have occurred that it would have been much cheaper in the long run to have bought one of the large jars of instant coffee on their first day: surely they must know how much coffee they usually drank?—and sat down again before the switchboard.

    Number Two, if she’d bothered to think of it, was to all appearances an exemplar of that male gene that craved dominance by its partner that she and Mike had discussed earlier in the evening. Oddly enough this point didn’t occur to Roberta at this precise moment. Nor did she reflect that possibly Molly was right and relationships were considerably more involved than she had assumed. She just sat there, feeling numb, and cross, and very, very upset, for quite some time.

    “That’s better!” said Phoebe, sitting down on the double bed with a sigh and easing her shoes off.

    “Yeah. What did we eat?” replied Sol on a dry note.

    “I think mine might have had chicken in it somewhere, but I wouldn’t swear to it!” admitted Phoebe with a weak laugh.

    “I wouldn’t even swear that mine had food in in anywhere, I was that—uh—preoccupied,” he admitted, switching the heater on.

    “Are you chilly?”

    Sighing, he said: “Yup. I guess the lack of central heating’s gonna take some getting used to, huh?”

    “Surely you don’t have central heating in Florida?” said Phoebe weakly.

    “Sure we do! It can get real cold, nights! Say, don’t you watch The Golden Girls?” he asked sadly.

    Phoebe replied coldly: “I watched some of the first series, yes. Then the thing fell into the usual bathetic American trap of sentimental hogwash about incurable illnesses, and I stopped.”

    Lips twitching, Sol objected mildly: “Some folks do actually have incurable illnesses, honey-pie.”

    “The effect on all their friends, relatives and acquaintances isn’t usually verbal diarrhoea of the most sanctimonious kind, however,” replied Phoebe coldly.

    Sol gave in and laughed like a drain.

    “Did you actually watch it?” said Phoebe weakly when he was over it.

    “I admit the soft impeachment. Well, sometimes, yeah: that Bea Arthur, she sure is amusing.”

    “The bass?” asked Phoebe dubiously.

    “Uh-huh.”

    “Crikey,” she muttered.

    Sol removed his jacket, smiling.

    “I thought you were cold,” said Phoebe weakly.

    “Yeah, but ain’t you gonna warm me up? –I’m sure it’s what Sir Jake’s expecting,” he added swiftly.

    Swallowing, Phoebe conceded: “I’m bloody sure it’s what bloody Polly’s expecting. –Did you see that thing she was wearing?”

    Sol sat down beside her on the bed. “What thing, honey?” he said in soothing tones.

    “That blasted outfit! Those poured-into white pants!” she said irritably.

    “And that cling-to yaller top—uh-huh.”

    Phoebe glared at him.

    “You could wear them poured-into pants, honey.”

    “With my hips?” she retorted bitterly.

    Suddenly Sol laid his head in her lap. “There’s nothing wrong with your hips, Phoebe.”

    “Depends how you look at ’em, I suppose!” replied Phoebe with a mad laugh.

    Sol turned his face into her crotch. “Mm.” He breathed deeply.

    After a while Phoebe said weakly: “What are you doing?”

    “Breathing you,” he replied in muffled tones.

    “Oh.”

    Suddenly he looked up and said: “I’m so Goddamn excited I don’t know if I’m doing it so as not to come, or so as to come quicker or—or what!”

    Phoebe perceived that he was, indeed, as nervous as she was. “Shall we get into bed?” she said softly.

    “Okay.”

    They undressed quickly, avoiding each other’s eyes. Phoebe was ready first. “Come on,” she said, getting in and holding up the covers for him.

    “Wait,” he said hoarsely. He switched on the bedside lamp and went over to the door to turn out the main light.

    “We could put the other light out, too, if you like,” she ventured.

    Sol got into bed without touching her. “Yeah. Put it out,” he said flatly.

    Phoebe switched the lamp off.

    Then there was a short silence.

    “I’m gonna be hopeless!” he said in a high, harsh voice.

    “That’s all right. It’s not a test,” she murmured.

    “Boy, I can tell ya, it feels like it, sometimes, Phoebe!” he returned on a bitter note.

    Phoebe’s lips trembled but she managed to say quite composedly: “I’ve never tried to give you that impression, Sol.”

    “No. You don’t need to.”

    “What have I done wrong?” she croaked.

    “Nothing. It’s all them others,” he said bitterly.

    “All— Oh.” After a moment she said loudly and angrily: “Do you want me to apologize for not being a blushing virgin of twenty-one, Sol?”

    “No. I guess it’s me should apologize, huh?”

    Phoebe was going to say it certainly was. She thought better of it. “No. You can’t help it, if that’s the way you feel,” she said awkwardly. “Thank you for telling me.”

    She heard him swallow. “I want you so much that I can’t concentrate on—on performing good: most of the time when I’m with you I just—I just—”

    “Mm. It’s okay,” she said.

    “I don’t just mean tonight!” he said angrily.

    “No; I understand.”

    Sol didn’t reply, so after a few agonized seconds—or possibly an eternity—of wondering what would be the best thing to do, she touched his thigh gently.

    “Jesus, Phoebe!” he gasped, turning and clutching her desperately

    “It’s all right, darling,” croaked Phoebe, holding him tight.

    After a few moments he said into her neck in a muffled voice: “Is it all right? Should I be using a condom?”

    “Uh—no. Actually, I’ve been cut,” she said hoarsely. “Had it done a few weeks back.”

    “What?”

    “I am bloody nearly forty-eight, I got pissed off with— And in case you think it’s easy for a single woman to have her tubes done in bloody God’s Own Country, let me tell you it’s the bloody camel and the needle!” she said bitterly. “I finally had to ask sodding John Westby to get one of his dratted mates from The Mater to do it. I think it was the most humiliating experience of my entire life,” she ended grimly.

    Whether Sol understood the details of this speech wasn’t clear. He kissed her ear gently and said: “Why?”

    “What?” replied Phoebe hoarsely, blinking and gulping.

    “I understand why it would be sensible to have it done, honey, but why choose this particular juncture to do it?”

    There was a short silence.

    “Why?” he persisted.

    Phoebe said with a sob in her voice: “I know you hate having to use a condom, I thought you’d be pleased!”

    Sol rolled on top of her. He kissed her hard. “I am,” he said in a strangled voice. “I love you, Phoebe, let me—”

    He didn’t really have to say that, because Phoebe had raised her hips and spread her legs and was drawing him into her.

    “God!” he gasped, as he was engulfed.

    “Sol!” she cried. And shrieked, and grabbed him fiercely and—

    Much later Sol would decide that was pretty much the definition of your genuine simultaneous orgasm. Quick an’ all though it had been. It was pretty much your definition of the most wonderful thing he’d ever experienced, too. Quick an’ all though it had been

    “Don’t say anything,” she murmured, aeons later.

    “No,” he agreed into her neck, falling fast asleep.

Next chapter:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/lost-stolen-or-strayed.html