Winter Of Discontent

30

Winter Of Discontent

    “Oh—hullo, Michaela,” said Phoebe, a trifle disconcerted to find a large female form bent double in the middle of the shop next to Sol’s boating-supplies store.

    Michaela straightened, turned, and smiled. “Hullo, Phoebe. Sol’s next-door, I think.”

    “No, he isn’t, I’ve just looked there.”

    “Oh. Um—then he must be down at the boatyard, he and Euan have got a lot of painting to do.”

    “Yes,” said Phoebe, sagging weakly in the doorway of the still unopened crafts shop. “So I’ve heard. Euan Who, by the way?”

    “Um... I forget. He’s Vicki’s boyfriend.”

    “Vi— Oh, one of your young cousins?”

    “Yes,” said Michaela, nodding. “They were up at the kiln one day and Euan said he’d like to help with the painting.”

    There was a short pause. “Sol being up at the kiln at the time, too, I presume?” said Phoebe, unable to stop herself.

    “Yes,” agreed Michaela, sublimely unconscious of any undercurrents.

    Phoebe sighed a little. “Look, Michaela, this may seem a daft question,” she said on a tired note, “but are you aware how and when he took the decision to hire this boatyard place and scrape boats’ bottoms all winter?”

    “Sol, you mean?” said Michaela carefully.

    “Mm.”

    “No-o... Wasn’t that the idea all along?” she said shyly.

    “Frankly, I wouldn’t know,” replied Phoebe very grimly. She turned for the door, hesitated, sighed and said: “Look, for God’s sake, point me in the right direction, would you, Michaela?”

    “For the boatyard?”

    “Yes,” said Phoebe in a very hard voice. “For the boatyard.”

    “Um… Well, it’s quite hard to explain...” Michaela came to the door and looked down at the artificial curve of Kingfisher Bay with its well-filled marina.

    “There would appear to be no boatyard down there,” noted Phoebe in a hard voice.

    “No. Sol says it’s too up-market. There’s a refuelling station, and he says the Kingfisher Development Company barely allowed that. There it is, see?”

    “Yes.”

    Michaela looked at her nervously and said: “The boatyard’s way over there.” She waved to the left. “Um, sort of the next little bay up the Inlet.”

    “I see. Just to make it really easy. –Hold on: just to make it easier still, is it in the next bay and on the other side of the Inlet?”

    “No, it’s on this side, only there’s no proper road down from the Inlet Road.”

    “You astound me.”

    “Well, there is a track, it’s good enough for the Land Rover, only I don’t think your car would like it,” said Michaela, looking at Phoebe’s small, shiny Japanese vehicle.

    “I don’t think my car would like it, either. How long does it take to walk?”

    “Um—it takes me about ten minutes,” she said cautiously.

    “I get it. A good half hour.”

    Michaela murmured apologetically “You have to go over the hill.”

    “Quite. I think I’ll wait next-door. If he deigns to reappear, would you mind whispering L,U,N,C,H in his shell like?”

    “Okay. –Help, did you have a date for lunch, Phoebe?” said Michaela numbly as Phoebe went out onto the footpath, looking grim.

    “One of us thought so. And if you fancy crayfish Mornay and us discussing the matter, you’re very welcome to join us, Michaela,” said Phoebe on a grim note. “Likewise this Euan kid, if he turns up: there’s more than enough for four.”

    “Um—righto; ta,” said Michaela in a weak voice, going very red.

    She quite obviously hadn’t known what else to say. Phoebe sighed. “I’m sorry, Michaela. Not your fault. I suppose I’ve got no right to be in such a foul mood: when we made the date I wasn’t absolutely sure I’d be able to make it, there were some prospective parents that I thought might turn up today—they own half of Hawke’s Bay, so— Oh, well. Look, if he hasn’t turned up by”—she looked at her watch—“two o’clock,” she said, grim again, “come on upstairs anyway and we’ll start without the buggers. Okay?”

    “Yes. Thanks,” said Michaela, still pink but now smiling.

    Phoebe swallowed a sigh and trudged next-door.

    Michaela went back to unpacking large pots from straw-filled tea-chests. After a while she began to hum, unaware she was doing it.

    “Oh! Excuse, prease!” said a little foreign voice, very startled.

    Phoebe was also very startled: she’d been dozing over a copy of Metro—God knew why Sol bought it, she’d told him times innumerable it was not only over-priced trendy, glossy crap of the worst kind, but its articles were pretentious pseudo-intellectual crap that took themselves with utter seriousness into the bargain—and she sat up in the one easy chair with a jump,

    “Who in God’s name are you?” she demanded, extra-grim. The little Oriental girl was very cute, with shiny black bobbed hair and a fringe, she was wearing a pair of neat stretch jeans that showed off her nice little hips and tiny little waist, and a high-necked, bright pink cotton-knit sweater that showed off the nice and not all that little top section of her figure, plus a huge, fuzzy, pink, green and yellow mohair cardigan that would have made Phoebe look the size of a house. Plus large pink plastic hoop earrings that would have made Phoebe look ridiculous. Plus she was very young. Plus it was Sunday, the store was closed and locked, Phoebe had had to use her key to get in, and WHAT WAS SHE DOING HERE, IN THAT CASE?

    “I am Akiko Takagaki, I am he’p Sol with craft-uh store,” she said politely, with a little bow. “I think you are Miss Fothergur’, yes?”

    “Call me Phoebe, for God’s sake,” said Phoebe weakly, getting up, “I’m sorry, Akiko. Sol has mentioned you. It’s nice to meet you.”

    “Very nice to meet ur-you, al-so, Phoebe,” she said, beaming and shaking hands. She was about knee-high to a grasshopper. Phoebe thought of some of Abe Winkelmann’s casual remarks on the subject of previous ladies his brother had known—or, more precisely, on the subjects of their cuteness and youth—and was not entirely reconciled to the presence of Akiko in Sol’s flat. With her own key.

    “I am going make-ah lunch, you would-ah like to join us prease, Phoebe?” Akiko then said very politely, smiling nicely.

    “Actually I’ve brought lunch, Akiko; you’d better join us,” replied Phoebe, actually managing to smile.

    “Oh! This is very de-right-fuh; I am no’ a nuisance, though, I am-ah hope?” she gasped.

    Good, thought Phoebe grimly, I’ve embarrassed you. Door key, waist, hoop earrings and all. “Of course you’re not a nuisance,” she said nicely. “I’ve made miles too much, I always do, I’m no good at reducing quantities in recipes.”

    “Ah,” said Akiko.

    —Didn’t understand a blind word, registered Phoebe. “Have you got any idea when he might get here, Akiko?” she asked with a sigh, looking at her watch,

    “Ah.” Akiko looked at her own watch. “Is har’ pas’ one,” she announced.

    “Mm.”

    “He get here when hunger-ree, I think-ah, Phoebe. Is like men, no?” she said with a giggle.

    “Isn’t it?” agreed Phoebe on a grim note, heading for the kitchenette.

    “Gee, this crayfish is good,” said the blond, tanned Euan with a sigh, cross-legged on the rug before Sol’s huge picture window. “Good as that crayfish thing Adrian made us once.”

    “The accolade,” noted Phoebe drily from the easy chair. “Glad you like it.”

    “Good thing you made heaps,” he said with a grin.

    “Yes, isn’t it?” she agreed cordially.

    “Now, which book was this out of, Phoebe?” asked Sol earnestly from the rug beside Euan.

    Phoebe sighed. “You will never be the Antipodean answer to Escoffier, Winkelmann, why don’t you just quit while you’re ahead?” she said heavily. “You can grill quite a respectable flounder, just be content with that.”

    “That stew thing you did last weekend was all right, Sol,” said Michaela. “It had lots of meat in it.”

    “Her criterion of ‘all right’, in case you hadn’t got it,” Euan explained to Phoebe with a grin, “is ‘lots of meat in it.’”

    “I think did get that. This wouldn’t have been a foul sort of hot thing with red kidney beans that he claims is a genuine Mexican gut-burner, would it?”

    “Now, hold on, my chilli’s—” began Sol.

    “Nah! This was a Magyar gut-burner!” said Euan with a grin.

    “It wasn’t hot, really,” said Michaela.

    And Akiko added: “This meat no have-ah beans, Phoebe.”

    “What are they, Sol, your Three Stooges?” Phoebe asked weakly.

    “Uh-huh,” he agreed, winking.

    “Is very good meat. Al-so we have-ah much bean-ah sprou’,” explained Akiko.

    “Yeah; Magyar stoo and beansprouts go real good together, huh?” Sol acknowledged.

    “Goulash?” said Phoebe weakly.

    “Uh—wal, now, there was a fair amount of potato in there; I guess you’d call it Irish-Magyar stoo, really—huh, Euan?”

    “Yeah!” choked Euan.

    “What was Irish about it?” asked Michaela after some brow-wrinkling.

    “Winkelmann’s a good old Irish name!’ gasped Euan, in ecstasy over his own wit.

    Phoebe sighed. “Look, First Stooge, put this in it,” she said, handing him the last of the French bread that she’d brought with her from town.

    Euan seized it gratefully and began scraping out the large “slow cooker”, as Sol persisted in calling, it, which Phoebe had also brought from town, at that stage full of crayfish Mornay. The crock pot had kept its heat well during the drive, which was fortunate, since it had then had a further two hours’ wait. Admittedly plugged into Sol’s electricity. Just as well he’d had the whole place re-wired, really—never mind that that had inevitably been on an evening when she’d planned attending a film together that he’d claimed he really wanted to see. True, this rewiring hadn’t meant that he had anything more than an apology for a stove-top in there, consisting of two electric elements, which, though their switches showed three positions, actually only had two: off, and raging. Come to think of it, Phoebe felt a bit like that herself at the moment.

    “Irish stew traditionally has potato in it, Michaela,” she explained carefully. “Potato and meat.”

    “I see.”

    “Not paprika and tomatoes, though,” put in Sol with a twinkle in his eye,

    “Oh. Well, I liked it,” she said definitely.

    “Yes, me too, is very most dee-ricious!” beamed Akiko. “We do no’ have these-ah meat stoos in Japan, but I am very quick-ree learn-uh to like.”

    —“Stoos”, reflected Phoebe silently, no doubt showing the influence of the S. Winkelmann vernacular, whatever the declared liking might have shown the influence of.

    After Michaela, Euan and Akiko had had a polite fight over the washing-up which Akiko won, though allowing the two of them to carry things and assist in the drying, Phoebe leaned back in the easy chair and eyed Sol sardonically over her glass of quite decent Chardonnay which she’d also brought from town.

    “Quite drinkable; local, huh?” he murmured, picking up the bottle and reading the label.

    “Yes, it is quite drinkable. In fact it’s quite mellowing, isn’t it? In fact, if we weren’t surrounded by kiddies and stooges, I might even invite you to join me in this small chair,” said Phoebe cordially. “I’m that mellow.”

    Sol scratched his head. “I guess it’s just the usual Sunday working team.”

    “That has dawned; but go on, rub it in,” she said cordially.

    He sighed. “Hell, Phoebe, is it my fault if your job keeps you tied to town most weekends?”

    “Hell, Sol, is it your fault if you don’t bother to tell me what the Hell you’re up to, half the time?”

    There was a short silence.

    “I thought… Well, gee, what didn’t I tell you?” he said weakly.

    He hadn’t told her he was apparently feeding a large female potter every weekend, or that he had a small part-time very cute female Japanese cook who had a key to his store and ipso facto his flat, or precisely where this bloody boatyard was, or— None of these points except the last seemed to be particularly mentionable, for one reason or another, so Phoebe only said weakly: “Well, for one thing you didn’t explain this boatyard was half a mile away over the other side of the hill.”

    “I’m sorry, Phoebe, I thought I had done.”

    “Quite possibly you had. But not to me,” said Phoebe grimly.

    Sol eyed her cautiously and didn’t say anything.

    After a while he re-examined the label on the wine bottle and said: “Oh. I don’t guess it’d be possible to—”

    “Sold out,” she replied with satisfaction.

    “Uh-huh.”

    “In fact when I went on a tour of the vineyards not long since they didn’t even have any at the vineyard.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “It was quite a successful tour of the vineyards—at least, I thought so. Of course, being aware of my own ignorance of these vinous matters I had invited certain knowledgeable male persons to guide me thither, but alas, they had all refused. So Yvonne and me went together. All girls. But we had a book to help us in our ignorance. I’ve got a later year than that, same brand, though: do you think it might be all right, Sol?” she asked anxiously.

    During this speech Sol had determined to remain quite calm and indifferent but oddly enough by the end of it he found himself saying heatedly: “Well, it sure wasn’t me you asked to accompany you, Phoebe, so I’m damned if I know what’s getting your goat!”

    “Oh, are you really?” she said cordially.

    “I said I liked it!” he said angrily.

    “Yes. And you could have had so much more of it if we’d lunched à deux! Or if I’d thought to bring along an extra bottle,” she said cordially.

    Sol’s mouth tightened. He didn’t reply.

    “Silly me,” noticed Phoebe.

    Sol got up abruptly. “I better get back to it, we gotta get a second coat onto that Kittiwake thing of Hugh Morton’s before the weather closes in again.”

    “Trot off, then. Mustn’t hold up the workers,” she said affably.

    Sol strode out without another word.

    In the kitchenette, which of course was only about fifteen feet away, Akiko stared hard into the sink and Michaela and Euan looked at each other and then hurriedly looked away again.

    After a moment Akiko said: “I he’p-ah you soon rater, Michaerah?”

    “Yeah, ta,” said Michaela gruffly.

    Euan hung up his damp tea-towel. “Um—I think I might get back to it, it does look as if it’s gonna rain again.”

    “Yes,” agreed Michaela glumly.

    Euan hurried out.

    Michaela and Akiko hurriedly finished the dishes and emerged cautiously from behind the divider. Phoebe was still sitting in the easy chair but she had drawn the inadequate heater up very close and was reading a magazine. She didn’t look up. They went out quietly.

    Phoebe looked up. She threw the magazine cross the room, more or less aiming at the large divan with its faded Indian-cotton navy and rust stripes. It missed. Probably an omen, she noted sourly. There seemed no point at all in staying on here by herself, so she collected her crock pot, and went.

    “She’s off where?” gasped Meg, standing stock-still in the middle of St Ursie’s quayte nayce staffroom with a huge pile of French exercise books in her arms.

    Yvonne grabbed the pile as it was about to collapse and aided her to dump it on the table. “Ssh!” she hissed, looking nervously over her shoulder.

    Meg shot across and closed the staffroom door.

    “Mount Hutt,” repeated Yvonne slowly and clearly, though not loudly.

    “That’s in the South Island!” gasped Meg.

    “Yes, and Sol Winkelface isn’t,” agreed Ellen Chong, from the big, comfortable chintz sofa.

    Betty Purvis said gamely from a big, comfortable chintz armchair: “Maybe he doesn’t ski.”

    “Of course he skis!” cried Yvonne.

    “Ssh!” hissed Ellen frantically.

    “Yes,” said Meg in a lowered but clear voice: “of course he does, she met him down at Ruapehu.”

    “That isn’t in the South Island,” explained Ellen clearly.

    Poor Betty now looked completely baffled.

    “Here,” said Meg kindly, handing her a bikky. “Have a bikky.”

    Betty took it weakly—the more so as it was a chocky bikky and as sole representative of Physical Education she really ought to be setting the rest of them a good example. Not that any of them jogged five K to work every morning, but— “Ta, Meg,” she said weakly.

    Meg took a chocky bikky for herself, poured herself a cup of tea and, remarking by the way that it was stewed, sat down beside Ellen on the sofa. “The thing is, Betty, Dreadful Dougal lives in the South Island,” she explained.

    “I thought we were calling him The Dreaded Dougal?” said Yvonne in confusion.

    “Shut up. I’m calling him Dreadful, because he is,” stated Meg.

    “Married,” clarified Yvonne grimly for Betty’s benefit.

    “Oh. Oh!” she said.

    “Yeah, she was mixed up with him for ages,” explained Ellen. “Since before she started here, isn’t that right, Meg?

    “Um—I think so. Yes, that’s right, she was, Laura said she was only in her twenties when she first met him.”

    “Heck,” said Betty faintly.

    There was a short and sufficiently grim silence.

    “Maybe he won’t be there,” said Betty timidly.

    “Maybe. But Sol Winkelface for sure won’t be,” said Yvonne grimly.

    “Are you sure?” asked Ellen.

    “Yes!” she cried.

    “Ssh!” they all hissed.

    “When did you say she’s going?” asked Meg.

    “Next week! For the whole of the break!” said Yvonne impatiently.

    “Then Sol can’t possibly be going, he’s asked us and Tom and Jemima to tea on Saturday week, and Roger’s going to be helping him and that boyfriend of Vicki’s paint boats the second week of the break. …Ooh, help,” said Meg.

    A glum silence fell.

    “Laura reckoned it wasn’t going too well,” acknowledged Meg at last.

    Yvonne sniffed. “You can say that again!”

    Meg felt so depressed that she didn’t.

    Ralph drew up before his garage door and made a face at the rain. Bloody lucky Hugh, off in California where according to his bloody postcard of flaming little cable cars, the weather was beautiful and the new orthy techniques were fascinating. He pressed his remote, but without hope. Five’d get ya ten the bloody rain had set the bloody door on the blink again— It had.

    Sighing heavily, Ralph got out slowly with his big umbrella. He raised the umbrella over his head and with due care climbed the sufficiently steep concrete steps to his trendy little first-floor porch, thanking Christ he’d insisted on having a solid metal handrail installed before he signed anything. And if it wasn’t for him, Hugh’s front steps would still be the bloody death-trap they’d been when—

    “Well, well, well!” he said, opening his front door and cheering up immediately.

    “Oh. Hullo,” said Ginny, lifting a flushed face from her vacuuming.

    “‘Oh. Hullo?’ Is that any way to greet the Lord and Master?” asked Ralph, lowering the brolly and giving it a brisk shake outside.

    “You’re not my Lord and Master, I’m only here because Vicki’s gone skiing with Euan and his stupid varsity ski club mates for the first week of the holidays,” said Ginny grumpily, turning back to her vacuuming with a very red face.

    Ralph came in and closed the door. Retaining the brolly: he’d already lost one through saving his parquet by leaving it out on the little front porch to drip next to a kumquat tree. –Naturally there were two. They both produced little red-gold infants. He’d named ’em Virginia and Victoria but unfortunately hadn’t yet found anyone who would appreciate the full glory of this joke.

    He put the brolly in a rather nice squarish pot that he’d acquired from Master Potter quite recently. It had a blueish streak amongst its russet, grey and black glazes, which picked up rather nicely the blueish tones of the one small abstract print, rather nicely framed in clear-varnished rewarewa, which was allowed to appear on the chaste white hessian walls of his tiny lobby. And said, perforce somewhat loudly: “For God’s sake stop slaving over that thing and come and have a cup of coffee!”

    “I’ve got to get on with it,” she replied grumpily, and perforce rather loudly.

    Ralph crossed his parquet to the edge of the heavy Afghan rug—coarse but pleasant, in russet, black, navy and khaki—which ran the length of his narrow passage, and put his foot on the vacuum cleaner’s button. It obediently stopped.

    “No, you don’t. As your temporary employer I’m ordering you to cease slaving and join me in a coffee. Or tea, should you prefer it. Or a spa, of course, should you prefer that.”

    “What spa?” she said rudely.

    “Well, as your capable cousin and her terrifying Greek friend may have informed you, I am having one installed in my pocket-handkerchief back garden for next summer,” he murmured, “Complete with gaze-bo,” he added, making two syllables of it.—Ginny gave him a look of loathing.—“In the meantime, however, there’s a lovely jacuzzi in the bathroom; hasn’t Vicki explained?”

    “No,” she said blankly.

    “A bath that makes bubbles. All by itself. Without the aid of—er—synthetic resin derivatives or polymer-anythings.”

    “Very funny.”

    Ralph sighed. “Do you want a coffee?”

    “Um, yes, I wouldn’t mind.” Ginny looked dubiously at his rug.

    “Finish it later,” he sighed.

    “Yes. Well, I’d better, Vicki did say you’re very particular!” she said, her face breaking out into smiles.

    “Mm, I’m that, all right. Excuse me, I’d better bring the car in, I’m particular about that, too.”

    He went down the passage and descended the spiral staircase that led to the “games” room. In Ralph’s case a large empty concrete-floored space. He was damned if he knew what to do with it. Install a billiard table? Then bloody Hugh would inflict himself on him day and night, he was better at billiards than Ralph was. Install a ping-pong, pardon me, Table Tennis table? Horrors: then he might have to play it! Grinning, he raised the bloody garage door laboriously and dashed out to bring the car in.

    As he climbed the spiral staircase he wasn’t kidding himself that he wasn’t presenting the expected physiological manifestation. Rather noticeably. Only he didn’t think she would notice, alas.

    Nevertheless he insisted on drinking the coffee not decently veiled by the little varnished-pine kitchen table, but in the sitting-room. On a day like this, with its more or less south-easterly outlook to the low blue hills beyond the Maureen Mitchell Memorial Reserve, just a trifle bleak. However, Ralph had thought of that and had had installed, at vast expense which he had not disclosed to Hugh, a completely unnecessary brick fireplace, very plain, a solid strip about five foot wide all up one wall. In recycled terracotta brick, not that Ralph gave a stuff about recycling, but the bricks had a warm look that the sharp-edged new ones never had, with the accidental streak of natural blueish glaze in them here and here that in the new ones was never accidental. In summer the furniture ignored this fireplace and looked towards the view, but now he had a big navy velvet Victorian wingchair and two delicious Thirties sofas drawn up before it. The sofas had been re-covered in fine white wool—not cheap. Ralph had been momentarily tempted by white velvet but that would have been too chichi for words, and his sofas weren’t chichi. The worn silken fawn cords which had been a feature of these sofas when he’d acquired them had been replaced by pristine white silken cords. The rusting chromium trim round the bases—three rows of horizontal fluting—had been replaced at unbelievable expense by new chromium fluting. So far the only people to spot that the sofas were genuine and not vile Eighties reproductions had been Sir Jake and Lady Carrano, and Jake had said it was a pity that he hadn’t managed to find the matching chairs; but Ralph felt vindicated rather than otherwise by this.

    He had been tempted to put one chaste crimson velvet cushion on each sofa but had refrained. It had been the right decision: now his crimson jewel of a rug glowed on the parquet before the fireplace and the sofas shone proudly above it and Ralph basked in its glow as Ginny said shyly: “This is a lovely room.”

    “Thank you.” He drew the severe glass and brass modern coffee table carefully nearer to them and said conversationally: “Coffee may be spilt on the rug almost with impunity, but any twin who drops a drop on my sofa is instantly excommunicated.”

    “What a dreadful fate,” she said, nevertheless setting her cup and saucer very carefully down on the table. “What happens if you spill something on your sofa?”

    “I kill myself: I spent about six months’ earnings having the bloody things done up.”

    “You sent them to Sydney,” she agreed.

    Ralph bit his lip. “Only for the chromium plating,” he said meekly.

    “Right. Earnings isn’t necessarily the same as income, is it?” she said with a very innocent face.

    He choked and set his cup and saucer down quickly. “Don’t say that sort of thing when I’m drinking!” he gasped.

    “Serve you right, you tried to throw me off my stroke.”

    “Throw you off balance: put you off your stroke.”

    “A golfing metaphor,” noted Ginny smoothly.

    Ralph choked again. “‘A Greek remark!’” he gasped.

    “Merci. –‘And one that’s French’. You can’t catch me out that way: Twin and me grew up on Gilbert and Sullivan, Dad’s batty about it.”

    “‘Twin’—if you must—‘and I.’”

    “Sorry, I was forgetting my company,” said Ginny meekly, big grey-green eyes sparkling at him over the rim of her cup.

    Ralph leaned back into his corner of the sofa, grinning. “Drink up and shut up, or I shall become very severe indeed,” he ordered, wishing that she would notice the bloody physiological manifestation, not to say that he could just carry her off into his cave—after all, his completely comfortable cave was right through that door. Oh, well.

    He offered her a very thin biscuit. “Have one?”

    “What are they?” she asked suspiciously.

    “Instant love potion.”

    She went very red and glared at him.

    “Try one, if you don’t believe me.”

    Ginny glared, and picked up a biscuit.

    “Well?” he said.

    “Nothing to them,” she decided.

    “Oh, blow, and it was your very own cousin that gave me the recipe.”

    “Polly?”

    “The same,” he sighed.

    “I know what they are, then: and she can’t make them, either!” she gurgled.

    “Rude!” he said crossly.

    “Peter Riabouchinsky—do you know him?” ,

    “Er—oh, yes, habitué of L’Oie Oui Rit—er, slightly, yes,” he said quickly. “One of old Sir Jerry Cohen’s sons-in-law,       isn’t he?”

    “Um… yes, that’s right, he’s Damian’s uncle. Well, he gave Polly the recipe. He brought some of his round once when I was at their place: they were wonderful.”

    Ralph sighed. “I done me poor best.”

    “Do you do much cooking?” she asked curiously.

    “Mm... Not so much baking, I find it boring; I do sometimes cook. More when I have a guest, I must admit. A lady guest with suitable tastes, naturally.”

    “Mm.” Ginny looked at him dubiously,

    “The female person whom your sister encountered here at a reasonably advanced hour of the morning was not a lady, I’m afraid,” he said sadly.

    “It was that actress, wasn’t it?”

    “The impossible-to-malign Sylvia: alas, yes. I assure you it was for the last time, the hag said my ikon was ugly!” he said crossly.

    Ginny smiled slowly. “Vicki thinks so, too.”

    “Apart from the fact that it’s insured for more than bloody Sylvia’s earned in her— Well, never mind, I’m disillusioning you,” he said sadly. “The cash nexus is not actually why I bought it, but God knows there’s no reason why you should believe me.”

    “I do believe you, otherwise why would you have it in the bedroom where you can wake up and say ‘hullo’ to it?” she said serenely.

    Ralph swallowed. “Yes.” He ate a piece of biscuit and said without looking at her “Do you like it?”

    “Yes; I wish it was mine. I’d look at it every morning when I woke up, too.”

    Ralph was tempted to say—well, all sorts of things, really. Not to say give her the damned thing, if only— Well, if only it would make him two stone lighter and twenty years younger and irresistible. Not even irresistible in general, just irresistible to Ginny. Oh, yeah: and six inches taller, while he was at it. With more hair. Only he would have that if he was twenty— Yes, quite.

    “Good,” he said, somewhat huskily. “I’m very glad. Do you care for the print in the lobby?”

    “I think so,” she said cautiously.

    Ralph smiled. “I’ve had it for years. I bought it for my twenty-fifth birthday.”

    “Then I’ve got four years to grow into it,” she said with a smile.

    He should be so lucky. “Mm. Er—I do assure you most earnestly that Sylvia will not recur. It was a mistake.”

    “Because she doesn’t like your ikon?” said Ginny on a dry note.

    “No, because the woman’s a hag and we’ve got no tastes in common!”

    “I’d have said you must have something in common... Oh, I dunno, though,” she said, sighing.

    Ralph rolled his eyes a little. “Can it be that the lovely Red Fed is growing up a little at last?”

    “I suppose so,” she said, flushing.

    He finished his coffee and set the cup down. He owned quite a collection of china, he was rather given to impulse-buying of such things as coffee sets: a habit which had never failed to irritate Audrey. This was the chaste white Royal Doulton set with the gold rims. Ginny had admired it as he put their cups and saucers out, so he’d favoured her with the gold and enamel spoons which normally lived locked in the bottom drawer of the old mahogany cabinet that housed his rock collection. –Now proudly occupying its rightful place: a corner of the sitting-room, it being a corner cabinet, but not crowded by anything. Apart from the rugs and one or two objets, it was the oldest thing in the room. Ginny had gasped over the spoons and unaffectedly declared them to be the prettiest things she’d ever seen. Ralph had been very tempted to either do or say something quite outrageous. Very, very tempted.

    He looked at her thoughtfully. “Er… your loquacious sister has actually mentioned the dread syllables Doc-tor Fother-gill.”

    Ginny sighed. “She would. She tells everybody everything. They don’t like him much—Vicki and Euan, I mean. Nor does Bill Coggins, I don’t think: I think it was him that called him that originally.”

    “No doubt,” said Ralph, repressing a wince and making a mental note not to use it again. “Er—do you like him much, dare one enquire?”

    “No!” she said crossly, turning very red indeed.

    “Ah. And dare one enquire how it feels not to be a virgin any more?”

    Ginny eyed him drily. “I wouldn’t. Not if you value these sofas.”

    “I only asked,” he said, pouting.

    “That makes you look awfully silly,” she noted dispassionately. “Actually I don’t mind telling you: it doesn’t feel any different at all. I’m sorry if something different’s written on my forehead: all I can say is, I can’t feel it.”

    “God, he must have been bad,” said Ralph faintly,

    “Um—I suppose he was, really,” she said dubiously. “Well, no worse than Adrian or Stephen. Well, Stephen cried, so that was worse, but it was only because he’s in love with someone else.”

    “Georgy Harris. Pray do not elaborate, I’ve heard that saga,” he sighed. “You’re forgetting she was lately my neighbour at number 9.”

    “Oh, yes: when her and Adam McIntyre used to share that unit,” said Ginny without interest.

    It had only been a few months back, dammit! “Sic transit gloria mundi,” he sighed.

    “Also tempus fugit and carpe diem,” the Latin scholar replied on a nasty note.

    “Pax!” squeaked Ralph.

    Ginny gave in and giggled madly.

    Ralph watched her with pleasure. But then he said, very casual-like, but eyes narrowed somewhat: “So they were all rotten, were they?”

    “Well, I thought so, Only I don’t know much about it, maybe I did something wrong.”

    Ralph’s lips twitched. Unable to resist, he said politely: “What did you do?”

    “Um—well, nothing, really. I mean, I just kissed them back, and that. I suppose all the ladies you know are very sexy,” she added glumly.

    “Not all!” he choked.

    “Go on, laugh, I don’t mind.”

    “Darling Red Fed, I’m not laughing at you. I think I’m laughing at—well, certainly the ineptitudes of your male hangers-on: talk about the Indian who threw a pearl away!”

    Ginny looked blank.

    “It’s much, much nicer when you both enjoy it an awful lot,” he said,

    “Well, that’s what all the books say. But I think that’s a load of rubbish: I mean: Lady Chatterly’s Lover?” she said scornfully.

    “Poor, dear, phallic-fixated Lawrence!” he gasped. “I do assure you,” he said, blowing his nose, “that you’re right in that regard, dear Red Fed.”

    “All that stuff about forget-me-nots!” added Ginny rather loudly, going rather red.

    “Oh, good God, I’d forgotten that charming detail! –No,” he said, lips twitching madly, “in my humble estimation that was the one rather nice thing about that whole dreary little hymn to the male member.” He hesitated, “Though I have to admit that at round about your age—no, a little younger, I think—I thought that bloody book was hot stuff. Though I fairly soon learned better.”

    “How did you learn?” she asked with great interest. Great and impersonal interest, Ralph recognized glumly.

    He sighed. “I met a lovely lady who was some years older than I, and very eager for a willing pupil. I then learned rather a lot, very quickly.”

    “Oh,” said Ginny glumly.

    Ralph got up, mainly because he felt abruptly that if he sat there one single second longer he’d be on top of her. “Don’t tempt me: I may offer to perform the same service for you,” he said, putting coffee things carefully on his very nice tray.

    Ginny got up and replied politely. “No, thanks.”

    Ralph raised his eyebrows sardonically. “You’d enjoy it.”

    “No, I wouldn’t!” she said crossly. “Not if you waggled your eyebrows at me like that that!”

    “Dashed, utterly dashed,” he noted. “I actually came home to do a bit of quiet reading, so if you’ve finished?”

    “I’d better have: you’re taking the afternoon tea away,” she pointed out.

    “A delicate hint,” he explained. “Such as has been known in its time to suggest even to such as Sylvia that I may be slightly busy.”

    “I’ve got to finish the vacuuming,” she warned.

    “Er—yes?”

    “The vacuum cleaner makes an awful noise, won’t it disturb you?”

    “No. You’ve done the bedroom?”

    Ginny nodded.

    “Then I shall read in there,” he decided, taking the tray over to the door.

    “Righto,” she said, following him out.

    In the passage she was about to start the cleaner but he said abruptly: “Ginny, do you like the animal in the bedroom?”

    Ginny’s eyes lit up. “The big lynx?”

    “Is that what it is? An Oriental lynx, at any rate. I think he may be a tiger fashioned by some primitive brass-worker who had never seen a tiger. Do you like him?”

    “Yes, he’s lovely: I love that evil squint!” she choked, laughing like a drain all over Ralph’s passage. “I think—he despises—all—of humanity!” she gasped.

    “Adorable Red Fed: so do I! That’s precisely why I bought him. And most certainly why he’s in there. You are the sole representative of humanity other than myself who has ever spotted that,” he said impressively.

    Ginny bit her lip. Her shoulders shook.

    “Go on,” he said resignedly.

    “Maybe—the others—were too polite—to tell you!” she gasped, laughing helplessly again.

    Ralph strolled down to the kitchen. “Maybe they were,” he murmured, sotto voce. “But doesn’t that rather prove my point?” He didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that she’d switched the bloody vacuum on again and couldn’t possibly hear him.

    He set the tray down carefully and made a norful face at it. Life was bloody unfair. Bloody. –At the same time he thought this he made a mental resolution to get home early every damned day this week if he could possibly manage it. Just in case she was here again.

    She wasn’t, though.

    “This is-ah ver-ree pret-ty,” decided Akiko, looking approvingly around the beach near Carter’s Bay which was reputed to have pipis.

    Was it? It was certainly very cold. “Very,” agreed Phoebe sourly, hunching into her sheepskin jacket and wishing to God she’d never agreed to come. Or that someone had warned her that Winkelmann was fresh-air MAD, or—something.

    There was a short silence, which Phoebe wasn’t tempted to break,

    “Uncle Inoue has told me that-ah these pipis are ver-ree most dee-ricious,” she said. “He has-ah eat’ them with Polly and Jake.”

    Bully for Uncle Inoue, thought Phoebe grumpily. “Has he? Good,” she said weakly.

    There was another silence. During it Phoebe looked sourly at the stretch of rather muddy fawnish sand in front of them, and at the shallows lapping it: greenish-grey shallows to match the dull grey sky and the low, windswept fawnish-greyish dunes, lightly spattered with dead-looking fawnish grasses, that ringed the bay. “Pipi Beach,” according to S. Winkelmann, Puriri County’s answer to J. Cousteau. No, hang on: he didn’t preserve ’em, he ate ’em: Puriri County’s answer to that Whatsit she’d seen on Australian television when she’d been over there for that last conference: “Bush Tuckerman” (ugh) that was it. S. Winkelmann, Bush Tuckerman of Puriri County, she thought acidly.

    “So did Polly and Jake serve the pipis for dinner, Akiko?” she said weakly, though having sworn to herself she wouldn’t.

    Akiko burst into a detailed explanation of how Inoue Takagaki had come here pipi-ing with the Carranos… Oh, God. Acker-sher-ah-lee, it was Sir Jake who had told Sol how to get here… Oh, God.

    When she’d run down Phoebe said meanly: “I see. Um—I don’t know much about seafood, not in its natural state, at least. What exactly are pipis, anyway?”

    “They is ah... sma’ fish in shell-uh, much rike—ah...” She said something in Japanese and looked at Phoebe apologetically.

    “Mussels?” suggested Phoebe meanly. “Des moules?” she added meanly.

    “Ah! No, I know musserruhs, they ver-ree orange-ah, no?”

    Phoebe was tempted to ask whether she meant in colour or in taste, but refrained. “Mm.”

    “Pipis is not orange-ah. Ver-ree… pale.”

    “Oh. More like toheroas?” suggested Phoebe meanly.

    “Yup. Smaller, though!” said a cheerful American voice from behind them.

    Phoebe leapt a foot. “Oh—there you are,” she said weakly. “What in God’s name do you know about toheroas?”

    “Nothing. Sir Jake assures me pipis are like small toheroas. On the other hand, Polly assures me he’s talking through that little hole in the back of his neck again.”

    “Oh. They’re not like cockles, are they?”

    Sol shrugged. “No idea. Different shape, I guess.” He set down a tangle of barbecue equipment next to the bucket he’d brought on the first foray into the uncharted sands of what they hadn’t been sure at that stage was Pipi Beach. And at least one of them still wasn’t.

    Michaela came up to them and set down a huge hamper. “I’ve been cockling with John and Darryl.”

    “Have you ever had pipis, though?” asked Phoebe weakly.

    “No,” she admitted.

    “Then we’re all in for a surprize. As well as a treat, of course,” she noted politely, shivering and endeavouring to hunch even further into the sheepskin jacket.

    “Honey, if you’re cold, why not go back and sit in the car?” said Sol.

    “Largely because the Land Rover,” said Phoebe very clearly, “does not have a heater. Or, indeed, much roof. Or indeed, much bodywork at all.”

    “It ain’t that bad! Now, if I was an English gentleman I could buy a shiny noo Range Rover!” he said brightly.

    “What are they?” asked Michaela before Phoebe could take a breath and wither him.

    Sol rubbed his chin. “Sort of square-shaped up-market cross between a Land Rover and a centrally heated apartment block, I guess.”

    “Why do English gentleman have them?” she asked.

    Sol rubbed his chin again. “Wal, now, I’ve been wondering that ever since I caught that real weird English serial on TV a bit back.”

    “Which—” began Phoebe. “Never mind,” she said tiredly. “I gather there was an English gentleman in it who drove a Range Rover?”

    “Uh-huh. But the real weird thing was, that Harlequin I watched a few nights back, it had one, too!”

    “With an English gentleman,” she noted grimly.

    “Sure, he was the one that was driving it.”

    “He would be.”

    “They must be expensive,” decided Michaela.

    “And English,” agreed Phoebe grimly.

    “Yes. I do no’ think I know this-ah car. It is-ah not a Japanese-ah car,” decided Akiko carefully.

    Repressing an urge to scream, the more so as the other two-thirds of Akiko’s audience appeared unmoved, Phoebe said grimly: “Well, shall we get on with it?”

    “Have we got all the stuff?” Michaela asked Sol.

    “Uh-huh. I guess.”

    “Good.” Michaela removed her sneakers and socks and rolled her jeans up.

    “I hereby volunteer,” said Phoebe faintly as Sol and Akiko immediately did likewise, “to sit here and butter bread. Where’s that bloody tarpaulin?” she added disagreeably.

    “Uh—I guess Euan’s just bringing it,” said Sol vaguely. “Hey—EUAN!” he yelled.

    After a moment Euan appeared over the crest of the low dune immediately behind them—there was no road and in fact no track, either, leading to Pipi Beach. You merely stopped on a likely-looking bit of wasteland and plunged off in the direction of what might be the sea, if you were lucky. Or possibly unlucky, depending on the point of view.

    “Hey, I saw a rabbit!” he said excitedly.

    “Quick, where’s the shotgun?” said Phoebe acidly. “Or what about a snare? Yes, let’s make sure the creature really suffers!”

    “Prease, what is a rab-bit, Eu-an?” asked Akiko carefully.

     Euan gulped.

    “Is no’ rike a possum?” she said helpfully.

    “It’s very like a possum, yes, Akiko. Except that it doesn’t climb trees, has a much shorter tail, and isn’t a marsupial,” explained Phoebe clearly.

    “Small and furry. Long ears,” added Sol, deadpan.

    “Peter Rabbit. You know, like in Katie Maureen’s book,” said Michaela calmly.

    “Ah! Pet-ah Ur-Rabbit-uh! Yes, so sorry, sirry me!” she gasped. “Of course! So ur-rabbit-uhs are al-so New Zealand animaruhs?”

    “No,” said Euan. At the same time Michaela said: “Yes.”

    “Introduced from Europe,” said Phoebe heavily to the baffled little Japanese face.

    “Yes, of course. Rike-ah the gorse, Polly has explain’ this to me.”

    For a moment Phoebe felt quite dizzy; then she remembered that Polly Carrano was a farmer’s daughter. “Good,” she said weakly. “Dump that tarpaulin, would you, I’m going to sit on it,” she said heavily to Euan.

    He dumped it but said blankly: “What about the pipis?”

    “You lot can go and wade in that ice-cold water, I’m playing Kitchen,” said Phoebe firmly.

    “Eh?” he said.

    “Go on!” she said loudly.

    “Yeah: come on, Euan, or the tide’ll turn before we get started,” agreed Michaela. She finished rolling her sleeves up to above her elbows, and stumped off towards the water.

    “I guess she knows what to do,” said Sol dubiously, rolling his sleeves up.

    “So much for Winkelmann, Bush Tuckerman of Puriri County!” said Phoebe loudly.

    “Huh?” he groped.

    “Go ON!” she yelled.

    “Yeah. Well, come on, Akiko. Come on, Euan, you been pipi-ing before?” he said weakly.

    Euan was removing his sneakers and socks. “Yeah, millions of times,” he grunted.

    “That’s good,” noted Phoebe. “You may recognize one when you find it, then.”

    As Michaela was now yelling from a hundred yards away as she grovelled elbow-deep in the icy grey-green water: “Hey! Here they are! Bring the bucket!” Sol was able to say weakly: “I don’t think he’ll need to. Uh—say, Euan, you know how to cook ’em, too?”

    “Cook them? We just ate them raw,” he replied blankly as they set off. With the bucket.

    Phoebe shut her eyes and sighed.

    ... “Ooh, that was fun,” she noted, several hours later. “I’m just sorry I can’t stay for the rest of it.”

    Sol opened the door of her car for her and sighed. “I’m sorry, honey.”

    “Don’t apologize: I just love spending my few precious free Saturdays surrounded by monosyllabic and/or moronic kiddies and potters and foreigners!”

    Weakly Sol replied: “Euan left Vicki behind this time; wasn’t that a plus in your eyes?”

    Phoebe got into the car. “No, she might have supported my view that shellfish need to be soaked in clean water for several hours before they’re fit for human consumption.”

    Weakly Sol replied: “They weren’t that bad. Just a little gritty, I guess.”

    “I’ll give you my dentist’s expert opinion on that next week,” she promised grimly, starting the car.

    Weakly Sol closed the door.

    “Ring me, if you’re not too busy with all these kiddies and potters and foreigners,” she said, rolling the window down.

    “Yeah. Sure,” he agreed weakly as she rolled it up.

    Phoebe flipped a hand at him and drove away.

    “Hell,” he muttered, standing there outside the little row of stores feeling like the world’s greatest spotted blue-tit ever. –The which reference was occasioned by Phoebe’s not being free tomorrow because she was lunching with the Westbys. Lady Westby had asked whether she would like to bring a companion and Phoebe had refused on Sol’s behalf because she was sure he’d rather be anywhere but lunching with the Westbys on a freezing Sunday in July. She’d been very surprized when he’d pointed out that he might have liked to go. Or at least the chance to refuse.

    It might have gotten more acrimonious than that, in fact Sol had a definite feeling it would have, only Akiko had arrived at that very moment. Gee, hadn’t that been lucky!

    “I think we can safely say a good time wasn’t had by all,” said Tom numbly after most of their dinner guests had departed.

    “Quite,” agreed John. “In fact you could point me at the brandy, at this juncture.”

    “One theory is,” said Darryl, “that Ginny’s been missing Adrian, since ole Madame sent him to France.”

    “It’s a theory that we don’t subscribe to, mind you,” added John.

    “Who does, for God’s sake?” asked Tom feebly.

    “Meg,” said Jemima.

    “Nice to know that optimism isn’t entirely dead in these here parts,” concluded Tom heavily.

    “Isn’t it?” agreed John with extra-cordiality, pouring himself a large brandy.

    Immediately recognising the target of this shaft, Darryl said amiably: “Shut up. I’m not that bad.”

    John sighed, and sat down with his glass. “Well, you’re not entirely sunk in gloom, no, since Bruce Smith told us you’re the healthiest woman he’s ever seen.”

    “He says I’m as fit as a flea!” reported Jemima happily.

    She’d already told them that: singly and collectively. Several times. Nevertheless they all looked kindly at her. Though Darryl did point out on a sour note: “You’re not the size of a house, though.”

    “Meriel keeps assuring us twins don’t run in her family,” said John, hiding a smile.

    Sure enough, Darryl said loudly: “There’s only one foetal heartbeat, what century are you from?”

    “It’s not a foetal heart-beat, it’s Boris!” he protested.

    “Over your dead body, chum,” Darryl promised grimly.

    “Boris?” croaked Jemima. This was a new one on them.

    John explained calmly: “We were carefully not-watching the twenty minutes of sports in the thirty minutes of news yesterday, when she spotted some tennis star of that ilk rushing about on the courts and declared the foetal heart-beat was doing that at that precise moment. So I decided that Boris is a much nicer name than Fernando.”

    “Or Marmaduke,” agreed Jemima, swallowing. That had been John’s earlier suggestion.

    “It won’t be a male, anyway. It’ll be a female, to spite Mum,” said Darryl glumly.

    “You could have one of those, um—thingies,” offered Jemima dubiously.

    “A scan. I’d rather have the surprize,” replied Darryl simply.

    “Feminine little thing, isn’t she?” John noted pleasedly.

    “Female, anyway,” said Tom kindly.

    Darryl put a hand on the bulge, and sighed. “Yeah. Wish they could sleep at normal times, eh?” she said to Jemima.

    “Perhaps they do. I mean, how do we know what’s normal to them, in there?”

    Certain persons groaned. When they were over that, Darryl poured herself a glass of mineral water, drank it very fast, and said: “Anyway, what in God’s name was up with Roberta? She looked like that—um—Greek thing.”

    “Mask of tragedy,” said Tom briefly.

    “Wasn’t what I was thinking of. Only you’re not far wrong,” Darryl conceded.

    There was a short silence. Jemima perceived that everyone was looking expectantly at her. “Um…” She swallowed.

    “Go on, we know she spilled the beans to you on Thursday,” said Tom.

    Jemima retorted with spirit: “How do you know? She only came to do a bit of cleaning, how do you know she—”

    “Self-evident,” he groaned.

    “Sticks out a mile,” agreed Darryl mildly. “Only don’t tell us, if she asked ya not to.”

    “Well, she didn’t ask me not to, but it was in confidence,” said Jemima, going very red.

    Promptly Darryl advised her to keep it to herself and John advised her to tell all, as she’d feel much better for it, adding kindly it was catharsis, or one of those Greek things.

    “I don’t mind telling you,” Jemima decided. “Only don’t tell anyone else, will you?”

    “Who would we tell?” asked John simply.

    “Mum,” suggested Darryl. “Well, you tell her practically everything else.”

    “Balls,” he said mildly. “I might tell Bill in one of our cosy male confabs up by the chook-house, of course,” he admitted.

    “That’s all right, he’ll forget it two seconds after it’s passed your lips!” choked Jemima.

    “This is true,” agreed Tom. “Come on, then, Mima Puddle-Duck!”

    “She’s in love with Hugh,” said Jemima without preamble.

    Her audience was momentarily stunned into silence but after a few moments’ gulping Tom managed weakly: “Darling, Hugh’s Ralph’s age!”

    “André was loads older than me. Actually, he’d have been about Hugh’s age,” noted Darryl detachedly. “And Roberta’s not that much younger than I was. –How old is she?”

    Nobody was quite sure but Tom thought about twenty-four or -five.

    “There you are,” said Darryl placidly.

    “Darling, Roberta’s got a fraction of your common sense, less than a tenth of your experience of life, and about one percent of your—er—resilience of spirit,” John pointed out.

    “She’s not as independent as you, either,” said Jemima.

    “Some of us thought that was implicit in what John just said,” noted Tom.

    “Shut up, Gomez,” returned Jemima without animus. “Darryl knows what I mean.”

    “Yeah. Not the type to take it in her stride, eh?” she said glumly.

    “Not the type to spend a year on the other side of the world with him at the drop of a hat, subsequently bidding him farewell with barely a backwards glance,” murmured John.

    The Overdales had been thinking that but even Tom wouldn’t have voiced it. They looked uneasily at Darryl.

    “Well, if something’s in the past, there’s no point in thinking about it, is there?” she said.

    “See?” murmured John.

    “Resilience of spirit?” gulped Tom. “I think I’d call that an iron will!”

    “No, it’s her sturdy common sense coming to the fore,” said John with a lurking twinkle. “And, as I think I may just have said, Roberta doesn’t appear to have much.”

    “Jemima,” asked Tom on a weak note, “did you—uh—did you get the impression it was more than a schoolgirl crush?”

    Jemima’s big, slanted dark eyes stared at him seriously. Tom swallowed. Finally she said: “I don’t know, I don’t think I’m any good at that sort of thing. She seemed serious to me.”

    There was a baffled pause.

    “Anyway, don’t schoolgirl crushes seem serious at the time?” she asked.

    “Yeah, but they wear off,” explained Darryl.—Neither of the two males would have rushed in. They looked at her in awe.—“You can cut that out,” she noted. “Um—yeah: look at Ginny and old Charles Thingummy,” she said to Jemima.

    “Ye-es... I think she was quite unhappy at the time.”

    “Yeah, but has she given him a thought in the last six months?”

    Jemima frowned over it. “I don’t see how we can know if she has or she hasn’t.”

    “Hasn’t got the gossip mentality,” Tom noted proudly.

    “The consensus of us mere gossips is that she hasn’t, Jemima,” John explained meekly.

    “What? Oh. No. Well, that’s what I think, too. Only it’s only my impression.”

    At this the two males were duly silenced—though realising quite clearly that this hadn’t been her intention—but Darryl, not noticing, returned to the previous topic and concluded kindly: “Well, poor old Roberta, eh, Jemima?

    “Yes,” agreed Jemima gratefully. “It’s sad. And of course she feels terribly guilty about it, because of Michaela.”

    “Why?” said Tom blankly.

    “Tom Overdale!” she cried crossly.

    John got up hurriedly. “Shall I make coffee?”

    “That’s a hint,” Jemima said crossly to Tom.

    “No, it’s his caffeine addiction,” he corrected, unmoved. “Make coffee with the last crumbs of recycled grounds from my empty larder if you must, Aitken,” he groaned.

    “I’d rather have cocoa,” said Jemima firmly.

    “Me, too,” agreed Darryl.

    “Me, too, some of haven’t got Italian blood and don’t want to lie awake all night listening to reports of our embryo offspring kicking,” noted Tom.

    “Cocoa all round, then,” decided John mildly, heading for the kitchen.

    After a moment Darryl said: “I can see why Roberta feels guilty about Michaela. Only she doesn’t need to, does she? I mean, Hugh gave Michaela the push and waltzed off to America without her help, didn’t he?”

    “Yes. Well, he wanted Michaela to go with him, only she wouldn’t,” murmured Jemima.

    “Is this Roberta’s version?” asked Tom kindly.

    They both glared and he mumbled: “Sorry, sorry,” and shrank into the sofa.

    After a moment Jemima said sadly: “Michaela’s miserable, too.”

    Darryl sniffed slightly. “Yeah,” she conceded. “I noticed. Didn’t eat much this evening, eh?”

    “True,” agreed Tom brightly, “but does this explain why Phoebe spent the entire evening looking as if she could kill her?”

    “He’s exaggerating again,” explained Jemima, sighing.

    “Too right,” agreed Darryl.

    “My theory is,” said Tom brightly: “that Phoebe’s jealous because of all these meat stoos Sol’s been getting into Michaela in the weekends!”

    “It was a bit odd, wasn’t it?” Jemima admitted. “I mean, the way Phoebe went on about it.”

    When John came in with a tray of cocoa he noted keenly: “Phoebe Fothergill seemed fairly out of sorts this evening, too. Was it my imagination or did she seem to have taken a scunner to Michaela?”

    To which Darryl replied calmly: “Yeah. Just what we were saying.”

    “She was polite to her, of course,” murmured Jemima.

    Promptly Tom agreed: “Yes, the words ‘meat stoos’ only passed her lips fifty times while she gave her the filthiest looks ever seen on a human countenance.”

    “You’re exaggerating again,” she said resignedly.

    “Still,” corrected Darryl mildly.

    John choked on his cocoa. When he’d mopped himself up he said: “So it wasn’t merely my overheated imagination!”

    “Actually, his imagination is more like, um… cold steel,” said Darryl glumly. “Very clinical and, um, detached.”

    “Phoebe, Sol, and Michaela,” concluded Tom, raising his eyebrows very high and looking over his specs. “Isn’t it interesting?”

    “No,” said Jemima sadly. “It’s sad.”

    “Isn’t the question rather, isn’t it all in Phoebe’s imagination?” murmured John.

    After a moment Darryl said uncertainly: “Well, what about Sol?”

    “The original poker-face,” noted Tom drily.

    “He looked bloody uncomfortable most of the evening, if that’s what you call poker-faced,” said John.

    “Yes,” Tom admitted. He glanced at Jemima to see if she agreed, and smiled: she was now frowning and murmuring to herself: “Boris Aitken, Boris Aitken…”

    John smiled, too. “Well, shall we simply agree to—er—continue to observe?”

    “No,” said Darryl with a scowl.

    “Yes,” said Tom blandly.

    “Jemima?” asked John.

    “Boris Aitk— What?”

    “Shall we continue to observe the Fothergill-Winkelmann-Daniels triangle? So far the vote’s one for, one against.”

    “Um, for and against what?” asked Jemima in confusion.

    John’s shoulders shook. “Never mind.”

    Darryl sighed and heaved herself up. “Come on, let’s take Boris Marmaduke Fernando home to bed. –And stop worrying, Jemima, they’ll all just have to sort it out for themselves.”

    “Mm,” she admitted. “Boris Aitken is rather nice, really… Boris Overdale?”

    “NO!” shouted Tom.

    “No. –I just wish it could work out happily for all of them,” concluded Jemima wistfully.

    “Stood up?” said a bland tenor just behind Phoebe’s ear.

    Leaping a foot, she turned and glared. “What’s it look like?”

    Ralph raised his eyebrows. “Given that you’ve been standing here on his doorstep alternately banging on the door and bellowing his abysmal American name for the last twenty minutes, I’d say—though this is a mere guess, a bow at a venture—”

    “Get STUFFED, Ralph!” shouted Phoebe.

    Shoulders shaking, Ralph followed her to her car and put his hand on the driver’s door as she was about to open it.

    “Go on, stand there in the road, we can only hope five thousand Rolls Royces on their way to lunch at the bloody Royal Kingfisher’ll mash you to mincemeat as they go,” she said tightly.

    “Not worthy of you, darling. Did you have a date, may one enquire, or was this venture—er—on spec?”

    “One may not. And let go my DOOR!” shouted Phoebe.

    “Darling, come to lunch with me. Not the Royal K, before you ask,” he added quickly, shuddering.

    “Oh, the fish and chips shop in Carter’s Bay? It sounds delightful, Ralph, but I really fear I must decline,” said Phoebe through her teeth.

    “No, you idiot, the boat!” he choked.

    “Not Pygmalion likely. Do you know how many people have managed to mention to me ever so casually that they thought it might have been me they caught sight of on that bloody floating casting-couch back around Easter last year?”

    “What a long time ago it does seem,” he replied sadly. “The marina is all but deserted, dear heart. I’m only here myself in order to avoid Bob and Morag: they threatened to come to afternoon tea at the flat.”

    Phoebe eyed him suspiciously. “Threatened?”

    “Mm. Well, Morag appeared quite definite on the subject. In fact she appointed three o’clock as the witching hour.”

    “This is your brother and his wife, right?” she said weakly.

    “Certainly.”

    Phoebe swallowed. “Do you mean to tell me you’d actually let them drive all the way up to Puriri on a foul Sunday afternoon like this and find no-one in when they got there?”

    Ralph returned in shocked tones: “Oh, no: not Puriri. Willow Plains.”

    “Let go my door,” she said weakly, biting her lip and not looking at him.

    “Only if you’ll promise to come to lunch with me.”

    “Don’t be an idiot, I suppose he’s over at his blasted boatyard. I’ll drive over to the ruddy track—”

    “No,” he sighed.

    “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

    “One has just been to the boatyard in the runabout, having discovered a nasty leak in one’s cabin roof; and there is no Winkelmann there. Nor are there any hangers-on, of whatever race and sex,” he added.

    “You can drop that,” she warned grimly.

    “What about these?” he replied, gesturing at his rather nice black needlecord trou and feeling rather glad he’d worn ’em.

    “You definitely needn’t drop them. And in case you’re wondering, I don’t believe a word of this deserted boatyard story— Blast!” she said violently as the mere forty-knot gale they’d been standing in suddenly turned to forty-knot sleet. “Let go the ruddy door, will you, then we can both get in the car!” she said angrily.

    Ralph let go and she opened the door. “Well, get IN!” she shouted.

    He clambered in, even though his rather cheery red and black padded parka—one  of the new ones, silk-look—was reasonably waterproof.

    “Was it a lie?” asked Phoebe grumpily, getting in beside him and slamming the door.

    “No. But I’ll run you over there in the runabout, if you like.”

    “All right,” she said grimly.

    “Just along there,” he said politely.

    “I know where you park your bloody boat, Ralph!” shouted Phoebe.

    Ralph’s lips twitched but he didn’t say anything.

    ... “See?” he said nastily, some fifteen minutes later, as the boatyard yielded absolutely nothing.

    “Bugger!” she said loudly.

    “Er—that could be arranged. Not that I’m all that fond—”

    “WILL YOU SHUT UP!” she shouted. “Where the Christ can the idiot be?” she muttered to herself.

    “No idea. Though you could try contacting Master Potter.”

    “Her or that bloody Jap kiddies’ help of Polly Carrano’s: quite.”

    Resignedly Ralph recognized that the Winkelmann-Master Potter connection wasn’t news to her after all. “Come along. And I’d keep your hood up, if I was you.”

    Scowling, Phoebe hunched into the borrowed yellow plastic yachting gear and stomped back down to the runabout in the rain.

    ... “Well?” he said, as they arrived back at his Saucy Sal.

    “Just shut up and give me a hand to get on board, I’m frozen to the marrow!”

    Ralph assisted her on board. “The leak’s only in the galley, fortunately,” he noted as they descended to the cabin. There was only one, a very big one: Ralph wasn’t into cruises with loads of persons who required individual bunks to which to retire. He was into a low but king-size bed and large puffy couches. True, these were covered in severely nautical sailcloth, but the effect was somewhat mitigated by the thigh-deep sheepskin rugs everywhere.

    “At least it’s warm,” noted Phoebe.

    Ralph grabbed her before she could enter the cabin and drip all over it. “Yes. Come out of this coat, for God’s sake, I don’t want to spend the next few hours surrounded by damp sheepskin.” He wrested it off her and shed his own, hanging them up neatly on the requisite hooks.

    “Ship-shape,” said Phoebe sourly, going into the cabin in her socks.

    “What?” he croaked.

    “Your flaming passage. And don’t tell me it’s not a passage on a bloody boat, I don’t wanna know! How in God’s name do you keep this thing so warm? –No, don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know that, either.”

    Ralph came in from the little “passage”, grinning. “Isn’t it nice and cosy?” he agreed, slipping on his soft leather slippers.  “Would you like a drink, Phoebe?”

    Phoebe collapsed into a large, soft couch with a sigh. “Yes. –Ugh,” she noted, pulling her damp blue wool slacks away from her calves.

    “Take them off, I’ll dry them in the bathroom.”

    “How?”

    “Heated towel rails,” he said airily.

    There was a short pause, while Phoebe’s mind boggled. “God,” she muttered.

    “No, wouldn’t they be too sybaritic for Him? An invention of the Devil, I feel quite sure.” He waded through the sheepskin to the sufficiently stocked bar. “Whisky? Gin? Brandy? Or would you like to be really nautical and have a rum?”

    “Whisky; and get on with it.”

    Sniggering gently, he poured her a stiff belt and waded back through the sheepskin. “Here.” He sat down beside her. “Cheers,” he murmured, sipping his own.

    “Up yours,” replied Phoebe grimly.

    Ralph slid an arm along the back of the couch and looked at her mockingly. “I do  have a mobile phone, if you would care to ring the master potter?”

    “No, thanks.”

    He sipped whisky and watched her sardonically over the rim.

    Phoebe drank whisky and glared at the knotty-pine wall opposite. It wasn’t decorated with anything nautical, it was decorated with a large abstract painting in shades of cream and grey-blue.

    “Are you going to take those slacks off?” he murmured eventually.

    “No.”

    “How disappointing. Er—are you going to stay for lunch?”

    “I’m here, aren’t I?” she replied disagreeably.

    “Gracious,” he noted.

    There was a short pause.

    “What is there?” she asked cautiously.

    “Me?” suggested Ralph meekly.

     Phoebe drained her glass. “In that case, I’ll be off.”

    He caught her hand as she was about to put the glass down on the small table balanced between sheepskins. “Idiot,” he said mildly.

    Phoebe glared at him.

   Ralph noticed with some amusement that her colour had risen as she glared. He raised his eyebrows slightly.

    “No!” she said loudly.

    “In that case, there’s a quite nice coq au vin. Weeny mushrooms, glazed onions and all. Plus a quite decent claret to go with it, breathing in the galley at this very moment.”

    “For lunch?” she said weakly.

    “Come on, Phoebe!” he replied, quite loudly.

    “I only meant it seemed rather a lot for one person,” she explained on a sheepish note.

    “Well, aside from the fact that one never knows, decent wine doesn’t come in half-bottles. And since I was cooking a chicken I decided to cook the whole thing, bring the whole thing, and take home what hadn’t been consumed. Once I was sure that my frightful relatives would have given up and gone, of course.”

    “Bastard,” she noted. “Well, all right, you’ve explained it, now go and get it.”

    “‘Please’?” he prompted.

    “Please. And if I’ve got a choice, I’d rather sit up at the table, I can’t stand eating gravyish things off my lap.”

    “Unique amongst women,” he sighed, going out.

    Phoebe got up and got herself another whisky.

    ... “Better?” he murmured after she’d eaten a huge amount of coq au vin in almost total silence.

    “Yes,” Phoebe admitted, making a face. “Thanks, Ralph.”

    “Any time!”

    “You can drop that,” she said mildly. She picked up her wine, and glanced at the porthole. “Is it still raining?”

    “Yes. And since you don’t ask,” said Ralph, squinting out of the porthole, “there are no lights showing in Winkelmann’s nest.”

    Phoebe got up and peered into the grey murk. “You get quite a good view of it from here,” she noted.

    “Don’t you?” he agreed, looking at the way the navy sweater had ridden up over the blue slacks—the latter a shade with just enough green in it to be truly horrible. “By the way, dear soul, that sweater’s a disaster with those slacks. Is Winkelmann colour blind?”

    “No. They’re old, I thought he might want to indulge in some of his usual exciting weekend activities, like sanding the floor, or painting the walls, or plastering the ceiling. Not his ceiling, of course, the ceiling next-door. You don’t wear your best gear to plaster ceilings, Ralph.”

    “I wouldn’t know,” he explained blandly.

    “Thank God for that,” she muttered, sitting down with a sigh.

    “Darling Phoebe,” he murmured, “please do me the favour of getting out of the slacks, every time I get a glimpse of the way they’re clinging to your calves I go all creepy.”

    “Some of us thought you’d long since wented. Oh, all right.” She got up again. “And STAY THERE!”

    “So masterful!” he gasped.

    When she came back, firmly belted into his crimson velvet dressing-gown, he was sprawled on a sofa and music was playing softly.

    “More wine? Or a liqueur? Coffee?”

    “Actually I wouldn’t mind coffee and a liqueur.”

    “Good, nor would I. Do you like Turkish delight? I don’t think I know.”

    “Yes, I love it, it’s one of my vices,” said Phoebe weakly.

    “Good, help yourself while I make the coffee.” He gestured at the box on the coffee table and got up.

    … “You don’t think we’re in for a storm, do you?” she asked some time later, as the boat bucked and swayed rather.

    “God, you’re not feeling sick, are you?”

    “No: iron stomach.”

    “Like so much else about you, darling.”

    “Thanks,” she said drily.

    “I’m a terrific admirer of it all, Phoebe, hasn’t that dawned yet?” he sighed.

    “Oh, of course!”

    “No, true,” he said with a little smile.

    She gave him an uncertain look and didn’t reply.

    Ralph decided it might—tactically?—no, strategically, he rather felt—be a good idea to let her stew over that one for just a little. He got up and said: “But to answer your query, I think we’re in for a humdinger of a storm, yes. I’d better go and batten a few hatches. Stay there, but if you hear a scream come running to the rescue—preferably without my dressing-gown, I think that dye might run in the rain.” He ambled out on this.

    Phoebe sagged back against the puffy canvas cushions. “How much of that was true?” she muttered faintly.

    The wind howled and the rain drummed against the deck and neither of these phenomena offered an answer.

    “None, probably,” she decided, pouring herself a second small Cognac. Well, smallish.

    He was ages, and the boat rocked quite a lot, but Phoebe didn't notice.

    ... “Sorry,” said Ralph weakly. He’d made a tactical error—he was almost sure it hadn’t been a strategic one, there was never any harm, in his experience, in letting ‘em know you were still interested—and had had his hand slapped—or, as it were, walloped—for his pains.

    “Just don’t,” she said grimly.

    Ralph didn’t listen to the grimness, he looked at the flushed face and the heaving bosom, and smiled.

    Phoebe pulled the dressing-gown firmly back over her thighs, not looking at him.

    Sighing ostentatiously, Ralph poured himself another Cognac. “Will this make it go limp, do you think?” he asked sadly, sipping.

    “No,” she said in a strangled voice.

    “Not judging by past experience?” he suggested.

    “NO! And stop fishing!” she shouted.

    He sniggered but pointed out: “You could at least let go of that dressing-gown’s skirt and let me enjoy the view.”

    Phoebe scowled and held the dressing-gown closed over her knees.

    Ralph put his glass down carefully on the coffee table and edged closer to her. “All right, don’t,” he said amiably.

    She looked at him suspiciously and he smiled blandly and grabbed a handful of tit.

    “Don’t you ever LEARN?” she shouted, bashing his shoulder.

    “No.” He released her and sat back, looking smug. “Let’s fuck.”

    “No,” said Phoebe, turning scarlet.

    Ralph put a hand on her knee and slid it very slowly up the velvet. “Let me get my tongue up there, then,” he suggested.

    “No,” she croaked.

    “Phoebe,” said Ralph with a smile in his voice: “you know and I know that you’re sitting there as wet as Hell for it, why in God’s name won’t you let me?”

    “Don’t be an idiot,” she said shortly. “You know perfectly well why.”

    “Phoebe, dear,” he said, slowly stroking the thigh: “where—is—he?”

    Phoebe pushed his hand away. “What’s that got to do with it?”

    Ralph raised his eyebrows very high. “Everything, I should have thought. And by the way, how many times has he actually done you over the past three months?”

    Phoebe opened her mouth angrily. Then she shut it again.

    “Well?”

    “We’ve both been busy. And we’re not a pair of kids,” she said tiredly.

    “Well?” he insisted.

    “All RIGHT, about three, if you must have it!” she shouted furiously.

    Ralph whistled.

    “Look, I’m going home—”

    “That was a sympathetic whistle, you idiot, how many times do you imagine I’ve had it over the last three months?”

    “I’ve no idea. And I’m not interested. But if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say—uh—two hundred and seventy.”

    “Two— Thank you, darling!” he gasped, falling back against the cushions and laughing helplessly. Not so helplessly that he didn’t notice that she made no further move to depart, however.

    “Was that—er—judging from me known form?” he asked finally.

    “More or less,” admitted Phoebe, biting her lip.

    “It was very flattering, but the answer happens to be zero. Zilch. Nada.”—A tactical error, that last: she winced.—“Not at all,” he concluded drily.

    “Oh, dear.”

    “None of the ladies I meet come up to the exacting standards you set, you see.”

    “Either that or none of them are simultaneously nubile, red-headed, aged around twenty-one, and willing.”

    “I’m flattered you should have remembered my feeble expression of—er—my occasional wistful longings, Phoebe.”

    “Occasional!”

    “What can I say? It’s the male menopause,” he sighed.

    “Well, you needn’t say that, for a start. It’s a ludicrous expression.”

    “Oh?” He eyed her cautiously. “I assure you it’s unconnected with sex, as the master potter once deliriously remarked in my hearing. I was buying a pot at the time; I forget how the subject came up, but I do recall that Winkelmann helped me load the pot into the boot of my c—”

    “Shut UP, Ralph!” shouted Phoebe, bright red in the face. She bounded up but Ralph shot to his feet and grabbed her by the upper-arms before she could get any further.

    “Jealous of Master Potter?” he suggested.

    “No!” she said angrily. “Will you let me—”

    “No,” he replied conversationally. “I assure you—if my poor word is worth anything at all—you’re ten times the woman she is, Phoebe.”

    “Huh!” said Phoebe bitterly.

    “And if Winkelmann can’t handle you, can it be that he is ten times less the man you thought he was?” he added blandly.

    “No!” shouted Phoebe. “Just SHUT UP!” She wrenched away, gave him a violent shove and hurried over to the door.

    Ralph staggered, but recovered his balance and said: “Darling, if you’d only let me slip something lovely between those big silky thighs—”

    “NO!” screamed Phoebe. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!”

    “Darling, if I didn’t know you better I’d say you were actually tempted!”

    Phoebe looked round furiously for something to throw but there wasn’t anything. She stomped out to the bathroom, sliding its door to—since most unfortunately it couldn’t be slammed—as viciously as she could.

    Ralph sat down on the couch again and chuckled softly. He heard her crashing round in there but he just waited. After a while she came out, reclad, not looking at him, and marched out to get the rain gear.

    “I’m off, ” she said grimly, glaring at him from the door.

   Ralph just sat there.

    “All right, you’ll get this coat back when it suits me and not before!” She stumbled out.

    Ralph just waited. He didn’t kid himself he wasn’t bloody nervous, though. It had only been a joke, he’d never dreamed it’d get to this stage without—

    Phoebe came crashing down the companion-way and crashed into the cabin, bright red in the face. “Take this fucking thing into shore!” she choked.

    Ralph gave in and collapsed in sniggers.

    “RALPH!” she shouted.

    “Phoebe,” he said, mopping his streaming eyes, “if you’d been as interested in the  egregious Yank and his goings-on as you claim to be, you’d have looked out of that porthole towards his vile dwelling at least once in the last hour, and noticed that while I was battening I’d shifted the boat a trifle!”

    “A trifle! We’re in the middle of the bloody inlet!” she shouted.

    “That’s why the boat’s going up and down a bit!” he gasped. “I know there’s a bit of a wind, but there’s no storm warning, Phoebe dearest!”

    “Take me into shore,” said Phoebe tensely, clenching her fists.

    “What if I say no?”

    “Then I’ll KILL YOU!” she bellowed.

    “And then you’d have to swim. But there is a bit of a sea, and I don’t think that—lovely in your togs though you are—you’re much of a swimmer, are you, dear?”

    “You bastard,” said Phoebe through her teeth.

    “Oh, quite, I’ve never denied it.”

    “Look, Ralph—” she said, changing tone.

    “Darling, sweet reason will definitely not work. Well, certainly not on top of the bellow of the Bull of Bashan,” he amended.

    “Take me IN!” screamed Phoebe.

    “I’ll take you,” he offered mildly.

    “Over my dead body,” she said grimly.

    Oops: Ralph realised belatedly that her mouth was very tight but that she also looked distinctly blueish in that area. “Phoebe, I’m not proposing rape. For God’s sake sit down and don’t be a clot.”

    “What the Christ are you proposing, then?”

    “The rest of the afternoon together, alone, well out of Winkelmann’s reach. When it’s dark you can go home. Then, if he should happen to be back, he won’t see you—er—debarking,” he said tiredly.

    “Is that an English word?” she said faintly.

     Ralph shrugged. “Dunno. ’Tisn’t me that’s the headmistress.”

    “No,” she said, eyeing him warily.

    “Sit down; I’ve said: rape is not on the agenda.”

    “It felt like it for a bit, there,” she muttered, slowly peeling off her yellow plastic gear.

    “And hang that up—”

    “All RIGHT!” Phoebe stomped out with the gear.

    She came back and sat down, still looking wary.

    “By God, you have got rape on your mind, haven’t you?” he said faintly.

    “No,” said Phoebe, picking up her glass.

    “You have!” he choked.

    “NO!”

    “Darling, you’re twice as strong as little me—”

    “You know bloody well that’s a lie, Ralph, you play all that golf, and ski as well as I do, just drop the POSE!” she shouted.

    “All right. But admit you’re terrified of rape.”

    Phoebe hesitated, not looking at him. Finally she took some more Cognac and said sourly: “You’ve got no idea of what it’s like to be a woman, have you, Ralph? Not to mention a victim. Just like the rest of them.” She drank the Cognac without looking at him.

    “Look, I— For God’s sake, it was a joke! I wanted to see how long it’d be before you looked over at Winkelmann’s and realised— Look, I’ll take us in right now, okay?”

    Phoebe didn’t reply.

    Ralph got up. “I’m sorry!” he said loudly.

    “Go on, put your money where your mouth is, you prick,” she returned sourly.

    Ralph didn’t reply, not even with the obvious, he just went out, put on the plastic gear, and went topsides to get on with it.

    ... “There! –God, are you crying?” he said in horror.

    Phoebe blew her nose angrily, glaring at the completely redundant abstract painting on the opposite wall.

    Ralph sat down beside her and said weakly: “I’m damned sorry, Phoebe.” She didn’t look at him and he said loudly: “Look, I was bloody jealous, if you want to know! I wanted to prove to you that you don’t damn well care as much about him as you fancy you do!”

    “Yes, you wanted that, and you wanted to throw a bloody good scare into me. For spite,” she said bitterly. “And in case your great surgeon’s brain isn’t capable of working it out, you also wanted to get yourself right in the pooh, because then you could go ahead and really suffer!”

    Ralph had gone very white. “Quite probably,” he said through his teeth.

    “Well, there’s no need to put yourself to that much trouble, I’m in love with Sol: are you satisfied?”

    “No,” he said, rallying: “you’re not in love with him, Phoebe. You’re in love with what you fancy he is, and with some damned romantic idea you’ve got into your head about the life the two of you might lead together. Hasn’t it dawned yet that everyone who knows you can see that it isn’t working out and that you can’t stand his sort of life and he can’t stand yours?”

    “No,” she said tightly, getting up.

    Ralph also got up but this time made no attempt to detain her. “For Christ’s sake, he’s got more in common with the bloody master potter than he has with you!” he said exasperatedly as she went over to the door.

    “Has he? Well, even so, let me assure you it won’t do you any good!” said Phoebe angrily. She crashed out into the companionway, and vanished.

    Ralph sat down again and poured himself a huge brandy. “Oh, bugger,” he said to it conversationally. “Still, one can hope that a tiny seed may have been sown—tactical errors an’ all,” he told it.

    The brandy just looked at him so he drank the bloody stuff to spite it.

    Phoebe drove herself all the way home in a fury. But somehow when she got there she came over all all-overish and threw herself on her bed and had a good bawl. Afterwards she didn’t feel all that kindly towards Sol, admittedly. But she didn’t feel kindly towards Ralph, either. At the back of her mind she had a sneaking feeling that he might have been right about her and Sol—well, it certainly seemed to have been going from bad to worse all winter—well, all year, more or less, actually—and she was damned if she could see where she’d gone wrong. But recognizing that he might have a point most certainly didn’t make her any better disposed towards Ralph.

Next chapter:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/many-slip.html