Double Trouble. Part 1

13

Double Trouble. Part 1

    Bill had already made several remarks about the gla-more to be expected of a luau at the Carrano palace, but Meg had loftily ignored him, wild horses wouldn’t have kept her away—the more so since Polly had promised that Nanny would take charge of Connie for the night. “There you are, Damian!” she said in relief as an uncoordinated lanky figure that wasn’t Roger loomed in the front doorway. “We were beginning to think you’d got lost!”

    “Um—no,” said Roger’s friend Damian Rosen hoarsely. “Um—Grandpa brought me.”

    Meg gulped: Sir Jerry Cohen? She peered. Sure enough, out by the broken Thing that had been a letterbox until quite recently when Michael got his new lassoing bug, stood a huge, pale fawn shiny monster of a car. At the wheel a crumpled frog-like face could just be discerned behind a huge cigar. A hand waved jauntily at them through a cloud of blue smoke.

    “He’ll give you all a lift, if you like,” croaked Damian.

    Swallowing, Meg replied faintly: “That’s very kind of him... He’s driving himself, is he, Damian?”

    Sir Jerry Cohen’s grandson replied glumly: “Yeah. Him and Grandma had an awful row about it. That’s why we’re late. –Grandma’s not with us!” he assured her.

    “Oh,” said Meg faintly. “Um—is your grandpa staying for the party, Damian?”

    Not pretending to misunderstand her, Damian replied: “Yes, but don’t worry, he’s not gonna drive home down the motorway: he’s gonna stay the night with Aunty Veronica and Uncle Peter.”

    They only lived up the coast a bit at Kowhai Bay: “Oh, good,” said Meg weakly, sagging. “Um—come in, Damian, we’ll only be a minute.”

    Damian followed her in obediently. “Meg,” he said hoarsely in the darkness of the passage.

    “Mm?” He was a tall boy: Meg, who was a little woman, peered up at him. She couldn’t see his face very well but she rather thought he’d gone red.

    “Um—Roger reckons your neighbours want another boarder, is that right?”

    At this Roger emerged into the passage, saying eagerly: “Yeah, and Michaela needs another student, too, doesn’t she, Meg?”

    Damian was a year ahead of Roger and so he’d be going to university this year. However, Meg replied in a very weak voice: “You don’t mean you, do you, Damian? Have you asked your Uncle Peter about it?”

    Damian was redder than ever. “Yeah,” he growled. “He reckons I’d better stay on at Grandma and Grandpa’s for another year, at least.”

    Meg knew the poor boy lived with Sir Jerry and Lady Cohen: his parents had been killed in a terrible car crash several years back. “Mm. Well, it was a bit of a shock for your grandparents when you said you wanted to do electrical engineering instead of going into the family firm, wasn’t it?”

    “Yeah. Well, Grandma did her nut. Only Grandpa said it was obvious I’d be hopeless at business so perhaps it was just as well I wasn’t gonna to lose the family fortune,” Damian admitted, grinning sheepishly.

    Meg smiled but said: “Mm. Well, your Uncle Peter is awfully clever about people; I’d take his advice if I was you, Damian. Um—you could always come and stay a few days with us when it’s getting you down,” she offered kindly.

    “Could I really?” he cried. “Could I bring The Fiend?”

    Undoubtedly the brute—a cross between a Great Dane, an Irish Wolfhound, and the car of Juggernaut, in Meg O’Connell’s opinion—would chase their ducks, but— “Yes, all right,” she said feebly. “We’d love to have you, wouldn’t we, Rog?”

    “Yeah! Mighty!” he cried.

    “Ace! Thanks, Meg!” cried Damian.

    Meg tottered off to retrieve Connie. Corralled on a kitchen chair with her old reins round the new pink dress from Tricksie’s, there had been no other way…

    “Um—Damian’s grandpa’s giving us a lift,” she said weakly to Bill, who was in there not doing anything.

    “How are we gonna get back?” the Coggins brain retorted immediately.

    Meg sat down suddenly.

    “UNTIE ME!” roared poor Connie.

    “In a minute. YES! IN A MINUTE! –For God’s sake don’t argue the point, Bill, I’m feeling all weak. I’ve just offered to let Damian come over with The Fiend whenever he feels like it. To stay the night and everything.”

    “So?”

    “The poor boy accepted as if—as if I’d offered him Paradise on a silver platter; what on earth can his life be like with those two old sillies?” said Meg very weakly indeed.

    Bill rubbed his chin. “Well, you or I, or indeed any person of mature years,”—Meg came to and glared—“maturer years,” Bill made a pretence of correcting himself—“might be tempted to say ‘bloody.’ But you know what boys of that age are: I dare say he lets ninety-nine percent of it wash over him.”

    “He’d have to. –Anyway, is it all right?”

    Bill gaped at her.

    “The Fiend’ll go for your blessed chooks!” explained Meg crossly.

    “Not once I’ve had a word with Damian, ’e won’t,” he promised.

    “Good. Well, have a word on the subject of the ducks, while you’re at it, would you?”

    Bill’s jaw sagged but he made a quick recover and said dotingly: “‘Es, wighto, den, little woman: I s’all tell the naughty boy not to let his naughty bow-wow go anywhere near wee Meggums’s duckie-wuckies.”

    Meg opened her mouth but the unfortunate Connie cried excitedly, possibly under the misconception that she was participating in the conversation: “Mima Puddle- Duck!” So they were both able to bellow: “NO! SHUT UP, CONNIE!”

    Down the road at Number 3 Blossom Avenue Adrian Revill said glumly to his landlords: “It’ll be dead boring.”

    “Yeah, but there’ll be good grub,” Darryl Tuwhare reassured him.

    “Once upon a time,” said John Aitken thoughtfully, “someone not a million miles away from the gracious precincts of 3 Blossom Avenue as we speak was heard to announce that nothing on God’s earth would force her to put her stomach before her principles and sink to the level of socializing with that capitalist entrepreneur. Or words to that effect.” He looked down at himself dubiously. “Didn’t my stomach come into it somewhere, too?”

    “It usually does,” acknowledged Adrian with a reluctant grin.

    “Someone musta been young and callow in those days,” said Darryl, unmoved. “Come on, Adrian: you ready?”

    “There’ll be gurrls,” leered John.

    “Yeah, all jiggling their tits breathlessly and telling you you look like Mel Gibson,” added Darryl unfeelingly to their handsome young boarder. She marched out to her battered old purple Vee-Dub, not waiting to see if they were following.

    “Come on,” urged John, hiding a grin in the beard. “Polly Carrano invited you because she thought there should be some nice young men there for these blessed cousins or nieces or whatever they are.”

    “I bet they’ve got faces like horses,” said Adrian glumly, clambering to his feet.

    John replied thoughtfully: “If they take after her side of the family, that would be a genetic impossibility, I’d say.”

    “I notice you’re not saying it in front of Darryl,” Adrian, who once upon not so very long ago had been Head Boy at Grammar, returned very drily to this.

    John laughed a little. But he put his hand very kindly on the young man’s shoulder and said: “Cheer up. We can always eat ourselves silly and come straight home, if it’s foul.”

    Adrian replied gamely: “Oh, like Darryl, you mean!” But he looked a little more relaxed, and accompanied him willingly enough.

    “There, now!” said Jake pleasedly. “Don’t they both look sweet?”

    His wife eyed him dubiously. Jake, who was by no means a stupid man, could see that she was wondering how this sex-stereotypical, rôle-reinforcing remark was going to go down with the Austin twins, but he ignored her and went on beaming at them. Silently Lady Carrano conceded that, given their ages and the styles currently in vogue—not to say Sir Jacob’s age—you could fairly say the twins did look sweet.

    With her tapered green pants Vicki was wearing a lacy white blouse, knotted tightly between the tiny but noticeably pointed breasts in a black bra every square inch of which showed through the blouse quite clearly. About four inches of pale Vicki showed below the blouse and then a slender gold chain was looped round the waist above a paisley scarf in shades of green and gold knotted over the hips. The coppery curls were pulled up very high in a green butterfly clip, showing her pretty little nape and tumbling around her ears. These were adorned with gold studs: one in one ear, two in the other; and large gold hoops, one in each. Several delicate gold chains and bangles twined round one wrist. Sweet—exactly.

    Ginny was also sweet, in a black, yellow and gold batik skirt, made from two large scarves joined together, the points hanging down. The top was a deep gold nylon singlet with neckline and shoulder-straps edged with dark violet. You couldn’t have worn a bra with those straps and it was very evident that Ginny wasn’t. It was also clearly evident, thought Polly drily, that the child had not the faintest conception of the effect that those full breasts in that tight singlet would have on the average red-blooded male citizen of the opposite sex. The red-gold hair swung and glittered in a great fall to her waist. Yeah: sweet.

    Whether it was because they weren’t liberated enough to register the implications of his remark, or because Jake was having his usual effect on members of the opposite sex, even very young ones—well, even very, very young ones, his two-year-old daughter was dotty about him—the twins both went very pink, beamed at Sir Jacob sitting there with his great foot in his unliberated mouth, and thanked him in shy little voices. That Miriam Austin, for one, would not have recognized.

    On opening the front door of the mansion on the cliff top at Pohutukawa Bay Sir Jacob had immediately captured old Sir Jerry and led him off to a male enclave. Bill had followed, God knew why. Damian and Roger, however, were sticking closer to Meg’s heels than brothers; in fact it was like taking the twins to a bloody birthday party when they were about four.

    “You look wonderful, Polly,” she said on a frankly envious note as Polly led her out to the patio.

    Lady Carrano looked down at her long strapless gown, which featured scattered pink frangipani blooms (the Hawaiian motif) on a white ground and which, cotton though it might have been, was extremely elegant. Not to say split to the thigh to show her long golden legs. The sun-streaked, shiny brown hair was up in a big bun with a bunch of pink frangipani behind one ear (the Hawaiian motif again). “Yeah,” she replied drily. “Hardly sweet, though.”

    “Eh?” said Meg limply.

    She gestured. “Look.”

    Meg peered through the patio’s forest of tropical greenery and all the cane armchairs and sun-loungers and stuff— “Oh.”

    “Sweet: see?” said her hostess.

    “Yes,” she agreed limply, looking at the two glowing copper heads and the two lovely little figures—quite different, though, how fascinating, they must be fraternal, like her own twins, and Polly’s, come to think of it: it must run in her family! They were visibly mesmerizing a clump of young men by the poolside. “Very sweet. Um—who are they all, Polly?”

    Lady Carrano looked dry. “Every unattached male I invited. And some of the attached. You know Adrian Revill, of course, and those two are Angie and Bill Michaels’s boys: the darker one’s Mark and the fair one’s Col. And the thin, dark young man’s Dickon Fothergill: you’ve met him, I think.”

    “Uh—oh, yes. Michaela’s acolyte,” said Meg limply.

    “Well, he’s found another shrine to worship at this evening,” she noted drily.

    Meg swallowed. “Mm. Um—which?”

    “I don’t think it matters,” she said dispassionately.

    “Uh—no.” Meg then became aware of the two hoarsely breathing presences at her heels. “Go—on,” she said clearly.

    They writhed.

    “Go on, for God’s sake! Look, there’s John: he’ll introduce you, he’s got some manners!” said Meg crossly.

    Shambling, shuffling, red to the tips of the ears, they went.

    Some forty minutes later, Meg tracked her hostess down in the kitchen. “I thought you said this luau was only going to be people you liked!” she hissed.

    “It is,” replied Polly blankly. “Um, if you mean Ralph Overdale, he walked in on us just when I was inviting Tom and Jemima, I more or less had to include him.”

    Meg hadn’t meant him, actually, but she noted sourly: “Him as well. No, that creep Derek Prior!”

    Before Polly could explain, or apologize, or anything, Daphne Green, the Carranos’ housekeeper, who was busying herself in the kitchen even though Food By Flury were doing the catering and serving, said: “She couldn’t not ask him, Meg, it would have hurt poor Margaret Prior’s feelings.”

    “Did he pinch your bum?” asked Polly mildly.

    “No!” said Meg crossly. “He squeezed my arm!”

    “Aw, is that all?” said Polly in disappointment.

    “In a horrible way!” Meg cried loudly.

    “He does that,” agreed Daphne. “These milkshakes are ready, now,” she reported. “I’d better get them up to the nursery before they go flat.” She hurried out.

    “Um, Derek Prior’s been sort of eying up your young cousins, too,” Meg revealed uneasily. “Only looking!” she added quickly.

    Polly sighed. “Look, I didn’t think it was a particularly good idea to invite him, but considering what he knows Jake knows about his track record, he’d have to be pretty bloody thick to lay a finger on either of them!”

    “Is he thick?”

    “No, he’s quite intelligent, actually. It’s a waste, really.”

    “Yes. Um, Polly? Does he make you feel sort of—um—sickish? And as if the fur down your spine was standing on end?”

    “Yes,” said Polly, wriggling in her glamorous white garment and looking sickish. “That’s precisely it, Meg!”

    Meg sagged against the bench. “Oh, good. I tried to explain it to Bill but he said the little woman was feverish.”

    “Did he really? Most men are immediately inspired with an almost uncontrollable desire to punch his face in. –Have a rum,” she offered, finding a bottle.

    Meg brightened. “Ooh, ta!”

    “Paws off; neither of ’em’s for you,” said Tom drily.

    Clutching his brother’s arm excitedly, Ralph hissed in his ear: “But it’s them!”

    “Eh?”

    “The pair I saw down at Ruapehu!” hissed Ralph.

    “Eh?”

    “The luscious little twins I saw down at the mountain! It must be them, no-one else could have hair like that... Yes, bugger me, it is them!”

    “Yeah, and if you added their ages together you’d still be old enough to be their ruddy father.”

    “Ooh, yes,” sighed Ralph, wriggling a bit.

    “For God’s sake behave, this is a nayce party for nayce people, not one of your filthy Remmers wing-dings where ya do headmistresses in the pool on the stroke of the witching hour!”

    Ralph gulped a bit. “Oh, you noticed that.”

    “I’m not blind,” returned his younger brother mildly. “Do you want a drink?”

    “It is immaterial, dear boy: at the moment I am feasting my eyes,” he sighed.

    Shuddering, Tom left him.

    Amidst the exotic vegetation of Polly’s patio, Laura Hayes looked at Michaela narrowly. “Mm... Full-length, definitely. I’m not sure about the upholstery, though.”

    “No, it oughta be zebra skin, instead of that tropically floral sofa,” agreed Hugh on a dry note.

    “Where in God’s name did you dig him up from?” demanded the artist crossly.

    Michaela pinkened but answered literally: “He’s a friend of the brother of a friend of mine.”

    “See?” murmured Hugh.

    Laura took a revivifying draught of rum punch. “Would you take your clothes off?”

    “No,” replied Hugh immediately.

    “Keep out of this, it’s none of your ruddy business,” said Laura rudely. “Is it, Michaela?”

    Michaela looked dubiously at Hugh. She was rather flushed. Hugh stared back defiantly. He was very flushed.

    “Well, IS IT?” demanded Laura loudly.

    “No,” said Michaela simply.

    Hugh got up abruptly. Turning his back on the pair of them, he shoved his hands in his pockets and glared at the pool. It was nothing more nor less than he’d expected, so why his eyes should have filled like a flaming tit...

    “There’d be a modelling fee, of course,” said Laura on a would-be airy note.

    “Would there? Good. Do it however you want to, Laura, I don’t mind,”

    “Oh, great,” said Laura, sagging all over the Carranos’ blessed tropical-look patio. You kept looking round for the leopard, or the snake, or something: it was like something out of Douanier Rousseau. “Hey!” she said loudly to Michaela’s boyfriend. “What about this, eh? Her in the middle of all this bloody tropical greenery!”

    Hugh turned round. “Her naked in the middle of all this bloody greenery, you mean. You could call it, um… ‘Michaela en Renée dans la Serre’.”

    “Eh?” groped the artist.

    “Illiterate,” replied Hugh bitterly. He walked away from the pair of them.

    “Has he been reading books?” asked Laura feebly.

    “Yes,” agreed Michaela, looking after him anxiously. “He reads lots of books... He’s got the pip.”

    “Thinks he’s the only one with perving rights on your bod,” noted Laura sourly.

    “Mm.”

    “Well, go on,” said Laura, sighing. “Run after him.”

    Michaela looked thoughtfully at the greenery which had swallowed Hugh up. “No,” she said. “I used to do that sort of thing.” She stopped.

    Abruptly Laura’s knees went weak. Talk about your strong-minded females! She was never gonna get that on canvas, in combination with that passivity… That deceptive passivity, she now realised. “Uh—yeah! Good on ya,” she croaked.

    Ralph had sort of managed to manoeuvre himself next to a twin for a time, but the setting was hardly propitious. Respectable suburban matrons all over the show, God! Bloody Aud was in her element, any minute now she’d be swapping Pony Club experiences with the delicious Lady Carrano. ...Shit. And why in Hell the Carranos, who must be richest couple in the country, were content to socialize with this lot—! Though on second thoughts they were probably no more boring than the up-market bone-cutters and butchers he and Aud usually socialized with, but the latter did at least have the advantage of a modicum of spite in their social interchanges…

    One of the twins was now hovering at Sir Jake’s macho elbow as he operated on the spit-roasting pig. She wasn’t the one with the luscious tits, true, but either would have done, souls. Jake poured rum. The pig hissed; the rum hit the glowing charcoal below; blue flames leapt high, mingled squeals and giggles came from that direction… Ralph sighed. Should he do something definite about Miss Fothergill? The trouble was, although they didn’t precisely move in the same circles, there were definite points where their circles were contiguous. Or even interlocking, he thought, glancing at old Sir Jerry Cohen in the lee of a potted Monstera deliciosa, and glancing away again, wincing. If he did, and it came to Audrey’s ears... Heap big bust-up? Wouldn’t do Phoebe’s career a mite of good, either…

    He moved down the poolside with a little shrug. He’d been having this sort of thought about his marriage for such a long time now that it had become almost automatic. Ralph was quite aware of this fact, but— No, well, could he and Phoebe manage to keep it a secret? He was bloody sure Aud wouldn’t give a damn who or what he got up: what she’d care about was other people getting to know about it. Um—well, yes: he could probably manage to make discretion his watchword. So long as the delightful Miss F. didn’t become too bloody demanding. –Not that! His mouth twitched a little. But what if she started thinking of marriage, i.e. divorce in his case? Women did, even the most sensible of ’em.

    Yes, well, there were a Hell of a lot of good arguments against it...

    On the other hand there were one or two arguments bloody well in favour of it! he thought crossly. The other twin, the one with the good tits, was over at the other side of the pool with a crowd of young cretins. Bugger it: if she was even five years older he’d cut the lot of them out, but— Grimacing, Ralph wandered off to the bar.

    It would not have been true to say that Ginny was enjoying herself. Not in the way that Vicki was. True, she was flattered at being surrounded by young men who obviously admired her, but in the first place she never knew what to say to boys and in the second place she was beginning to realise that most of these particular young men were really boring. She was being very polite to them nonetheless.

    “Mangroves?” she echoed shyly.

    “Why, in God’s name?” said the elder of the two Michaels boys.

    “Possibly because not all of us want to spend the rest of our natural pushing pills and polishing our BMWs,” replied Dickon pleasedly. –The Michaels boy was at Med. School, he must have been about twenty-three. Unfortunately this was about the right age for Ginny Austin. And he was, even more unfortunately, extremely good-looking: a burly, curly-haired young man who, as he’d already told Ginny, did a lot of waterskiing, windsurfing and sailing. Dickon could feel in his bones that he was working round to asking her out on his bloody boat.

    The younger Michaels boy, who was almost as good-looking, with thick, straight fair hair, and in spite of his youth had considerable charm, winked at Ginny and drawled: “Not a BMW, that’s old hat: Sir Ralph Thing and all the old brigade get round in those. No, Mark’ll go for a Porsche, to underline his image as an up-and-coming young surgeon.”

    “Hah, hah,” returned Mark Michaels sourly.

    Barbara Michaels, who was a sturdy, merry-faced, brown-haired girl of nineteen whom Ginny had liked on sight, at this advised: “Ignore Col, he’s just jealous. That thing of his broke down twice on the way up here. I said it would.”

    “True, you said it would break down,” Col replied immediately. “But I for one never heard the word ‘twice’.”

    “No, because I never realized it was that much of a heap!” retorted his sister immediately.

    Dickon, who was an “only”, put in uneasily at this point: “Isn’t he here, by the way?”

    “Who?” replied Mark blankly.

    “Sir Ralph Thing.”

    “Ralph Overdale?” said Mark eagerly.

    “Go on: go off and lick his boots,” Col advised him snidely.

    “He’s a terrific surgeon!” replied Mark, his face lighting up.—His brother and sister groaned loudly.—“No, honest, he—”

    “Spare us the gruesome details, Mark, some of us came here to eat,” sighed Col. “Come on, Ginny, let’s go and see how the barbecue’s coming along.”

    “Luau!” corrected Ginny with a nervous giggle.

    “Ooh, yes, silly me: luau!” gurgled Col. He took her hand and walked away with her right under the noses of his goggling older brother and the goggling Dickon Fothergill.

    “The pig was best, I reckon,” pronounced Darryl, sighing deeply.

    “This would be your ethnic ancestry talking, would it?” drawled John in his very English voice.

    Ginny went very red but the handsome Maori lady only laughed, and so did Col; so she smiled uncertainly.

    “What were those things that looked like bananas?” added John.

    Darryl gaped. “You takin’ the Mick again, Pom?”

    Ginny went very red again. Col’s slender shoulders shook.

    But the burly Englishman only said mildly: “No. What were they?”

    “They were bananas, you twit,” said Darryl, very loudly and clearly.

    “Oh. But weren’t they green?”

    “GREEN BANANAS!” she bellowed.

    Col broke down and had a helpless sniggering fit.

    “Cooking bananas,” said Ginny kindly. “I’ve never had them, either; we don’t get so much Island stuff down in Taranaki.”

    John eyed her with interest but Darryl, recognizing the signs, grabbed his arm and saying loudly: “Come on; come and be initiated into what us South-Sea Islanders get sozzled on after the luau,” dragged him forcibly away before he could comment on the unfortunate child’s use of one of his favourite Kiwi expressions, to wit the nominal adjective, “Island.”

    Those whose mothers hadn’t told them not to swim after eating or who’d conveniently forgotten this injunction were in the pool, since the Carranos had kindly provided a huge choice of guest bathing-suits. Squealing and splashing, in the case of Vicki Austin, to name but one. Those who had more sense or were fuller or who were capable of truly appreciating Jake’s grog were just sitting round on assorted cane armchairs, sun-loungers, etcetera. Appreciating it.

    Laura’s hand closed tightly on Jim’s arm.

    “OW!” he screeched.

    “Ssh! Look!”

    “What at?”

    “Michaela’s thighs,” she replied tensely.

    “God, you’re a pervert.”

    “Don’t be a raving nana! The colour! I’m gonna get that in a nude study if it kills me,” said the artist tensely. “—That bloke of hers is dead-set against it, mind you. Doesn’t want her to pose in the nuddy.”

    Wincing, Jim replied: “Pray do not use that coarse example of the demotic within may chaste hearing.”

    At this a tall, thin man in gold-rimmed specs who looked a bit like a budgie detached himself from a nearby palm trunk and said: “It bloody well is Jim Fisher, isn’t it?”

    Jim eyed him narrowly. There weren’t many jokers around that looked like tall, thin budgies, when you came to think of it...

    “Tom Overdale, you cretin,” said Tom, grinning, and holding out his hand.

    “Good grief! What the fuck happened to you after Ye Grate Varsity Revue?” –Here Laura groaned but nobody took any notice of her.

    “Finished me degree and eventually went primary-school teaching,” acknowledged Tom. “What about you?”

    “Grammar. English,” responded Jim glumly.

    Tom kow-towed immediately.

    “Cut that out,” said Jim, grinning. “Uh—this groaning object here is Laura.”

    Tom held out his hand. “Hayes?”

    “Yes,” acknowledged the artist warily.

    Tom laughed suddenly. “I might have known: you two are friends of Phoebe Fothergill’s, aren’t you?”

    “Yeah,” replied Laura in some relief.

    “She’s mentioned the pair of you several times, but she’s never mentioned Jim’s surname, so I didn’t twig,” he explained, grinning.

    “She probably did mention yours, but this Lump wouldn’t have twigged anyway,” returned Laura. “You’re Meg O’Connell’s neighbour, aren’t you?”

    “He would not wish to identify himself, nor yet to be identified—” sighed Jim.

    “Go on,” said Tom evilly.

    “—in that contiguous light,” finished Jim.

    “Sure you don’t mean proximate?”

    They grinned at each other. Laura groaned again.

    “Listen,” Jim then said confidentially, taking Tom’s elbow: “How well do you know these Carrano types?”

    “He means, can you find your way to Sir Jacob’s cellar blindfold?” interpreted Laura drily.

    “Uh, no, actually, he keeps it locked. But I can guide you to the main bar!” finished Tom brightly.

    Jim’s eyes lit up. “Lead on, Macduff!”

    Laura groaned resignedly, and retreated.

    “Dare I say it, little not-sister-in-law?” sighed Ralph. “You look lovely.”

    Jemima was in her white bathing-suit: one-piece, one strap. Paradise could hardly hold more—and not for the first time Ralph reflected sourly that it was Not Fair! The more so because he knew bloody well there was nothing that bloody Tom had ever done to deserve her.

    To his annoyance she didn’t blush but replied mildly: “You look all right, too. You have lost a lot of weight, haven’t you?”

    “For this, much thanks,” he sighed.

    Jemima debated saying meanly that she betted Phoebe’d love his new figure, but decided against it. It was the sort of thing she could say to Tom or Meg, but she wasn’t up to saying it to anybody else. Well, Bill, possibly, when he wasn’t in his “Pat, pat, funny little woman” mood.

    “Will Phoebe Fothergill love me for it, though?” added Ralph wistfully.

    Jemima jumped violently and turned scarlet. “How should I know?” she choked.

    Ignoring her disturbance, he drawled: “And in that connection, has there been any further news of the American Friend, dare one ask?”

    “Um—do you mean Sol Winkelmann?”

    “Precisely, Watson,” said Ralph wearily.

    Jemima wanted very much to say no, Watson was the fat one, she couldn’t be Watson, but didn’t dare. “Um—well, Susan says he’s definitely coming out here. To live, I mean.”

    “Who is this Susan? And does she have what—er—is known in the vernacular as the Good Gen?”

    “You mean the Dinkum Oil,” replied Jemima with satisfaction. “She’s his—” She broke off. Ralph raised his eyebrows very high. Jemima, a clear-sighted girl, recognized that though he didn’t normally look like a budgie, doing that made him look remarkably like Tom. “Um, his niece, I suppose... Her mother’s married to his brother. His half-brother, he’s miles older than Sol.”

    “I’m acquainted—for my sins,” he sighed, “with the Abe Winkelmann ménage.”

    “Well, there you are,” said Jemima limply.

    “Mm. Dare one ask when the beachhead is scheduled for?”

    “Sometimes you get so obscure as to be not only unintelligible but quite annoying, really, Ralph!” replied Jemima crossly.

    “Thank you, dear soul,” he sighed.

    “She doesn’t know anything about war or that; we were talking about Monte Cassino last week and she’d never even heard of it!” put in a hoarse, eager young voice.

    Ralph endeavoured to look down his nose but found it impossible, as the object in question was taller than he. So he raised his eyebrows instead and said to the tall, skinny boy who on closer inspection was probably Tom and Jemima’s neighbour who had once scared off the kids plastering his car with muck: “Fancy. Well, would you care to translate for her?”

    “He means, when’s he coming?” said Roger simply to Jemima.

    “Oh. I don’t know.”

    “Word of the precise date of the Aotearoa Landing has not yet reached our District H.Q.,” Roger said instantly to Ralph.

    Reddening in annoyance, Ralph replied sourly: “Thank you, that’s very clear. You may now go and do whatever it was you were going to do.”

    “I was gonna talk to Jemima,” said Roger in mild surprise.

    “Good, we could go and sit down over there,” said Jemima quickly, indicating two small chairs set in the lee of a large potted plant.

    Flushing a little, Ralph drawled: “I suppose I had better take the hint.”

    Nobody showed any signs of detaining him so, just managing to conceal his annoyance, he wandered away.

    “There he goes again,” remarked Barbara Michaels.

    Col Michaels replied in a bored tone: “There who goes where?”

    “Mark, of course. He’s got his claws into Vicki. What a pity.”

    “Oh, I dunno. Sooner him than Mel Gibson, the apprentice-chef.”

    “God, you’re a snob, Col Michaels!”

    Col shrugged. “True, oh, King. Mind you, I’d say she was behind the door when brains were handed out in that family.”

    Glaring, Barbara retorted: “So what? She’s very nice!”

    “Very vivacious, you mean. Very vivacious Vicki.”

    Barbara eyed him suspiciously. Eventually she produced: “Why are you talking to me?”

    “Kindness to poor dumb animals? A sudden access of altruism? Brain overheated by too many shrimp puffs? Onset of D.T.’s?”

    “Ginny’s dumped you!” discovered Barbara.

    “Brilliant,” her brother replied sourly.

    “Who’s she with, then?” she said, looking round eagerly.

    “Does she have to be ‘with’ anyone? Or can’t you think along any lines other than those laid down by your brainwashed teen peer-gr— Oh, hullo, Mum.”

    Angie Michaels gave him a piercing look but didn’t address him. “Isn’t it about time you got out of those damp togs, Barbara?”

    “Aw-wuh, Mu-um!”

    “All the other ladies are draped in their Hawaiian lounging patio gear again,” drawled Col, getting his second wind.

    “Can patios lounge?” asked Barbara with interest.

    Angie swallowed. “Go on, you can’t stand around in those all night.”

    “It’s not cold! Heck, I bet it’s at least twenty-five degrees!”

    “‘Twenny-foiy-yoive dug-grays’,” noted Col nastily.

    Reddening angrily, Barbara stamped off.

    “Your diction’s not so hot, for that matter,” Angie noted mildly.

    “No, and it’s not that bloody, either: why on earth didn’t you send her to a decent school, Mum?”

    Angie was a fair-skinned woman. At this she reddened to the roots of her blonde curls. “Possibly because we learned an awful lesson from what happened to you when you won that blasted scholarship, Colin!”

    “Ooh, she’s cross now, she called me ‘Colin’.”

    “What in God’s name’s the matter with you?” replied his mother.

    “Nothing,” said Col, scowling and poking with his toe at the cream stone of the Carrano patio.

    “That was a pretty little girl you were talking to earlier,” noted his mother brightly.

    Flushing, her unfortunate offspring replied: “And?”

    Not reacting, Angie demanded: “Where’s your father?”

    “Dunno. Haven’t seen him for ages.”

    Angie frowned. “He went off with that man that’s a headmaster or something.”

    Bill Michaels was the Dean of Engineering at the university, so Col replied brightly: “Oh, well! They’ll be sitting quietly discussing the restructuring of the education system, Mum!”

    Angie bit her lip.

    Col relented. “If you really want him, I’d try Jake’s cellar. Or the main bar: a few of them might have retired to it. I saw that Scotch bloke heading that way. You know, the one with the red hair.”

    “Oh, yes: Polly’s cousin Hamish! Doesn’t he look incredibly like those pretty little twins?”

    “Very artless, Mother,” said Col acidly, walking away from her.

    Angie sighed. How two persons as basically easy-going as her and Bill had managed to produce Col…

    “Is this developing into a kiddies’ party, after all?” sighed David Shapiro.

    “Don’t ask me, I’m only the hostess,” replied Polly. “I think Vicki put that record on. It isn’t too bad.”

    Very old Beatles LPs were not David’s cup of tea. Not to say generation. He sniffed slightly, but took her hand, and they strolled out to the terrace.

    “I think it looks pretty,” said Polly on a defiant note as they skirted the lighted pool.

    The swimmers and shriekers had gone, leaving the long oblong pool to a collection of floating leis. The wide marble terrace which was used for sunbathing was illuminated only by the glow from the pool and a few strings of coloured lights.

    “Sweetly pretty,” David agreed drily.

    “You’re as bad as Jake!” said Polly on an annoyed note.

    “Have you two had a row?”

    “No, but where is he?” she demanded. “He’s completely disappeared, and he is supposed to be the host!”

    “I could go and hunt for him. At great personal sacrifice,” murmured David, not releasing her hand.

    “No, don’t: you’d disappear and never be heard from again, either.” She grimaced. “It must be something in the air.”

    “Or the milk; mm.” He took her in his arms. Polly sighed and laid her head against his shoulder. They swayed very softly, more or less in time to what David perceived as the rhythm of Norwegian Wood.

    “I love this tune,” she murmured.

    David was feeling so pleased with himself, not to say things in general, that he actually refrained from saying “Why?”

    Hugh had encountered a very sweet little black-haired thing, in her mid-twenties at most, who had turned out to be a cousin of Polly Carrano’s (she apparently had thousands of ’em) and, rather disappointingly, “not quite” married, but apparently with a small baby. As the baby wasn’t in evidence and nor was the not-actually husband he asked her to dance.

    Mirry Field blushed, and hesitated.

    “Not if this would compromise your position vis-à-vis the not-quite-husband, of course,” Hugh added, twinkling at her.

    At this Mirry went an even brighter red and replied in evident annoyance: “I don’t know where Hamish has got to! I bet he’s in a corner with Jake somewhere, drinking whisky!”

    “Foolish fellow. When he might be out here, dancing with you.”

    Dimpling suddenly, she admitted: “Yes! Well, that’s what I think!”

    “Come and dance with me, then. A poor substitute, admittedly.”

    Mirry didn’t think the man who had come with Michaela was a poor substitute, actually. Giggling, she peeped up at him and said: “I don’t think you are!”

    Smirking, Hugh led her over to the terrace. He didn’t have a clue what the tune was. “Can you do this?”

    “What is it?”

    “I haven’t the faintest.”

    Mirry giggled. “Good, I can definitely do that!”

    Smirking, Hugh put his hands on each side of her waist. She had a tiny waist: it was like dancing with a pretty little doll. A very pretty little warm doll who didn’t mind letting you know that she thought you were an attractive fellow worth dancing with.

    Hugh and Mirry both began to enjoy themselves thoroughly for the first time this evening.

    Audrey Overdale sighed. “Hugh is married, you know,” she murmured.

    Angie Michaels wasn’t surprized. She tried to look surprized, but not very hard, she was awfully bored. And—where—the Hell—was Bill?

    “Oh, dear,” said nice Margaret Prior, looking terribly sympathetic.

    “Yes. Well, of course, Caroline’s an old friend of mine,”—Audrey had a conventional mind: she and Ralph had known Caroline and Hugh ever since they themselves were first married, so Caroline had to be an old friend; actually, they had almost nothing in common and didn’t even care for each other—“but I have to admit that the marriage isn’t exactly... Well, you know. I think they both go their own ways.”

    “It’s sad,” sighed Margaret. “So many couples, these days…”

    Angie and Bill Michaels were very old friends of Polly Carrano’s and Polly had told Angie everything she knew about the ghastly arm-squeezing, bum-pinching Derek Prior. Marital fidelity was definitely not his thing. So Angie had forcibly to restrain herself from choking. Before she actually reached snapping point, however, she spotted Meg O’Connell looking a bit lost with a plate in her hand, so she excused herself with tremendous relief and hurried off to talk to her.

    … “Worse?” she croaked. “Than creepy Derek Prior?”

    “Heck, yes,” said Meg. “Well, according to Tom. And he ought to know: he is his brother.”

    The goggling Angie replied ecstatically: “Is Audrey Overdale a total hypocrite, then, or merely purblind?”

    Meg ate a hot bacon and prune thingy. You could say this for Polly’s parties, they might be dead boring but at least there were always relays of food. And drink. She took a hefty swallow of chilled rum punch. This one was a different one from the one she’d had before, it had less pineapple juice in it and more something fizzy. It was good, though. “Purblind.” Kindly she offered the plate.

    Angie took a small bacon and prune thing. “’Ve you sheen your Bill lately?” she asked indistinctly.

    “No. I think he was talking to your Bill, but that was ages ago.” Meg sipped punch. “Well, no loss.”

    “It’s all very well for you, but we’ve got to get all the way home to Narrowneck tonight!”

    Meg made a face. “I’d say come back with us, but I haven’t figured out how on earth we’re getting home, either.”

    Angie sighed heavily.

    “Come and get a drink,” said Meg, finishing hers.

    “I might just as well!”

    They went over to the laden bar trolley that stood on the near side of the pool and refurbished their glasses.

    Angie picked up a bottle. “What’s this like?”

    “Wonn-der-ful!” said Meg fervently.

    Angie poured a huge measure of Appleton’s Special into the remains of her punch. “Gosh, it is!”

    Laura came up beside them. She grabbed the bottle and filled a glass, not bothering to add punch or anything frivolous of that nature. She swigged. Her eyes went very round. “Mmm!” she said enthusiastically.

    “You’re Laura, aren’t you?” said Meg, after some thought.

    “Yeah. You’re Tom and Jemima’s neighbour, is that right?”

    “Yes.” Meg took a draught of punch, mainly in order to get it out of the way so as she could refill the glass with the Appleton’s rum that she’d somehow overlooked on her earlier foray. “Meg,” she added as an afterthought.

    “Yes; you work for Phoebe, don’t you?”

    Meg made an affirmative noise through a small smoked salmon savoury.

    Laura sipped Appleton’s. “Mmm... Did you notice that big blonde woman that looks a bit like Phoebe? She was smoking a cigar, I think that’s what reminded me of Phoebe.”

    Meg would have identified her immediately only her mouth had been full. Having swallowed, she said: “Veronica Riabouchinsky. I’ve always thought she was like Phoebe, too: it isn’t just the cigars.”

    “Would she let me paint her, do you think?”

    “No,” replied Meg definitely.

    “Bugger,” said Laura, pouting. “I’ve been thinking of a Three Graces thing: her, and Phoebe, and Michaela, all starkers.”

    “Shit,” said Meg in awe.

    “Either that or all starkers and wrestling,” said Laura sadly.

    “Kinky,” said Meg simply.

    Angie fell about laughing.

    After that the three ladies, it being now glaringly apparent they were kindred spirits, liberated the bottle of Appleton’s and two whole trays of savouries, and departed with them to a large cane sofa set comfortably in the lee of a leafy palm. Far enough from the French windows of the family-room for the music to be bearable but not so far from the poolside terrace that they couldn’t see exactly what was going on over there. Not to say, who was still there and who wasn’t—almost as interesting.

    David Shapiro certainly wasn’t still there: he’d given the party away and come inside in search of something to read. “Goodness!” he said with a little laugh. “Are you hiding from the party, my dear?”

    The twin with the very long hair looked up from where she was sitting cross-legged on the Persian rug in Jake’s library, and said vaguely: “No, I came in here and forgot about the time... I never knew they had all these books.”

    “Mm. He keeps his first editions in here. Not that he can read,” he added drily.

    “Shouldn’t I be in here?” she asked anxiously.

    “No, if he wanted to keep you out he’d have locked the door. With a time-lock. Like that dratted Rococo dining-room: has he shown it to you yet?”

    “I don’t think so... Rococo’s all curlicues, isn’t it?”

    “Yes,” replied David, greatly pleased. He came and sat near her in a brown leather buttoned Victorian armchair. “Ormolu curlicues.”

    Ginny gave a little crow of laughter. The old man twinkled at her. “No,” she said, smiling up at him: “I haven’t seen that; we’ve seen the big green dining-room, though—with the Spode.”

    “Mm, that’s the main dining-room. Could seat a regiment.”

    “The table is huge,” agreed Ginny.

    “Yes, I think it is a regimental dining table.”

    “It would have to be an Australian regiment: Jake said it’s Australian jarrah.”

    “Exactly!”

    They smiled pleasedly at each other. David then felt the ice was sufficiently broken to permit him awful solecism he was bursting to utter. “What’s the book?”

    “Horace. It’s a lovely edition.” She stroked the calf cover. “Victorian, I think. Well, it isn’t a good edition textually, I suppose.”

    David held out his long, thin hand. Ginny’s little neat one with its lilac fingernails put the book politely into it. Oh, dear, these children! the old man thought. He opened the volume, and swallowed. “You read Latin? Are you doing it at university?”

    “Yes. Second-Year, I hope. I did First-Year extramurally. I don’t know if they’re going to let me credit it, though: the lady was a bit doubtful when I pre-enrolled. She said I’d have to talk to the professor when I enrol properly.”

    “I thought these things were all cut and dried?

    “Not many people do Latin, these days,” replied Ginny simply.

    “No; I believe it’s not even a prerequisite for law, any more,” the old man said sourly. “Or not more than a few—not units, that’s what they used to call a year’s course. What do they call ’em? Subjects?”

    “Credits?”

    Wincing, David said: “Probably. My older granddaughter’s doing an LL.B., and she only did a few of those. Whether because she hadn’t done much Latin at school or because she had, she was never able clearly to explain to me.”

    A smile quivered on Ginny’s lips.

    “Go on, say it,” he prompted.

    “I don’t want to be rude,” she murmured.

    He gave an impatient sigh. “Be rude, for God’s sake: politeness bores me solid.”

    “Me, too. Only rudeness isn’t everything, either.”

    “No, rudeness plus stupidity is an even more boring combination than politeness and stupidity, I have to admit.”

    “Mm!” she squeaked.

    “Go on, what were you going to say?”

    “Only that if she couldn’t make that clear, I hope she isn’t going to be a barrister.”

    David’s thin shoulders shook. “No, at the moment she seems to have her sights set on company law: behind-the-scenes stuff.”

    “A solicitor.”

    “They qualify as both out here,” he murmured.

    “Not like in England?”

    At her age David’s own experience had been gained largely from the pages of books, too. Mostly English books, naturally. So he replied without surprize: “Not like in England, no.”

    “I see… Mum says I’m mad, doing Classics,” she confided. “She says you can’t do anything with them.”

    “Except read them,” he drawled.

    Ginny looked up at him, smiling. “Yes! Only she wouldn’t understand that!”

    “You’re taking Greek as well as Latin, are you?”

    “Mm. I’ve only done a bit of prelim, we didn’t have it at school. It’s awfully hard.”

    “I can’t help you there, I’m afraid. Now, if it was Japanese—!”

    “It is,” said Ginny, looking rather stunned. “If I can fit it in. We did a bit at school, only it was all audio-lingual.”—David winced.—“It is an ugly expression, isn’t it?” she said with detached interest.

    David Shapiro was conscious of a fleeting wish that he was fifty years younger. There was some undeserving lout out there that all this was going to be thrown away on, no doubt... “Yes. Well, how far have you got with it?” He repeated this in Japanese.

    “Not very far,” said Ginny, making a face. “I didn’t get that. I’m gonna have to do Prelim, I don’t think I’d cope with First-Year.”

    “I’d be very happy to give you some extra coaching, if you like.”

    “Thanks,” said Ginny gruffly. “Won’t it be a nuisance, though?”

    “No; I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. Polly can vouch for my respectability!” he added with a laugh.

    “Mm. Only I can tell you are.”

    “Yes,” said David with a tiny sigh. He began to ask her about her other subjects...

Next part of Chapter 13:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/double-trouble-part-2.html