Christmas Cheer

Episode 13: Christmas Cheer

    “That’ll be the phone,” notes Greg, head in his computer.

    “Huh? Oh. Probably Imelda wanting to wag the last couple of weeks of school before Christmas down here; ya wanna take it?”

    No, funnily enough. So I go over to John’s big roll-top desk and pick it up.

    “Lily Rose, darling! Compliments of the season!” Fruitiest of Pommy male voices, never heard it before in my— Oh. Oh, God. Derry Dawlish.

    “Hullo, Derry,” I groan.

    The Grate Director blahs on for ages, saying absolutely nothing. Well, did I wanna know he’s in London doing his Christmas shopping and grabbing the chance to see Brian? No. Or that he’ll be spending the actual Christmas in the villa in the South of France? No. Though I would quite like to know whether the wife’ll be there. Just to satisfy my vulgar curiosity—right. And I certainly didn’t wanna know that he’s throwing a casual thing—go on, shoot me, I’m merely the messenger—at some glitzy club and of course John and me are invited!

    “John’s in the Persian Gulf, you nong.”

    He loves it, he loves people that stand up to him (especially busty people of the opposite sex—right). Though not on the actual set, no, according to reliable report. A little bird told him that all the poor sailors are being allowed to come home for Christmas, darling! What bullshit! What little bird? Though he does know the most unlikely people, I’ll admit that. I’m not gonna ask, though: it’ll be more crap.

    And he had a look at Brian’s new little girl—Uh? Brian isn’t that sort. Blah, blah—Oh, good grief, he means Katie! And adorable though she is, she hasn’t got what it takes to carry a whole film— Blah, blah.

    “No. I’m not gonna desert my hubby that I haven’t seen for two months to head off to film fake Fifties crap in steaming Queensland or whatever unlikely setting you’ve got in mind, thanks, Derry!”

    “Darling, it won’t be for months, yet! And what’s the odds he’ll be at sea again?”

    Gee, thank you very much for that kind thought, Grate Director.

    “No!” I snap, about to hang up.

    “Darling, you and Euan! It can’t fail! Such chemistry!”

    What? I’ll kill the wanker! “BULLSHIT, DERRY!”

    Brian’s shown him the rushes of that lovely scene of me and Euan in the ballroom—those blues and greens against the gold and glass were delishimo (all his), might make use of that—and blah, blah.

    “Right, and there’s another lovely scene of me and Adam McIntyre in the ballroom, too, Derry, ya wanna make something of that?”

    Silly laugh and he admits that of course Adam’s got It, but that scene isn’t a patch on—

    “No.”

    “Using the Sydney studios, Lily Rose, darling! You’d be able to spend time with—”

    “NO! And don’t call me Lily Rose!” Crash!

    “Who was that?” asks Greg as I stomp back over to my desk.

    “Flaming Derry Dawlish—and that’ll be him again, and I’m not answering it!”

    Resignedly he gets up and goes to answer it. Gee, it is him again, fancy that. Wants to know who Greg is, what flaming cheek!

    “Hang up on the bugger, Greg!” I shout.

    He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. “He heard that.”

    “Good! Hang UP!”

    “Um, sorry, she doesn’t want to talk to you,” he says lamely to the phone, hanging up at last.

    Ring, ring!

    “Answer it, Greg, I’m sure it won’t be D.D.”

    “Hah, hah.”  He sits it out while I watch him sardonically. Greg’s the sort of person that can’t not answer a ringing phone. Like ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine repeating percent of humanity, yep. Me? I only can’t not answer it if it might be John.

    Ring, ring, ring!

    He knows I’m watching him out of the corner of my eye so he sits it out again, fidgeting like mad.

    Ring— “I’m answering it!” he snarls, leaping up.

    Gee, it’s Derry Dawlish.

    “Right, give it here.” I march over and shout into the receiver: “Fuck OFF, Derry!” SLAM!

    Funnily enough it doesn’t ring again for a whole half hour.

    “If you don’t answer it, it’ll be your Aunty Kate ringing from town.” –She’s gone up to do some Christmas shopping, and long may it last.

    “Balls, Greg.”

    Ring, ring, ring!

    “It could be anything,” he says uneasily.

    “Bulldust, Greg.”

    Ring, ring, ring!

    “I’m answering it!” He answers it. Gee, it’s Derry Dawlish’s secretary.

    “Um, she wants to know—”

    “No.”

    “But she wants to—”

    “NO! Tell her if she or anyone from the vast empire of Double Dee Productions rings again, we’ll pull the thing out of the wall.”

    “But—”

    I get up, march over to the wall and pull the thing out. “Assimilate this, Greg.”

    “But what if someone needs to get in touch with us?” he wails.

    “They can send us an email. Alternatively, you can keep leaping up to answer the thing.”

    “But it could be Mum or Dad. It could be urgent,” he says sulkily.

    “Right, or it could be the Admiralty ringing to say Dauntless has been sunk with all hands. But I’m offering five thousand to one it’ll be Derry or one of his slaves.”

    “I said you should have bought that answering machine program!” he says crossly.

    He’s right, so he did. “We don’t need it, John’s got a machine. Plug it in, if ya that keen.”

    He points out that then we won’t be able to get online but funnily enough I've stopped listening. So he farts about and eventually does plug the machine in, possibly he’s got it working right but who cares? Because it’s gonna be recording five hundred messages from D.D. and nothing else, isn’t it?

    Later. Fifteen messages were recorded. Ten of them recorded nothing, two of them recorded D.D.’s unfortunate secretary, two of them recorded the actual D.D. being oily and one of them recorded Brian sounding fed up about D.D. bending his ear.

    “See?”

    He’s scowling so my guess is he sees.

    “Grate Fillum Directors are like that. Can’t believe any human being still breathing could say No to them. I’ll just feed Baby Bunting,” I say as a wail is heard from upstairs. “Start thinking about what ya might fancy for dinner.”

    Pizza was the answer but there’s none left, oops. Damn, he could just fancy pizza and a salad. (Really? In that case it’s just as well there’s no pizza, because there’s nothing to make a salad of, either, unless he imagines he can find something in the garden that that last frost didn’t kill off besides those wanking cabbages of Jack’s. Don’t say any of it, I do wanna get some work out of him for the next two weeks.)

    He thinks he might nip in to Portsmouth. (Being as how we’re hanging on to that car Aunty Kate hired quite some time back. Well, John’s never said to take it back and she reckons it comes in very handy. And of course she didn’t drive up to London, there’s nowhere to park at the flat. She got Graham Howell to drive her in to the station at Portsmouth, and took the train.)

    “Righto. See ya.”

    “Don’t you want to come?”

    Uh—does he want me, or not? He’s suggesting we could put Baby Bunting in the carrycot, he’ll be sure to nod off. This is true, but does it mean he does want my company or— On the other hand, do I want his company?

    “Nah, can’t be blowed. See ya.”

    “In that case I might go to the cinema.”

    “Yeah, good. See ya.”

    He goes. Thank God. I totter upstairs. Baby Bunting’s snoring like a little piglet. Boy, it’s warm and peaceful in here, I might just lie down with the duvet over…

    Uh—shit. Whassa time? Cripes. Oh—crikey! That’s poor old Tim outside: he must be thinking—

    I shoot down and let him in. “Yes, poor old boy! Poor old Tim!”

    Lick, lick, pant, pant, lick, lick, lick!

    “Didja think I’d forgotten all about you? Nah, ’course I hadn’t, ’course I hadn't!”

    We retreat to the kitchen and open Battersea Power Station—did I mention we’ve transferred it to the cottage? Swapped it with John’s little fridge, ya see. Tim’s almost knocking me over, poor fella.

    “No, it was never like this in Master’s day, was it? Poor old boy!” I watch him as he gollops it dow— Oh, shit, did we leave that fucking machine on or not? Because in the unlikely event that John did manage to get a call through to me—

    Oh. Oh, bugger! He’s glad I remembered to put the machine on, hopes I’m having fun, no message really, darling, just hugs and kisses for me and Baby Bunting. Bugger, bugger, bugger!

    “Yes,” I say as Tim comes up and presses very hard against my leg: “that was Master, all right, and I missed him. Just shows what the strain of being rung up all arvo by fucking Derry Dawlish can do, eh?"

    Pant, pant, wag, wag, wag! I think that’s Dog for sympathy. Love and sympathy. And I sure could do with some.

    Gee, this morning’s more of the same like yesterday. Two messages from Brian, very fed up, for God’s sake can’t I take Derry’s calls and get him off his back, three apologetic ones from Karen, Brian’s secretary, Brian’s really fed up—Gee, is he, Karen? Fancy that—five messages from D.D.’s secretary, getting more and more desperate under the smooth, three from Sheila Bryant Casting and one from the actual Sheila, sounding fed up but not neglecting to say it wasn’t her that gave Derry Dawlish our number, seven tingling silences just long enough to wonder whether it’s a heavy breather before they hang up, one message from Aunty Kate to say did we realise our phone’s been engaged all morning, and two from Euan on the subject of Guess What?

    Even Greg’s starting to get the point, he notes that I could tell him where to get off, for a start—well, he never did like him much, ’member?

    I’m pretty fed up myself by now, funnily enough, especially since Greg can’t bear to sit there and let the machine take the calls, he’s been bouncing up to check it. (It hasn’t got one of those speaker-phone things that the ones in the American movies all do—and actually I’ve never seen one that has. You know: that annoyingly broadcast the call that you put the machine on to take because you don’t want to hear whatever wanking crap it might be? Yeah.) It’s just got a little red light that comes on if there’s a message.

    So I ring Euan. Oh, God, he’s in a mournful mood. The weather in town’s bloody. (Fancy that. It’s not that tropical down here, either.) Adam and Georgy and their little kids are taking off for New Zealand to see their relatives and he wishes to God he’d accepted their invitation to go with them. (Not gonna ask whether he turned them down in order to cut off his nose to spite his face, whether the terrorist attacks in September have put him off the whole idea of flying, or whether he tactfully thought their rellies might not want a completely unknown Thespian acquaintance foisted on them for the Chrissie holidays. Because Option (a) would be just like him; as he’s never appeared to even notice the September attacks Option (b), which to a reasonable human being would be an option, is almost definitely out; and if he did think of Option (c) I don’t wanna listen to him boasting of the fact while at the same time managing to feel sorrier than ever for himself. Geddit? Oh, back then. Sorry, sorry.) He almost wishes he was in a Christmas show.—Huh? Don’t most out-of-work actors? Don’t ask, don’t ask.—And Derry definitely won’t make a film of the Daughter without me.

    Gee, Euan, do I care? “He’s blackmailing you into putting the hard word on me, Euan, can’t you see that?”

    “I suppose I can, yes.”

    I’m so fed up with the wanker that I say: “When are you coming down to Quince Tree Cottage again?” Though having sworn to myself of weeks on end that I wouldn't.

    “E-er… Have you named it that, wee Rosie?’ he says in a wan voice that manages to convey the fact that he’s trying to smile nicely. How much of this is the real Euan Keel, whatever that is, and how much is act-ting, you may well ask.

    “No: actually Ma Granville Thinnes seems to have named it that. In absentia—is it?”

    “Very likely,” he says sourly.

    Oops. “Um, no: sorry. Ex officio,” I say hurriedly.

    There’s a short silence.  “How much of that was genuine?” he asks sourly.

    “How much of yours was, Euan?”

    This time there’s a longer silence. Then he says: “Not much, I suppose.”

    “No. Well, do you want— No, put it like this: (a) Do you want to make a film of the Daughter with bloody D.D., and (b) Do you need to, Euan?”

    A much longer silence. Then he says grimly: “Both (a) and (b), actually. If you must have it, the exchequer’s damned low.”

    “You bloody clot! Why did you buy the wanking thing?” I shout.

    “Uh—the cottage?” he says weakly.

    Ulp. “Um, no: actually I meant the flaming Porsche.”

    “That was ages—” He breaks off. Then he says lamely: “No, well, you’ve got a point. I suppose I bought it for the reasons most people buy them. To broadcast my socio-economic status? To reassure myself I still had it? To show the rest of the world I still had it? To attract bird? –All of the above,” he concludes sourly.

    “Could ya sell it?”

    I can hear him swallow. “You’re so to-the-point,” he says limply, think he is still genuine, actually. “Um, well, yes. Though I won’t get back what I paid for it.”

    “It might help pay off the loan, though. Not to mention the mortgage on the flat.”

    “Aye. But— I suppose I could go back to my Morris Minor.”

    “Yeah. And I know you hate driving it on the M1 but let’s face it, is a Porsche any sturdier? It’s much flatter. I’d hate to be in it at the mercy of huge lorries.”

    “Mm. Well, I could always get the train up to Edinburgh to see Dad.”

    “Yes, of course. And if you do get a decent part in a film they’ll send a limo for you, won’t they? And everybody takes taxis in London, you won’t miss it.”

    “No, I’ll only miss the status and the reassurance. Och, well, dammit, I’ll sell the bluidy thing!” he says loudly, sounding very Scorch.

    “Good,” I say. Then I just wait.

    “E-er… has Katie been down at the cottage lately?” he asks cautiously.

    “Not for the past week, but for a fair bit before that. Jack’s put in a lot of work on it.”

    “It needed it,” he says dully.

    See? I knew he expected it to metamorphose itself magically into something hugely desirable and liveable-in! “Yeah. But it’s looking a lot better. Why don’t you come down and check it out? Unless you’ve decided to let her have it: sort of relationship settlement?”

    This rouses the mean Scot in him, thought it would, and he says indignantly: “What? No such thing! Most of the equity in it’s mine!”

    “Yours or the bank’s?”

    “You’ve got a point. But she can’t afford to buy me out,” he says sourly.

    No, though on the other hand she isn’t chucking away megabucks on giant shiny bachelor pads overlooking the river and stupid sardine tins of foreign cars that she doesn’t need. I manage not to mention this but I don’t manage not to say: “No, but if D.D. casts her as the Daughter, she will be able to.”

    “He won’t do that,” he says with a sigh. “I thought he’d made that clear?”

    “He blahed on about her not being able to carry the film, yeah, but on the other hand he didn’t manage to convince me that I would,” I note drily.

    Blast! That was the wrong tack, because he gets all keen and eager and tries to convince me that I can! The gist of it being, though wrapped in much, much cleaner linen, that if the GBP went for my tits, bum and general S.A. on the box the world viewing public will react the same way to some glitzy mega-production that by the sound of it is slated to out-moulin Moulin Rouge and then some. (No, folks, I never went to it. And for why? Because the saturation advertising was fair warning: I loathe historical shows that aren’t genuine. In fact they literally make me wanna spew. And that show didn’t even make a slight gesture at being genuine anything. Well, genuine punter-trap glitz—yeah. And I happen to be a great fan of Nana, if you’ve never heard of it just doze off again, and that skinny Aussie kid was just laughable as any sort of Montmartre anything. All right, I’ve got off the hobby horse, you can wake up again.)

    “No, well, I might ask John what he thinks, but do me a favour and don’t pass that on to D.D., ta.”

    Of course he won’t! –Not much. All right, let him, at least it might get the Grate Director off my back for a bit.

    And what are my plans for Christmas? –He’s much brighter, fancy that. Like, to the extent of asking another human being about itself instead of blahing on about himself—yeah.

    Funnily enough I haven’t got any plans, because guess what? MY HUSBAND’S IN THE FUCKING PERSIAN GULF!!

    By a superhuman effort I manage not to mention this small point but something musta gone sizzling down the line because he then says lamely: “I suppose that was a damn stupid question, in the circumstances. I’m sorry, Rosie. When is John due back?”

    “Dunno, I’ve only heard rumours, nothing solid.”

    He blahs on about Tony Blair on the idiot-box last night that I didn’t watch because I was out like a light but I’m not listening, is the man gonna broadcast to the world what his plans are with regard to the Fleet? At this point in Earth history? No, no and no.

    “Yeah, maybe. Well, we can’t decide whether or not to come up to town.”

    “Where were you last Christmas?” he asks foggily.

     Deep breath. “Washington.”

    I can hear him swallow. “Of course. Sorry, I’d forgotten. It’s been a long year,” he says lamely.

    Something like that. What with getting pregnant and getting married and hurried honeymoons on the other side of the world and having a baby on top of the terrorist attacks in the States and— Yeah.

    “What, Euan? –Sorry. Oh. Um, yeah, why not come down to the cottage?” Thinks: Katie might be there and pigs might fly and the two of you might get it together again, best-case scenario, or, second-best, she might be there and the two of ya might agree to call it a day and at least that’d be something definite— “Eh? Uh—this weekend? Dunno. Well, Greg’s here, but Aunty Kate’s in London.”

    “I promised Dad I’d nip up to town and give him a hand this weekend, it’s the busy season!” Greg says loudly at this point.

    “Yeah, so ya did—sorry: forgot. –What, Euan? Not you: Greg. He’s gotta help his Dad at The Tabla this weekend, but I’ll be here.” –Only don’t drop in on me, ta.

    He’ll definitely come down and perhaps, charming laugh, we could just talk about the possibility of the Daughter for Derry… Oh, God. I’ve told him I might see what John thinks, what else can I say at this point? That I’ll agree to the lot without consulting John? I’m not that dumb!

    “Is he coming down?” Greg asks cautiously as I hang up.

    “Yeah. Well, unless somebody offers him a big shiny part in something unlikely between now and Friday arvo—yeah.”

    It’s Wednesday. “Can but hope!” he says with a grin.

    “Yep.”

    “Um, will your Aunty Kate be back?”

    “Didn’t she say she was going to a show with Doris and Miss Hammersley? Some bloody panto, God knows why.”

    “Tourists always want to go to the panto at Christmas,” he explains kindly.

    “Yeah. Well, I think it was this Saturday.”

    Greg looks at me uneasily. “Yeah.”

    “Look, I’m not gonna let Euan talk me into anything without consulting John, how dumb do ya think I am?”

    Pretty dumb, only he doesn’t dare to stick his neck out and say it. “Um, I wasn’t thinking that, exactly…”

    “Gee, Greg, what were ya thinking?”

    “All right!” he says angrily. “If you must have it, that it’d be bloody like him to make a pass! He’s always fancied you, and with John safely overseas and your aunty in London, what’s the betting he won’t seize the chance?”

    Funnily enough I thought he was thinking that, yeah. “What makes you think (a) that I’ll encourage him to and (b) that I won’t be able to handle him if he does?”

    He hunches crossly over his computer. “All right, be like that. Only don’t say you haven’t been warned.”

    No, I won’t say that Greg. Also I won’t say that any male with an inch of backbone that was worried about a female friend being at the mercy of a predatory ex-boyfriend would ring up his dad and tell him he can’t make it up to the restaurant this weekend after all. Well, I do know a bit about the sort of family pressures that in spite of the surface assimilation, the Singh kids are all subject to. And also I do know a fair bit about the specific character of the specific Greg Singh, by now.

    After a very long time he says sulkily: “You know I can’t let Dad down.”

    “No ’course ya can’t,” I agree mildly. “I told you, I can handle Euan with both hands tied behind me.”

    “Yeah,” he says with a relieved smile. “Shall I get the lunch?”

    Gee, thought you’d never offer, Greg. “Yeah, thanks. Make anything ya fancy, I’m easy.”

    Later. The consequent rice pullao scattered with fried cashew nuts and tiny rings of fried onion and its accompanying pea and green bean curry (frozen, not out of the cabbage patch out back) have to be tasted to be believed but guess what? I was sort of expecting something of the sort.

    Saturday. Boy, they come round like death and taxes, don’t they? Greg went up to town yesterday. That woulda been the highlight of the day, yeah, except that a letter came from John, well, indirectly from John, think directly from Portsmouth. Didn’t say anything about what he’s up to, though mentioning that it was pretty hot, weather-wise. Dying to see the redecorations at the cottage. Hadn’t ya grasped that one? Nope, he’s never laid eyes on them, because he hadda take off without even making the time to cop a gander at the rose-patterned material I liked on that suite in town. Chintz according to Susan Corcoran, and the pattern selected for his ancestral Queen Anne stuff is very similar. We couldn’t match it exactly, read she couldn’t. There were six chairs, assorted sizes and styles, dunno if you remember that piece of trivia? And Susan decided that chairs Z and Y could stay here at the cottage, they’re like, sitting-on chairs (not her expression), chairs X, W, V and U (dining-table style) being dispatched to the flat where even I can see they swear, totally swear, at everything else there. And she doesn’t quite see that that sideboard, which is possibly late Art Deco, rather charming in its way (all hers), will go with them, but let’s see what John thinks, shall we? Yeah, let’s do that, Susan, before we rush off and spend great chunks of his hard-earned on an almost matching couple of extra dining chairs with arms from that antique shop ya fancy. Christ! (There is a technical term for those chairs with arms but ya know what? It never got past the up-market Pommy crap virus-scanner.) And—very kindly—it isn’t easy being a serving officer’s wife, is it? And if she had to count the actual number of days out of their married life that she and Nigel have spent together—! I could sympathise with that general sentiment, folks, in spades, only it was difficult to get genuine when the specific reference was to Corky Corcoran.

    Anyway, John’s looking forward to seeing the changes at the cottage. I’ll admit the curtains look real good, same cream material with the little rosebuds, no frills, only if he’s expecting to see a window-seat all installed he’ll be disappointed, because Jack’s been so busy with the garage and its flat and with Quince Tree Cottage that he hasn’t got round to it yet. Though he has started the hunt for suitable wood to match the old oak panelling… I don’t reckon that sort of oak falls off the back of a truck much in the twenty-first century, because he hasn’t returned to the topic for some time. Though if John doesn’t get back until next spring possibly there will be a window seat all ready to greet him—yeah.

    Lynne Carter came, Saturday isn't her usual day for the housekeeping but it’s her parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary next week, so everything’s a bit disorganised, her word, sounded super-organised to me, and I gave her a hand with changing the sheets and got all the goss’ from Cooper Street. Those funny little semi-detached cottages at Number 9 and Number 11 have been snapped up by a Developer. My jaw must’ve visibly dropped, those cottages are adorable, John reckons they were built in the Thirties at the period the roadhouse was built and the village momentarily took on a new lease of life. They’re brick with dear little wooden porches and wrought-iron work, the latter rusting and falling off and the former, according to the experts, full of dry rot, but they could look really nice. As Lynne hasn’t heard what the Developer’s planning to do with them we hadda have a sit-down and a cuppa.

    After which I felt strong enough to ask what’s happened to old Mrs Cooper (right, it’s very historical and Greg was planning a whole subsection on Cooper Street) and very, very old Mr Quick, from Number 9. (Number 11’s so dilapidated nobody was living in either of its two sides.). Oh, well, they never owned those places, didn’t I know? (No, but our computer’ll know.) No, they were just renting, they actually belonged to Bernie Potter (horrible face). This is Jim Potter’s brother and according to that side of the family the face’d be more than justified. Bernie Potter left the village yonks ago and has since amassed a considerable sum by nefarious means which Jim Potter will sourly reveal to all and sundry once he’s got a pint down him at the Workingmen’s Club. Old Mrs Cooper’s gone to a Home in Portsmouth, it’s really quite nice, and her family decided it was time. Apparently the old girl had no say in it—that’d be right, especially as, since she was only renting, she can’t have much to leave. And Mr Quick’s gone to stay with his great-niece, Josie Black down Bottom Street. Didn’t I know that they’re related? Oh, well—! Full goss’ on the Quick-Black-Sharpe-Monday connection. Just as well that my laptop bag was sitting casually in the kitchen slightly unzipped with my tape recorder inside in it just casually turned on, eh? No, well, Lynne’s an invaluable source of Bellingford data, but she doesn’t always have time for a chat, so I have to make the most of what opportunities arise, don’t I?

    Incidentally, Mrs Black’s got five kids under fifteen in the house—a typical Bottom Street cottage, bursting at the seams—but by tacit consent the point wasn’t raised. Well, the old joker’ll be company for her, because guess where Ken Black is at this moment in Earth history? Yeah. Gunner’s mate.

    Lynne’s just gone and I’m just wondering whether to have another cuppa and/or give Baby Bunting his lunch when guess what pulls up at the top of the drive just outside the new garage doors? Yep, a little old bluish-grey Morris Minor.

    “Wuff! Wuff, wuff, wuff!”

    “Shut up, Tim!” I bellow, going to the back door. “Stop it! SIT!”

    He sits, barring Euan’s way to the back door.

    I struggle into my gumboots. “It’s Euan, ya nana, you know him,” I say, going over to pat him.—Thinks: But don’t let that stop ya, ya could bite him, for mine, old mate.—“Hullo. Don’t tell me you’ve flogged the Porsche off already?” I say feebly as Euan gets out. He’s in a heavy navy anorak that I’ve never seen before that does bear a close resemblance to John’s heavy navy ditto, but they are very common, I admit that, open over, assimilate this, that heavy cream Aran sweater I once told him he looked good in. Well, gee, now I feel all pleased and really glad to see ya, Euan!

    “Hullo, Rosie! Yes, well, why not?” he says with a laugh. “I just happened to mention to Brian I was looking for a new home for it, and one of the fellows at Henny Penny—” Five’ll get ya ten it’ll be Gavin Kensington from PR, trading up from the Honda sports thing— It is.

    “I hope you got a good price for it, Gavin’s a real shrewdie.”

    “Is he?” he says with another laugh. “Well, I got a price that was very comparable with what they were going for in the papers!”

    Gee, he actually checked? “Oh, good.”

    He insists on having a look at the veggie garden, especially the bits that he dug over last summer, and admiring the flourishing cabbages. And what are these?

    “Dunno. Well, definitely Brassicaceae, I can see that much.”

    He blinks, think he’s forgotten over the past couple of years of Lily Rose garbage that I have got the smattering of an education. “Brussels sprouts?” he ventures.

    “Dare say. Ya better look at the garage and the flat just in case Jack turns up.”

    Laughing, he allows me to steer him in there. The verdict on the flat being, wistfully, that it’s really very cosy. Given that it hasn’t got any carpets or curtains yet, I wouldn’t say that. It smells of paint and the wiring hasn’t been done—well, Jack’s bits inside have, the outside bits haven’t been connected up yet. Euan admires the blue-lined bathroom so I don’t mention the falling-off-the-back-of-a-truck motif or Quince Tree Cottage’s bathroom’s blue-lined walls.

    Later. He insisted on fish fingers and chips for lunch, laughing like anything, so we had them. Well, I have been doing a lot of ballet exercises, and a bit of cautious tapping. Plus and apples to sop up the cholesterol. Cups of Instant, no way was I going to let him near John’s sacred coffee-pot; and for another thing his mean-Scot streak means he makes the weakest coffee in the world. Except for Aunty Allyson’s percolated muck, come to think of it.

    Baby Bunting was snoozing so we let him have his sleep out and then fed him, Euan insisting on helping to spoon in the minute helping of shlop he has these days. All right, Euan, if you say Baby Bunting oozing slime out of the side of his gob’s charming, so be it. Beg ya pardon, blowing bubbles in the slime, what a revolting infant I’ve got, how could anything that revolting be produced from Me? Then he gets somnolent so has to be put down in his cradle again. Euan insists on coming up with me but funnily enough doesn’t insist on changing the nappy. He admires the cradle—think this is tact, dunno if he was around at Henny Penny at the exact time the Great Cradle Saga was going on but in any case Rupy or possibly even Katie when they were on still on speaking terms will’ve told him.

    “Yeah, it’s quite a convenient height, it’s got these like, legs, see?”

    “Mm.”

    “I thought it’d sit on the floor like a Moses basket,” I explain.

    “Oh, yes, I know the sort of cradle you mean. This is more convenient,” he says, rocking it gently. It’s like, slung between its leg bits? Oh, forget it. It’s a real oak ancestral cradle and I won that round and that’s all that needs to be said.

    Going downstairs he asks kindly if I’ve seen much of the grandparents but the answer’s a lemon. Though I concede that Father Sir Admiral nips over fairly often, God knows what she imagines he’s doing.

    “Surely when it’s her own grandchild—?”

    “She probably wouldn’t object, actually, though she might find things that have to be done urgently at home. But the point is, has the old joker got the guts to tell her?”

    He thinks he might when it’s the family heir in question!

    Yeah? Well, he oughta take a look at John’s will. Him and the whole of the wanking Haworths, actually. –No! I never spied on him, he made me read it when he changed it when we got married. Also made me make a will. Also made me change it when Baby Bunting came along and changed his to include Baby Bunting’s specific name. (Once we’d decided on it—right.) Yes, in the middle of terrorist attacks and all-night sessions at the Admiralty; he is like that. I don’t tell Euan any of this, not a need-to-know.

    “God, I envy you and John, Rosie,” he says, sitting down on the big honourable ancestral leather sofa in front of the fire. “Even if he does have to be halfway round the world.”

    “Yeah? Taking into account his age, what proportion of our likely married life are we actually missing out on, do ya reckon?”

    Wan smile. “Aye, I know, but all the same…”

    “Yeah. Have a brandy? It’s his, it’s the good stuff.”

    “The Dinkum Oil, isn’t it?” he says with sideways smile.

    Yeah, yeah. I let him get up and get it, why not? He admires the new china cabinet so I very kindly explain that though Susan was ecstatic over it, Lady Mother wrote me a letter, yes, I kid you not, actually put pen to paper, explaining exactly why it isn’t good. Did she think I was gonna boast about it to my rellies or, uh, try selling it behind John’s back or, uh, even that I cared?

    “Susan?” he says, smiling nicely.

    “Oh, don’t think you ever met her. She was at the wedding. In a blue suit with a fancy hat, no, well, describes fifty or so of the Navy wives that came! Commander Corky Corcoran’s wife, Euan.”

    “Oh, his First Officer? Ugh, yes!” he says, pulling a horrible face. “So she’s not so bad, Rosie?”

    “Not as bad as Corky is, no. Well, that’s unfair, actually she’s quite nice. John thinks she’s a lonely person.” It’s my turn to pull a face.

    “This’d be in between the delightful little bridge parties and cocktail parties for the other officers’ families, would it?” he says, twinkling at me and doing the crinkling-up-the-eyes and the tangling-of-the-lashes bit, seen him do it on set a million times.

    Yes, well, he is quite bright, and as I might just have mentioned once or twice he is the sort that just has to be part of the group he happens to be with. So if I wanna blah on about the Corcorans, or the cottage’s furniture, he’s gonna join in, geddit? And it sure beats talking about his Angst or whatever you like to call it that made him bust up with Katie.

    So we sit together companionably on the honourable sofa with only a sight interruption at the point Tim decides he just has to rush out and dunno, think there was a seagull on his lawn or something, anyway he’s out, and im-per-cept-ib-ly the subject creeps round to making The Captain’s Daughter for Brian and what fun it’s been (my arse; fun slaving for that little Hitler Paul Mitchell?), and what fun it would to do a full-scale thing for Derry… Yes, folks, this is the same Euan Keel that went on about the sheer boredom of film work well within living memory, but then ya did know he was like that.

    And just coincidentally he happens to have Derry’s first version of the script (I did wonder why he was lugging that briefcase, more accurately I was trying not to wonder), and it really isn’t bad, Varley and Derry work quite well together: do I remember Derry’s Never Heard of It? That was Varley’s script. I don’t bother to say this is balls and Varley can’t write dialogue, because if D.D. wants the kudos of having “Written By Varley Knollys” slathered over his Captain’s Daughter The Movie Downunder credits, nothing in this universe’ll stop him, I do know that. Also I don’t care.

    So he explains the story-line to me, but I don’t listen, I’m wondering if Greg and me ate all those extra-nice gingery biscuits Aunty Kate made with the real little bits of crystallised ginger in them and fearing that the answer’s yes, he likes them as much as I do.

     “Well, if you reckon it’ll work, Euan.”

    “Oh, I think so!” he says eagerly. Then explaining how Rupy’s character’s gonna fit in, blah-blah, lay you sixty to one in fivers that the actual Rupert Maynarde won't be offered the rôle, it’ll be some cretin D.D. thinks has got more super-pseud appeal. Felickth Beaumont, in all probability. Um, wonder if I could make it a condition that I only do the Daughter if Rupy can do Commander?

    “Eh? Oh, yeah, much more verisimilitude.”

    “Mm! And he’s managed to work in quite a nice little rôle for the Stepdaughter.”

    “Right; now guarantee Katie’ll get it, Euan.”

    He can’t, of course, and what’s more he doesn’t want to and he’s gone very red.

    “What the Hell did go wrong between you two?” I demand in my blunt Australian way. Well, I’m pretty fed up, this is a Helluva waste of a Saturday arvo and, as ya might just have noticed, it’s nearly Christmas and MY HUBBY’S IN THE PERSIAN GULF!

    He bursts out with it. Boy, it’s boring. Also full of self-exculpation and self-justification, though I suppose any human being does that. No, well, just stating the facts isn't gonna explain what’s gone wrong, is it? According to him, she accused him of not taking any interest in the cottage and leaving all the hard work to her.

    “You were.”

    “I wasna! I chose the fridge, and the dishwasher! And if you really want to know,”—No—“I paid for all the appliances!”

    “That’s a relief.”—He glares.—“Well, at that stage had Brian even paid her anything?”

    “Yes!” he says angrily.

    All right, he had. “Yeah. Well, go on: she accused you of not taking an interest in the cottage and leaving all the hard yacker to her. So instead of admitting it and crawling to her and thanking her on ya bended knees for all the hard yacker, what did you accuse her of?”

    Sulky look. “Nothing! Och, well, I said she was nesting, if you call that—”

    “You hypocrite, Euan Keel!”

    “No! I only bought the damned place as a weekend retreat, for God’s sake!”

    “Not that. Though on second thoughts that, too: what’s a girl supposed to think when a bloke wants to buy a house with her? But what I meant was, you’ve been making nesting noises for yonks. Yonks.”—He’s opening his mouth to protest.—“Since well before you met her.”

    “I— Mebbe I was, so go on, keep blaming me for it!” he says angrily.

    “Look, I’m not gonna fight with you, you twit. I’m not blaming you, a person can’t help that sort of thing, it’s their hormones. You’re at the age where it’s only natural to want to settle down and have a family of your own. But if you don’t want to do it with Katie, it isn’t fair to buy a house with her.”

    “No!” he cries angrily. “It was all her idea! I only said I was thinking of buying something for a weekend retreat, and I liked the look of the cottage in Medlars Lane, and she offered to come into it with me!”

    I can just see that, actually. Got all fired up and just barged ahead with it, not stopping to think if she should. After a minute I say as much to him.

    “Aye, well, now do you see?”

    I can see that, for whatever reason, he was too weak to tell her he didn’t want to share the bloody thing with her, yeah. Either that or he did want to, and then got cold feet when the hard reality of it started to hit home. Yes, on the whole I think the latter scenario’s the likely one.

    “Goddit. You got cold feet once you’d actually bought it and it dawned that what the two of you were about to do, call it weekend retreat or not, was set up house together—that it?”

    He gnaws on his lip. “Aye, I suppose,” he says sulkily. “Something like that. Och, well, she’s too young for me, Rosie.”

    “In years, yes. And she is immature in many ways. But in other ways she’s a lot older than you’ll ever be.”

    “What is this, some sort of female myth thing?” he says angrily.

    “No; and I said, don’t bother to try to pick a fight with me. She’s quite practical and down-to-earth, investments in tumbledown stone dumps with unreliable Scotch actors to the contrary. It’s the sort of practical streak that you haven’t got. It’s nothing to do with what sex you are; John’s got it, too.”

    “Aye, I can see that! …No,” he admits reluctantly: “I do see what you mean about her being hard-headed, aye. And,” he adds defiantly, “she can be very hard, though she may not have shown that side of herself to you!”

    “I dare say she can be, yeah, especially when her feelings have been hurt. Look, she’d have assumed you were as keen on the cottage as her, and as aware of all the stuff that needed to be done to it, and as keen as her on getting it done, see?”

    “Yes;” he says sourly. “You have no idea how bloody boring an entire weekend of stripping old paintwork can be.”

    Ouch! Did she make him do that? Silly girl. “No, well, the building crap that’s been going on outside here’s been more than enough for me, but then I know I’m like that. You should just have said up-front it wasn’t you and you’d rather pay someone to do it.”

    “I did! No, well, I gave it ma best shot, but really— And I should have been reading a script that weekend.” He starts to tell me all about the eminent director that sent it to him but breaks off as it dawns that I’m not listening.

    “Yeah. If you can’t hack it with her, and she is a very strong-minded little character, I wouldn’t think there’d be that many blokes that could hack it, the kindest thing would be to break it right off now and get rid of the cottage, Euan.”

   His lip’s trembling, poor guy. “I don’t wuh-want to break it off, but now she won’t even take my phuh-phone calls!”

    Gee, fancy that.

    “Could you hack it, though? With the unadorned Katie?”

    “I don’t know. Um, try being honest with her?” he says with a wan smile. “Give up—e-er—pretending I agree about things, when I really don’t? –I do know it’s ma besetting sin,” he admits glumly.

    Cripes, do ya, Euan? That’s a start. “That’d help. Shit, don’t cry,” I say feebly as he starts to cry. Well, a large measure of it’s self-pity, yeah: got himself into something he can't get himself out of, kind of thing, but in its way it’s about the most genuine I’ve ever seen him.

    “Och, blast!” he mutters, scrubbing at his eyes. Somehow this softens me up, so I put my arm round his shoulders and say: “Don’t cry, Euan. We’ll think of something. I’ll talk to her, if you like.”

    “Thanks, Rosie,” he says soggily, leaning his head on my tits. “You’re a grand wee friend.”

    Am I? I haven’t spoken to her yet. But I hug him anyway.

    And at this the double glass doors to the front lobby swing open and the cheerful upper-clawss accents of Terence Haworth are heard saying: “Go in, Corky, Rosie won’t mind.” And in comes Commander Nigel David Corcoran in person, just in time to cop a gander at Euan with his face buried in my tits.

    “Oh!” he says in a very startled voice.

    Euan sits up groggily, rather flushed but not too bothered: no-one in the Business would think anything much of a scene like this: most actors let off steam every so often by bawling on their mates’ shoulders, irrespective of the sex of the mates.

    “Sorry to interrupt,” says Corky very stiffly indeed. He’s a pleasant-looking joker, neat brown curly hair just starting to go grey, one of those amiable English faces that are rather lopsided but quite attractive on a man, with a bumpy, rather nice nose and a lovely smile that believe you me belies him. He isn’t smiling at this moment, fancy that.

    “You’re not interrupting,” I say firmly, and as calmly as I can, given that I can see exactly what’s going through his nasty little mind. “Come on over by the fire, Nigel, you look chilled.” And chilly—yep. “I don't think you know Euan Keel? One of my actor friends: he was at our wedding, but I don’t know that you were introduced.”

    Euan by this time, self-centred though he is, has realised what Corky’s thinking, and unfortunately he’s now very flushed. He gets up and holds out his hand. “Afraid I was just presuming on Rosie’s good nature to tell her my feeble troubles. We were supposed to be looking at a script!”—Would-be easy smile. “Good to meet you, Nigel.”

    So Corky has to shake hands and to fill the silence asks what the script is, so guess what? Euan tells him, lapsing into the easy-chat tone. Boy, does that go over good; you can see the wheels going round, click, click, click: John’s never mentioned this, does he know and who will be the first to tell him, kind of thing.

    Terence then comes in, grinning like anything. He’s been having an argument with Graham Howell about how much he oughta be paid for having driven all the way into Portsmouth to fetch them and their luggage. Being Terence Haworth, he’s let Graham win, that is, lose on the deal. He’s John’s younger brother, ’member? Drives a sub—thought he was under the Indian Ocean in it, actually—forty-fourish. He’s got a set of keys to the cottage, but does that mean he has to use them? Silly wanker. That apart, he’s quite tall, taller than John, quite good-looking, rather smooth features, nothing like the strength of character that shows in John’s, grey eyes, bit like Lady Mother’s only not that icy, no human being’s could be, and silvering light brown hair in one of those very English cuts, very smooth without being over-short or slicked back— Well, if ya know what I mean ya know what I mean. Very straight teeth, even the bottom ones, while John’s bottom ones are rather crooked.

    And the sort of smile that says loud and clear he knows he’s God’s gift to womankind. Divorced from two highly unsuitable females. Number One was a model but Lady Mother could of overlooked that: she came from a very good family and was only doing the modelling until she found a hubby. So he set her up in this deliriously dinky modern flat in town (his sister Fiona didn’t describe it nearly so kindly) and then went back to sea and she got bored and started getting her pic in the papers with the modelling pals and fashion photographers, gay or otherwise, and jet-setters that were pals of the modelling pals, not gay, and that was pretty much that. It lasted eighteen months, all up. But Terence was very young at the time and Lady Mother thought he’d learnt his lesson. Dunno what she thought about the several years of playing the field that came next, Fiona’s never reported that.

    So then he met Number Two, “not from our walk of life”, I had that one from the horse’s mouth itself, and boy did it enjoy giving it to me or did it enjoy giving it to me? A lady quantity surveyor, he met her at a posh hotel where he was playing a bit of golf and she was at a quantity surveyors’ conference. Her career started going places after they’d been married five years and she’d refused to have kids, and reading between the lines she simply got bored with him—he knows a lot about subs and fast cars but not much else. So since then he’s only played the field.

    He’s blissfully unaware of anything in the air; and in any case he knows Corky loathes me, so any stiffness there won’t mean anything to him. Breezy apologies for foisting themselves on me without warning, but John was sure I wouldn’t mind and since Corky and some of his pals got let off the leash early on account of that stint they did in the old tub while John was at the Admiralty—grin, grin, he thinks he’s funny and doesn’t notice that Corky doesn’t—they ended up coming back to Blighty together! Dumps huge great pile of kit on the old oak floorboards. Tim comes in all frisky and, oh, no! Lies down with it…

    “Terence, tell me some of that kit’s John’s if you dare,” I groan.

    “Mm? Well, one of those bags— Oh, Good God, he’s not doing his guarding thing again!”

    Isn’t he? “’Member that time you were given wood-chopping duty, Terence,”—he salutes me, grinning like anything, the wanker—“and you had John’s old tweed jacket in your car—”

    “Vividly!” Laughs like anything. Then he holds out his hand to Euan, saying: “It is Keel, isn’t it? Think we met at John and Rosie’s wedding.”

    Euan’s quite chuffed to be remembered and asks him to call him Euan, and very chuffed when Terence says he managed to catch his Posthumus at Stratford and is it too late to congratulate him on it, and blah, blah, the best butter, as John would say. Well, Terence has got lovely manners, I’m not denying it. And in spite of Corky’s continued stiffness the male peer group has well and truly convened, so I just give up on the whole bit and go and make a giant pot of tea and haul out the remains of Aunty Kate’s fruit-cake. There’s quite a bit left but it vanishes like dew in the morning, also my Vegemite sandwiches, even though at home dear Nigel would probably refuse to eat them, supposing that Susan had dared to offer him anything so down-market, and the last of Aunty Kate’s dimpled golden syrup biscuits. It’s an old recipe of Grandma’s but Aunty Kate uses marg instead of butter. Still uses lashings of golden syrup, but. You make the dimples, dunno what else to call them, by pressing two fingers on the round ball of dough to flatten it slightly. And I’m too heavy-handed with them.

    Corky’s planning to take the early evening train, thank God, so Graham turns up and carts him off in good time for it. And since Euan’s now made me ring Bridget at her flat to check if Katie’s there, yes being the answer, he pushes off to Medlars Lane.

    “So he’s got a cottage here?” says Terence in an idle tone in the kitchen where I’m inspecting the inside of Battersea Power Station in the hope that inspiration will strike. “Oh, you’ve got the big fridge from the flat?”

    “Yeah, Aunty Kate thought we might as well have it down here. It was such a struggle getting it out of the flat that it’s gonna be here until the next millennium, that's for sure.”

    “Mm. Anything’ll do for me, Rosie,” he says kindly.

    “Think it’ll have to. What were ya saying? Oh: yeah, Euan’s got a cottage over in Medlars Lane. Not far from the High Street. Sort of half done up. He bought it with Katie, that's his girlfriend, and they’re in the middle of a row, so nobody knows if he’s gonna keep it on or what the story is.”

    “I see.” He wanders over to the window. “My God, they’ve made a mess of the lawn! Uh, was it my imagination or was there something very odd in the air when I came in?”

    Shit, he did notice. No, well, he’s on my side, and always has been.

    “Ya probably did, yeah. Well, apart from the fact that Corky can’t stand me anyway, I was giving Euan a hug when he came in. He was feeling very sorry for himself because of the bust-up with Katie. He’s a pretty emotional type,” I add disingenuously. Not nearly as emotional as some, he isn’t, by a long chalk: boy, when Darryn Hinds lost that part he was up for in a Branagh epic— Just let’s say that floods of tears was the least of it. “I think Corky might have got the wrong impression.”

    “Good Lord, he ought to know what actors are!” says Terence with cheerful scorn. “Er—want me to have a word with John, Rosie?”

    No, you idiot, that might give him the idea that there was something in it! Especially on top of Corky’s word with him which, I have no doubt at all, will happen.

    “No, that’s all right, Terence, it was totally trivial.”

    “Of course. Only…” He’s frowning, I can read him like a book, always have been able to. What he’s thinking is, Corky’s gonna, without any doubt at all, give John the wrong idea about it. And pretty dim though Terence is in most spheres of life, there’s no doubt at all that in this instance he’s not wrong.

    “I think if you mention it, John might get the idea that it was worth making a fuss about,” I say carefully.

    “Yes, you’re right,” he agrees, the relief at not having to face up to Big Brother with a story about his wife, however blameless I may be, written loud and clear on his handsome forehead. “Well, now! Pizza?”

    I admit Greg ate it all with a little help from Someone Else and he goes into a sniggering fit and delves into the freezer himself…

    Why am I so sure Corky’s gonna let on to John—however difficult it might be to imagine how a bloke could phrase the story in such a way that the other bloke wouldn’t clock him before the words were hardly out of his mouth? And even though he probably does believe I’m blameless? Because, folks, this is the same Commander Nigel Corcoran, R.N., who put the hard word on me, summer before last in Spain, to give John up. Oh, yeah. Too right. For the sake of his career, what else? He didn’t say forever, he’s not that crude. But he did make it plain that he meant for the duration of the Lily Rose crap. And certainly for the foreseeable future. Well, like I said, he can’t stand me. No, let’s call a spade a spade. He hates me. As much as Lady Mother does? Boy, that’s a curly one… Yes, I think so. I honestly think so.