Scenes of Family Life

Episode 10: Scenes of Family Life

INT.  The marital home - Evening

Husband, wife and wife’s relative discovered at dinner.

HUSBAND

(beaming

Delicious!

WIFE

(smiles modestly, lowers lashes)

Oh, weally, darling hubby-wubby? Do you weally,

twuly like it?

HUSBAND

Absolutely, pettikins!

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(agreeing)

Delicious, my pet! You’re turning into a first-rate

little cook!

WIFE

(breathlessly)

Oh, thank you, Daddy Captain! But I just did what

the book said!

PAUL, AS HIMSELF

Cut!

(to no-one in particular)

My God, that was nauseating.

PAULA, AS HERSELF

(sourly)

Don’t look at me. Her Master’s Voice ordained it, I

merely wrote it. And kindly do not remind me that it

isn’t about anything.

RUPY, AS HIMSELF

(misguidedly)

Well, it isn’t.

PAULA, AS HERSELF

(very loudly)

We know! Varley claims it typifies the popular

conception of Naval home life of the Fifties. And

before you say anything, Lily Rose, I have no notion

whatsoever if he was referring to popular culture of

the Fifties or the current equally nauseating

misconception, and what’s more, I don’t care!

    Yeah. Well, in actual fact, folks, it goes more like this:

INT.  The marital home—Evening

Husband, wife and wife’s relative discovered at dinner.

HUSBAND

(smiling valiantly)

Delicious!

WIFE

(sulkily; glares at Relative)

Don’t look at me, she did it all.

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(briskly)

Now, don’t be silly, Rosie, dear. You were out all

day: of course I made the dinner!

HUSBAND

(cautiously)

Out all day, Rosie? It sounds as if you’ve been

overdoing it.

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(vindicated)

There! What did I say, Rosie? –I’ve been telling her

that for ages, John, but of course she won’t listen to

me.

HUSBAND

(cautiously)

Mm. Er… I thought they’d finished the Christmas

Special, darling? Or did they have to re-shoot

something?

WIFE

(tightly

No. This is for the fifth series.

HUSBAND

(stops eating)

Fifth?

WIFE

(shouts)

Yes! Are you deaf? Fifth! It generally comes after

fourth in the known universe!

HUSBAND

(grimly)

I don’t think a fifth series has been mentioned

before, has it?

WIFE

(angrily)

So what? You’re stuck at the bloody Admiralty all

day! And I’m not gonna go down to the cottage and

miss your last weeks in England! And anyway,

when I’m up half the night feeding him or trying to

stop him bawling or changing him, I haven’t got the

energy to do any proper work, so I might as WELL!

She gets up and exits furiously, slamming sitting-dining room door. O.S., the

bedroom door is also heard to slam. O.S., the baby is heard to start

bawling.

    So the consensus was that Rosie was (a) overdoing it, (b) over-tired, and (c) behaving exactly as one might have expected and if he hadn’t realised it before, well, now perhaps he’d see what her poor mother and father had had to put up with. And she was sorry to have to say this, John (not much) but Rosie never had been all that scrupulous with the truth. Possibly not outright lies, no. But certainly not telling the whole truth has always been one of her specialities, ask her poor mother if you don’t believe me.

    He didn’t ring Mum and ask her, so presumably he believed the bitch, he certainly looked as if he did. So then a Tender Reconciliation Scene took place:

HUSBAND

Darling, I realise you’re exhausted, what with

feeding him and so—

WIFE

(interrupts; rudely)

I am not! What total crap!

HUSBAND

(taking deep breath)

Not to mention not waking me up if he needs

changing at night.

WIFE

(sulkily)

What the fuck’s the point of us both having a

sleepless night?

HUSBAND

(answering even though the question was

clearly rhetorical)

The point is that he’s half you and half me, isn’t that

the way it generally happens in the known

universe?

Wife gulps. Doesn’t mention postings to the Gulf.

HUSBAND

Mm. And didn’t we agree we’d share that sort of

tiresome thing half and half?

WIFE

(sulkily; still not mentioning postings

abroad)

Yeah, but you’re working full-time and I’m not, so

it’s stupid to—

HUSBAND

(interrupts; firmly)

Possibly it is stupid, but as far as I can see you are

putting in a full day’s work. Added to which, your

body’s expending a lot of energy producing all that

milk for the little bugger; hadn’t that occurred,

Rosie?

WIFE

Uh—

HUSBAND

(calmly)

Why do you think cows just stand around placidly in

the fields eating grass all day, darling?

WIFE

(feebly)

Because they’re cows?

HUSBAND

(calmly)

No: because given that their bodies are devoted to

producing all that milk, Nature’s very sensibly

decided they shouldn’t be forced to do anything

more.

WIFE

(sulkily)

Nobody’s forcing me.

HUSBAND

Nobody but yourself, Rosie.

WIFE

(glares)

Hah, hah.

HUSBAND

(firmly)

You’re overdoing it, darling. I don’t think you

anticipated what a big difference he’d make, the

little bugger.

WIFE

(weakly)

Don’t keep calling him a little bugger.

HUSBAND

(drily)

If he’s making you this tired, sweetheart, I’ll most

certainly keep calling him a little bugger. And for

God’s sake wake me up if I’m snoring through the

bawling!

WIFE

(biting lip)

Um, well, if he’s roaring you do wake up, it’s when

he starts that whingeing noise that I seem to wake

up and you don’t.

HUSBAND

Yes. That.

WIFE

(swallows)

Um, well, all right. Maybe we ought to work out a

roster?

HUSBAND

(very drily indeed)

Don’t try to side-track me, Rosie, you know damn

well rosters are meat and drink to my—what was it

you called it the other day? Oh, yes: finicky anal

mind.

WIFE

(swallows; with a weak smile)

Um, yeah. Sorry.

HUSBAND

(firmly)

No rosters will be drawn up for midnight changing,

because you will realise when it’s my turn to change

him and wake me up, get it? And if you don’t, Rosie,

I promise you I shall get very, very angry.

WIFE

(had already thought he was: gulps;

squeakily)

Mm!

HUSBAND

And you’re certainly not going to go traipsing off to

Henny Penny all day; I’ll speak to Brian.

WIFE

(incautiously)

Yeah, but it was him I prom—

(breaks off)

HUSBAND

(coldly)

Yes?

WIFE

(glumly)

Nothing. Maybe ya better had.

HUSBAND

(in her vernacular; drily)

Maybe I better had, yeah.

    Since then it’s got slightly better. Put it like this, Baby Bunting’s whimpering as much at night but I’ve managed to wake John up at least half the times it shoulda been his turn to get out of a cosy bed and see if he needed changing (yes, always being the answer), and Paul Mitchell’s stopped calling me for all-day rehearsals or all-day filming. Not that rehearsals have got better on the strength of it.

    John’s usually pretty late home from the Admiralty but every so often he manages to collect me. Like, this afternoon he bowled up to Henny Penny and of course, since he knows Brian socially, popped up to see him. So they stroll on set, ignoring Paul’s glares, and Brian asks me nicely if I’m ready to leave.

    Gee, I’m always ready to leave! “Um, yeah, I mean, hullo, Brian. Um, Paul thinks I’m not billing and cooing enough.” –In the background John may be heard coughing slightly.

    Paul’s frowning, of course. “Yes. I’d like to run through it once more, thanks, Brian.” (Not really a request, ya get like that when you’re a certified Group Leader.)

    Brian is more than capable of refusing not-real-requests but he nods tolerantly.

    So Rupy and me settle down on our two chairs (flowery sofa, right; the detail Varley puts into those scripts is amazing) and start to bill and coo. When you analyse it, which is billing and which is cooing? Possibly the problem was that I was analysing it.

    “Don’t POUT, woman!”

    “Sorry, Paul, I imagined I was puckering up.”

    “Like this, Rosie,” Rupy prompts misguidedly.

    “YES! She’s been shown it five million times! For God’s sake, don’t you kiss your own husband?”

    —My own husband chokes slightly.

    “Yeah, but I don’t think about it, Paul.”

    “Then don’t think about this! –Christ Almighty, now he’s doing it! MAYNARDE! Stop POUTING!”

    “Ooh, was I—” Rupy subsides.

    “Say ‘kissy-wissy’ or something, Rupy, or I’ll never manage it,” I prompt glumly.

    “Kissy-wissy, pettikins?” he breathes obligingly, looking adoringly, well, fatuously, into my baby-blues.

    This time Paul doesn’t shout but we can hear him muttering: “Goddammit, still pouting.”

    “Mmm-mm,” I murmur, not in the original script but in the shooting-script, Jerry’s got a note of it.

    “Num-nums,” Rupy agrees, going too far.

    “MAYNARDE!”

    “Yes, sorry, Paul. Going too far. Well, take it from the top?”

    “Very well. And remember, Rosie— LILY ROSE! PAY ATTENTION!”

    “This stupid nursing bra’s pinching my—”

    “We don’t want to know! Just remember that before Rupy’s first line, your profile has to be in shot.”

    I nod and we got on with it. Apart from Paul shouting “IN SHOT!” just as Rupy’s about to deliver his first line, we get through the initial billing and cooing and John only chokes very slightly as I give with: “Deliriously, darling dearest hubby-wubby,” in response to Rupy’s fatuous enquiry if I’m happy. Then Rupy makes the mistake of going, very high and squeaky: “Nim-nim-nim-nim-nim?” as he approaches his lips to mine while looking fatuously into the aforesaid baby-blues, and John collapses in hysterics.

    Rupy isn’t phased, of course. “Oh, pooh, John, dear! And I thought that was one of my best effects!”

    “Billing and cooing to the life,” he agrees weakly, mopping his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Paul.”

    Poor Paul: he’d admired it last time Rupy did it, and even told me that if I could manage to produce that sort of billing and cooing I might yet be an actress, forgetting I only want to be a sociologist. So he’s very, very disconcerted by John’s reaction and says limply: “Yes. I mean, not at all. Well, I’d better let her go, I suppose.”

    And we escape.

    Only to stage our own scene, later that evening.

HUSBAND

I can get away early this Friday, darling, so what

say we dash down to the cottage?

WIFE

(dopily; possibly with her mind on the fact

that it may be the last weekend before he’s

shipped to the Middle East)

With Baby Bunting, ya mean?

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(misguidedly)

Yes, of course, Rosie! You can’t possibly leave him

behind when you’re still feeding him!

WIFE

(uneasily)

Yeah, um, I didn’t mean that, Aunty Kate. Um, we

brung the bassinet up here, ya s—

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(misguidedly)

For Heaven’s sake, Rosie! Don’t say ‘brung’ like

that! Nobody’d ever dream your poor father spent a

small fortune on sending you to a nice school!

HUSBAND

(meekly)

Well, I would, Kate; she’s told me all about the

horrors of St Agatha’s. Though I agree with you in

principle. I think the point she’s trying to make is

that Jack Powell very kindly brought the bassinet up

in his truck, and we’ll never fit it in the car.

WIFE

(mixed relief and annoyance at being pre-

empted)

Yeah. So what are we gonna put him in? A draw?

HUSBAND

What?

WIFE

(loudly on “me”)

Don’t put it on with me, John Haworth! A draw out of

the chest of draws, I said!

HUSBAND

(misguidedly)

Actually you said ‘a draw’, while we’re on the St

Agatha’s theme. But I wasn’t remarking on your

perfectly valid dialectal pronunciation—

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(urgently; interrupts)

John, she does it on purpose!

HUSBAND

(calmly)

I know. I was questioning the advisability of putting our son in a drawer.

WIFE

(heatedly)

Look, ya nana, ya take the draw out of the chest of

draws, pardon me, draw-wers, ya don’t push it in

with him in it!

HUSBAND

Ye-es… And put it on the floor, Rosie?

WIFE

(shouting on the “she”)

So? You’d put a cradle on the floor, wouldn’t ya? A

cradle like what we haven’t got because she won’t

let go of it!

HUSBAND

(mouth tightens)

Rosie, you’re exaggerating, as usual. And I do wish

you’d just front up to me and say what you mean,

instead of indulging in all this silly hinting nonsense.

WIFE

(furiously)

I don’t hint!

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(misguidedly)

No, I wouldn’t call it hinting, John. Avoiding the point

at issue, is more like it.

HUSBAND

(tiredly)

You’re not far wrong, Kate. Avoiding the point at

issue whilst hoping one will take the hint, I think

about sums it up.

WIFE

(screams)

Stop ganging up on me!

She exits furiously, slamming sitting-dining room door.

    As I think I might have mentioned, the bedroom is right next to the sitting-dining room. So after I’d rushed in there, this time not slamming its door, I wasn’t wild enough to want to wake Baby Bunting, I could hear them plain as plain. It went like this:

HUSBAND

(not rueful enough)

Oops. Well, that hit the mark, though possibly we

should have refrained, Kate.

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(not nearly guilty enough)

Um, yes. Oh, dear. I’m sorry, John. I know I should

keep out of it, only somehow—

HUSBAND

Nonsense! You’re at home, here, Kate!

WIFE’S RELATIVE

Yes, I mean, am I? Thank you, John, dear.

(blows nose)

HUSBAND

The damned cradle’s a sore point, I gather?

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(cheering up amazingly at being consulted)

Well, I’m afraid it is, John! Though of course she

hasn’t said anything directly to me, you know what

she is! But last time I spoke to her mother she said

that Rosie seemed very bitter about it.

HUSBAND

(dismayed, serve him right)

My God, she’s been complaining to May about it?

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(disconcerted)

Well, she is her mother, John.

HUSBAND

(tightly)

I was under the impression she never told her

anyth— Never mind.

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(cautiously)

She does give that impression, John, dear, but

actually she’s very, very fond of May, and they’ve

always been quite close. And—well, it might not

seem like it on the surface, because of course

Rosie’s very bright and got all those degrees and so

on, but actually they’re very alike.

A short pause.

HUSBAND

You’re right, of course. Stupid of me. Of course I

knew she was fond of her, in spite of the manner;

and the physical resemblance is hard to miss, isn’t

it? And then, there’s the bawling, though Rosie’s not

quite such a watering-pot… Mm.

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(brightly)

Exactly! She tells May more than she does anyone

else in the family.

HUSBAND

(slowly)

Ye-es. I thought it was Jerry she tended to confide in, if anybody…

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(brightly)

Oh, no, dear! She wouldn’t want to bother her

father, you see: she knows how the business takes

it out of him; and then, if it was anything financial,

she’d be afraid he’d offer to pay!

(less brightly)

Not that she’d tell either of them, if it was anything

serious.

HUSBAND

(grimly)

No, quite. Well, I suppose we’ve all taken that tack,

in our time.

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(bright again)

Of course! Goodness, I remember when I had that

blood-pressure trouble when Carolyn was on the

way and the doctor absolutely forbid me

(getting the past tense wrong, sucks to her)

to go over to New South Wales that Christmas: I

told Mum a string of lies about Jim being tied up at

work!

HUSBAND

(smiling)

Mm, of course.

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(coming to)

Oh, dear: we have wandered from the point, haven’t

we?

HUSBAND

(drily)

Have we, Kate?

Wife’s Relative giggles, eating out of his hand.

HUSBAND

(resignedly)

I’ll speak to Rosie about the cradle. And I’ll ring the

parents, but if Mother’s decided we can’t have it, no

power on earth is going to shift her, I’m afraid.

WIFE’S RELATIVE

(cautiously, for once in her life)

No-o… Perhaps you’d better order a nice modern

one, just in case.

HUSBAND

(slyly)

From Harrods, Kate?

Wife’s Relative, still eating out of his hand, collapses in giggles.

    So he comes into the bedroom and says: “Darling, I apologise for that bloody scene. Guilt over not having got on to Mother about the cradle, I’m afraid.”

    I was gonna shush him because he was speaking too loud and might wake the baby but he isn’t, so that horse won’t run. So I just glare.

    He comes over to the bed and sits down beside me and takes my hand before I can move it away. “I’ll ring Mother, but there’s no way I can get the cradle out of her if she doesn’t want us to have it.”

    “Drive over there and take it, it’s not hers, it’s your family’s!” I hiss angrily.

    “Uh—your attitude to the Haworth family and its traditions is amazingly inconsis—”

    “Shut up! He’s entitled!” The tears are starting to ooze out of my eyes, bugger it, and I’d sworn to myself I wasn’t gonna be a watering-pot like Mum.

    “You’re quite right, he is. But do we want actively to worsen relations with Mother, darling?”

    Yes.

    “Um, s’pose not,” I growl.

    He squeezes my hand. “No, of course not, and the whole thing would be bloody unpleasant for Father.”

    For God’s sake! If the spineless old creep had ever stood up to the woman in his life, none of this— I take a very deep breath and manage not to say anything.

    He squeezes my hand again. “Mm. Kate suggested we buy a nice modern one.”

    “That’d be a waste of money, if you can get the family one back. He’ll be all right in a draw. –Did I say ‘draw’, again?”

     “Mm. I don’t mind.”

    “The only way I can stop myself is if I pretend to be the Daughter,” I admit glumly.

    “God, don’t do that!” he chokes, falling on the bed and laughing himself silly, having to bury his face in the duvet so as not to wake Baby Bunting.

    At this I give in almost entirely and squirm down beside him and put my face very close to his and squeak: “Nim-nim-nim-nim-nim?”

    He goes into further paroxysms but finally recovers enough to pull me against him and kiss me very juicily, ooh! Oh, John!

    “Pity about her,” he breathes.

    “Yeah. She doesn’t have to come down to the cottage, does she?” I hiss.

    “Absolutely not!”

    “John, she’ll be expecting to, I could hear ya telling her she was at home!” I hiss.

    “No, surely—”

    “She will!” I hiss.

    “Er—then I’ll have to disabuse her.”

    “Good. Only don’t use ya captain’s voice!” I hiss.

    “What?”

    “Ssh! You’ll wake the baby! Um, you don’t realise you’re doing it, John, only sometimes you come on too strong for ordinary people!”

    Oddly enough he doesn’t take this entirely seriously, well, he has been living under the same roof as my Aunty Kate McHale for about two months, now. So he rolls his eyes madly and says in a silly voice: “Even her?”

    “Shut up!” I hiss, bashing his thigh. “Yes!”

    Immediately he grabs my hand and puts it in a much more interesting place. Stiff as a ramrod, you goddit.

    “Don’t, John, it’s agony!”

    “Glad to hear it. Well, I’ll speak to her and we can bill and coo in our cottage to our hearts’ content.” He sits up slowly, removes my hand, and drops a kiss on it. “But I must warn you, Rosie.”

    “What?” I squeak fearfully.

    He gets up, the sky-blue eyes are twinkling like anything. “I may not be able to manage it properly without a floral sofa!” And he goes out, shaking all over, before I can even pull myself together enough to grab a pillow and chuck it at him, the right Royal Naval birk!

    Anyway, he did get Lady Mother on the blower—not that night, she was out at a bridge tournament, for a change, but the next night, and being as how I just happened to be in the kitchen making a snack for supper handily near to the pale blue extension, I can report that the dialogue was very stiff indeed on her part, but gracious. Certainly John could have the cradle. She’d had no idea we wanted such an old-fashioned thing, or she would have sent Bernard over with it long since.

    Can you imagine your mum being stiff but gracious? Jesus! Hopping mad, yeah. Scornful, yeah. Soggily reproachful, yeah. But stiff but— Actually I can’t imagine under any scenario whatsoever, even if she loathed my hubby, Mum being mean enough to refuse to give me a family cradle. –Lucky me, right. I felt sorrier than ever for John on account of his frightful upper-clawss Mother and spineless upper-clawss Father and silently made up my mind to be very, very nice to him at the cottage. Not counting the sex, NO! Whaddareya?

    Oh, ya reckon that whole speech of Lady Mother’s was a lie from start to finish, do ya? Yeah, so do I, actually. He appeared totally taken in by her, however, and so I bit my tongue and didn’t say a word.

    Boy, this married stuff is a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be in them carefree bachelor-girl days when all I could think about was would he ever take me seriously enough to propose, isn’t it?

EXT. The marital Cottage - DAY

The front door opens as Husband and Wife approach.

HUSBAND

(very limply indeed)

Oh, hullo there, Greg. So you’re still down here?

WIFE

(gulps).

    Yes, folks, he had forgotten Greg was here, and I’d forgotten, what with having Baby Bunting and the terrorist crisis, and then getting up at all hours of the night to feed and change him, and finishing the Christmas Special and having all those visitors and rehearsing fatuous guest spots for the fifth series, to make absolutely sure that John had realised that Greg was a permanent fixture in Miller’s Bay for the next five years.

    So Husband and Wife retire, shaken, to the Master Bedroom, complete with Baby Bunting but not yet cradle, Admiral Sir Father being supposed to “run over” with it tomorrow. (That means we’re gonna have to give him lunch and put up with him for the whole afternoon.)

    Lamely I explain, but John isn’t cross, phew! And for this weekend he decides the best plan might be for Greg to stay at the pub.

    I’ll say it would. But I have to point out: “John, he hasn’t got any money!”

    “No, darling; at my expense, of course.” Smiles kindly. “Our expense. Have you spent anything from the joint account, by the by?”

    “Yeah! I bought all those Jamaica thingos!”

    “Since then, darling.”

    “Um… Well, what’s it matter? Anyway, I’ve been busy having Baby—”

    Sighs and sits down heavily beside me. Naturally I’m sitting on the bed, see a nice squashy surface and sit on it, is my motto. He was brung up not to sit on beds, that’s what sort of woman she is. Oh, you’d guessed that, huh?

    “Rosie, my darling, I know we didn’t have very long together before we got married, what with that damned secondment and so forth.”—So forth was the Navy putting the hard word on him not to be seen with yours truly because at that point the paparazzi were going mad over the twenty-first century Marilyn Monroe: wrong image, specially after that Page Three shot that I think I might have mentioned.—“And I didn’t imagine it would be easy for you. But sometimes I honestly wonder what you think marriage is.”

    What I think marriage is? Boy, is that rich! It wasn’t me that was off at sea all those months while— Never mind. I did know the Navy was his life, he’s never tried to hide it from me.

    “I've got plenty of money, I don’t need to spend your—”

    “That’s the point! It isn’t my money, it’s ours!”

    “Bullshit, John, of course it’s yours: it’s that whacking great salary of yours and them, um, whatsits, from that share portfolio crap. Not interest, those other things.”

    “Dividends,” he says mildly.

    “Yeah. –They don’t need a special word, only every Group has to have its own vocabulary to reinforce its validity, have you ever noticed that?”

    “I haven’t thought about it consciously. But you’re right. ‘Dividends’ is quite superfluous: ‘interest’ would do perfectly well. Why aren’t you spending some of it?”

    “I said: I don’t need to.”

    Takes a deep breath. “Look, you’d better have your Henny Penny money and your university salary paid into the joint account, and close those other accounts.”

    “But they’d get mixed up!” I cry in horror.

    “Yes.” Picks up my hand, holds it very tight, ow! “That’s what marriage is, Rosie. Ours. All mixed up. Or should we have had a pre-nuptial agreement?”

    “I’m not gonna want a divorce,” I warn grimly.

    “Good. And I’m certainly not going to want one: this is It, for me, thought you knew that?”

    “Mm,” I say, biting my lip. “Um, well, what about taxes?”

    “What?” he says feebly.

    “Um, like you keep going on about how me and Rupy oughta keep our receipts.”

    “Yes?” he says foggily.

    “I can see you wondering if I’m totally incompetent financially and I’ll put you out of your misery by admitting that I am, Dad says I’m the most hopeless nit he ever saw when it comes to money. The only good thing he can say for me is that at least it’s sunk in that the punter always loses.”

    “Er—yes. Well, he said as much to me,” he says with a little smile, “but I own I did assume it was just Jerry going on in his usual way.”

    “Ya would, yeah, he thinks anybody’s a nit that’s not a total mathematical genius like him. But he’s right. I’m hopeless about investments and interest and um, I’ve forgotten what those other things are, again.”

    “Dividends,” he says mildly, not the least trace of condemnation or criticism in his voice, bless him.

    “Yeah. Them. And in Oz they’ve got a thing called negative gearing, ya do it if you’re heavily into property, and Dad explained it to me in words of one syllable and I really tried to understand, only my brain went all fuzzy.”

    “Er—yes. I’m sorry, Rosie, you’ve completely lost me. Was there a point?”

    “Yeah. What if your accountant can’t sort out which is your salary and which is mine? Won’t that mean you’ll have to pay megabucks in tax?”

    Passes hand over forehead. “No, he’ll be able to trace it from the bank statements.”—Will he? Personally I can’t tell a thing from the bank statements and in any case they’re always so late you’ve forgotten what the fuck shoulda been coming in or what that cheque was for.—“And the cheques,” he notes drily. “More easily, of course, if the party of the first part has remembered to record on the butt—”

    “Yeah, yeah.”

    “So?” he demands.

    “What?” I reply blankly.

    Sigh. (He is human, yeah.) “So, will you agree to have your income paid into the joint account and close those other accounts?”

    “Um, all right, but how?”

    “How what?” he sighs.

    “How do ya make the money come into a different account?”

    He has to swallow, but explains carefully.

    “That seems awfully involved. Couldn’t I just close the accounts—”

    “No! Take it from me, we could spend months getting your employers and their banks to track it and admit it was never received.”

    “Oh. Well, all right…”

    “What?” he says resignedly.

    I make a face at him and flute: “Daddy Captain, I know I’m awf’y, awf’y thick, but could you possibly write the joint account’s number and the bank’s name down for little me?”

    He’s grinning but he says: “Don’t you dare call me Daddy Captain.”

    “It suits you better than it does Michael Manfred, that’s for sure. Did I tell you he panicked last February because his mortgage payment was due to come out automatically on the 30th and of course there wasn’t one, so he—”

    “Paid it twice, yes. Just don’t, please, it’s bad enough—” Stops hurriedly.

    “What is?” I croak.

    Awful grimace. “Just something silly that happened on Dauntless on my last inspection, darling. Poor Corky was overcome: he thought he’d made sure I wouldn’t see any of the rubbish that gets pinned up in the messes and so forth.”

    Overcome my eye! Made sure he’d see it, more like! Commander Corky Corcoran can’t stand me, he can’t stand the Lily Rose bit, he can’t stand the Australian bit, and, though he’s hetero enough, he can’t stand the thought of his best friend devoting all his spare time to someone else. Sorry if ya don’t get that last, but late twentieth-century popular mythology apart, it’s got something to do with being human and nothing whatsoever to do with one’s sexual orientation. And being Dauntless’s First Officer (like Commander Riker on the Enterprise, geddit?), it’s part of his job to get between the Captain and the crew and make damn sure there aren’t any little difficulties.

    “So what was it?”

    “Just that stupid shot of us in Spain again, sweetheart, embellished with a big balloon over your head saying: ‘Put it to me, Daddy Captain.’”

    “Feeble,” I conclude blankly.

    “Feeble and very silly, yes. But Corky was upset.”

    Upset? Thrilled, more like. “Yes. I won’t call you it, if you don’t like it. Except if I want to drive you mad, of course.”

    “Thanks!” he chokes, wrestling me down onto the duvet at last and kissing me very, very thoroughly. Right, Greg can get off to the pub right now!

    … Greg’s gone off happily, and Baby Bunting is changed and has a little drink and refuses to go down again and gets put in his sling and carried round the cottage on my chest while we do things like checking that we did bring everything for him, and that there is some marg and milk and like that. Eventually His Royal Highness The Baby decides to have a snooze and so we’re actually by ourselves for the first time since— Crikey. If you don’t count those few strolls we’ve had together, nice but short, if ya get my drift, for the first time since he took off in Dauntless just after the honeymoon! No wonder he gets the feeling that I haven’t got a clue what marriage is all about: I haven’t been able to practise it, have I?

    “What is it, Rosie darling?”

    “I'm sort of counting the times we’ve been alone together since the honeymoon,” I croak.

    Oh, dear, he’s gone very red.

    “I’m not blaming you!” I gasp.

    “Oh, good. I think I’m blaming me, though,” he confesses ruefully.

    “We haven’t really had to time to do anything ordinary together,” I say on a wan note.

    “No,” he says, hugging me very tight.

    “Not that,” I say weakly as it presses against my tummy.

    He laughs a bit. “No; I know! Ordinary things like deciding on some furniture to put in here, and sending that brown sideboard at the flat out for stripping.”

    “Yeah. Well, we could shelve the whole question for the time being and go in the bedroom,” I note.

    “Oh? What for?”

    I extricate my arm from the bear-hug and take a really good swing at him but as he’s got reflexes like lightning he catches my fist in his before it gets anywhere near him and then scoops me up bodily and carts me off to bed. I admit we have done it since the baby, yeah, and at least there’s the whole sitting-dining room between our room and Aunty Kate’s, but it sure is awfully, awfully nice to do it in the afternoon in your own bedroom with the little short-stemmed rosebuds on the wallpaper, under your very favourite pale fawn duvet with the frill that matches the wallpaper and the frilled inner curtains and the valance.

    Monday, back in London. We drove up this morning, John had apparently fixed it at work. Well, considering all those times he hasn’t got home until gone seven-thirty, he was owed it. Busting to tell Rupy the Bad News, so I grab a taxi and shoot off to Henny Penny.

    “Mrs Corky? Ugh, when did she ring?” he says sympathetically.

    “Sunday arvo. It didn’t ruin the weekend, but it didn't improve it, either, if ya get my drift.”

    He nods, shuddering, and heroically offers to accompany me on the dreaded furniture shopping expedition with Susan Corcoran. –Don’t blame me, her and John had a very cosy chat and jacked it up between the pair of them.

    “No, thanks awfully, Rupy, but I don’t think you need to sacrifice yourself. Susan’ll report every detail to bloody Corky, with emphasis on my lack of taste, but that’s as far as it’ll go. Like, it won’t be a Rebecca episode, leading on the innocent bride to buy the stuff that’s a dead ringer for—” I stop in paralysed horror at what’s just come out of my own mouth.

    Rupy’s horrified, too. “Are you sure, dear? What sort of puce and magenta crap did the previous incumbent fill the cottage with?”

    “Dunno, I’ve never worked up the guts to ask him!” I gulp.

    “Hell.” Rupy nibbles on his lip, looks like a rabbit. Well, sort of a cross between the young Leslie Phillips and a rabbit: he’s in his Commander’s uniform. “Tell you what: I’ll come to dinner with you tonight and pretend to drink too much and ask him to his face!”

    “Uh—are you sure, Rupy?”

    He gets very dignified. Of course he’s sure. Well, okay. I’m almost sure he’ll lose his nerve at the crucial moment, but we’ll see.

INT.  THE MARITAL HOME - EVENING

Captain, Captain’s Wife, Captain’s Wife’s Aunt and Gallant Friend

discovered at dinner.

CAPTAIN

(beaming)

Delicious!

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(smiles modestly, lowers lashes)

Oh, weally, darling hubby-wubby? Do you weally,

twuly like it?

CAPTAIN

(chokes; weakly)

Yes, Rosie, it’s excellent.

GALLANT FRIEND

You got that wrong, John, dear. The line’s

“Absolutely, pettikins!”

CAPTAIN

(placidly)

I knew it was something gruesome. Is this the curry

recipe Imelda taught you, darling?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

Yes. I came home early and gave it a go.

They all eat hungrily.

GALLANT FRIEND

(disingenuously)

I say, this wine’s not bad! Is this some of the stuff

you got in Australia, John?

CAPTAIN

Yes. It calls itself unwooded Chardonnay, Rupy; I

suppose that’s fair warning.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

You’d know all about it if it called itself wooded, it’d

take the fur off ya tongue and put hair on ya chest in

one blow.

GALLANT FRIEND

(faintly)

How graphic. –I say, John, is it true Rosie’s going to

let Mrs Corky drag her off to Harrods to buy flowery

sofas for the wee nest?

CAPTAIN

(mildly)

We gather that’s the plan.

GALLANT FRIEND

(very airily)

Hard to think what would suit the place, really. I

mean, all that wood and plaster’s rather austere,

isn’t it?

(looks hopefully at Captain)

CAPTAIN

(politely)

If you say so, Rupy.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(misguidedly)

What style do you think would suit the cottage,

John?

CAPTAIN

(politely)

I’ve no idea, I’m afraid: not much of a hand at

interior decoration.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE’S AUNT

(helpfully)

Why not go for the cottage look, Rosie, dear?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(becoming exasperated)

Gee, brill’, Aunty Kate!

CAPTAIN’S WIFE’S AUNT

(annoyed)

It is a style, Rosie!

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

All right, then, what characterises it?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE’S AUNT

You know perfectly well!

GALLANT FRIEND

(limply)

Flowery sofas with frills, isn’t it?

Silence falls. They all eat.

CAPTAIN

More wine, anyone? Oops, this is a dead man, I’m

afraid. I’ll open another—

CAPTAIN’S WIFE’S AUNT

(brightly)

Good Heavens, no, John, we’ve all had quite

enough!

GALLANT FRIEND

(glumly)

S’pose we have, yes.

CAPTAIN

(calmly)

Something wrong, Rupy?

GALLANT FRIEND

(glumly)

No, um, think I did drink a bit too much of that stuff too fast.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE’S AUNT

(helpfully)

Have some of this bread, Rupy, it’s the brand

Imelda recommended.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(very limply)

Naan. Not as good as Mr Singh’s, of course. Yes,

go on, Rupy.

Avoiding her eye, the Gallant Friend takes some naan…

     See? All right, what would you have done after that? Apart from asking John outright what the cows put in his cottage! I probably am the most cowardly wife in the known universe, yeah, but I’m not gonna stick my neck out and start raking over his past affaires. I’ve seen that last puce and magenta cow, Mrs Kay Wadham-Smythe, she’s fearfully sophisticated and totally well dressed, and I am never going to refer to her again in my life. She was taking tea at the Ritz with John and Fiona and Norman, if ya must know, while I was with Miss Hammersley and Admiral Kenneth H. One of the worst days of my entire existence—right. Miss Hammersley said the outfit was black and puce but when John and I finally got together he said he thought it was magenta. Thus the expression, geddit? He admitted he’d got rid of her and that’s it, so far as I’m concerned. Episode closed. And I know perfectly well that if I open that can of worms once, I’ll start shouting— No way.

    Plus and I’m terrified of the comparisons he might be tempted to make, all right? All my taste is in my mouth—runs in the family: you oughta seen John being polite about Mum’s ruddy renovations during the so-called honeymoon—and anything I choose for the cottage will be wrong. I’m not gonna bring up the subject of her perfect taste voluntarily, for God’s sake! And as you might just’ve gathered by now, I can’t cook and I’m sure she’s the sort that whips up delicious little messes at the drop of a hat, the females of his class and generation were all into the Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson crap. In fact he’s got several books by both of them on his shelves at the cottage. (Yes, Jane, not Sophy! Jane was her mum, goddit? Right!)

    So what I did was nothing, see? It worked real good, too. Up until about now:

INT.  the marital home - EVENING

Captain’s Wife discovered at dinner. Enter Captain, rubbing hands and

beaming.

CAPTAIN

(sits at dining table)

There! I took a peek at him, he’s snoring like a little

piglet! Sorry I’m so late, darling.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

It’s all right, John, you don't have to keep on

apologising, I understand it’s not like a nine-to-five

job.

CAPTAIN

(grimacing)

No, well, when the top brass— Never mind. Soup

tonight, is it?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(cautiously)

Um, yeah. The tinned mushroom stuff you like.

Aunty Kate’s got a better way of making it, so don’t

blame me if it tastes weird.

CAPTAIN

(laughing)

Wouldn’t dream of it, darling! Had hers, has she?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

No. She’s having dinner with Doris and Rupy and

then they’re going out to a show.

CAPTAIN

(dazedly)

You mean it’s just us?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(cautiously)

Yeah. I did try to let you know, but your nice little

Freddy said you were tied up in a meeting and he

wasn’t sure if he ought to interrupt unless it was

something urgent like the baby was sick, so I said

not to bother. Have some soup.

CAPTAIN

(automatically)

Pass me your plate, Rosie darling.

He serves them both with soup, and they eat.

CAPTAIN

(cautiously)

Darling, did you overdo it, traipsing all over town?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(scornfully)

All over Knightsbridge, more like! No. We had big

sit-downs for morning tea and lunch and afternoon

tea.

CAPTAIN

You spent the whole day at it?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(sourly)

And didn’t buy a thing. Right.

CAPTAIN

(dubiously)

Well, if you didn’t like the stuff, of course it would be

silly to buy… But Susan was sure she could match

the style of the bookcases at the cottage, darling:

you’d be able to get Jerry to send your books from

Australia.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

The ones she liked were more like room dividers.

Well, short. Table height, she said. Two-sided.

CAPTAIN

That sounds all right. Look:

(drawing on tablecloth with the handle of his

knife)

we could partition off the study area with the

bookcases, with your computer and Greg’s in it as

well as my desk. Make most of the eastern side of

the room a study area, leaving the whole of the

fireplace side for sitting, see? Um—well, at one

stage it was two rooms. Would you rather we put

back the wall?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(crossly)

No! I don’t want to be shut up and tidied away!

CAPTAIN

(mildly)

No, I didn’t really think you did. That’s why I think

Susan’s scheme sounds ideal.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(sulkily; heavy emphasis on the “when”)

When was it two rooms?

CAPTAIN

(taken aback)

Er…I’m not sure. Back in the Thirties, I imagine.

Father said something about his uncles sleeping

down there when he was a boy. The room was

always full of Wellingtons and oilskins, and their

sacred fishing rods that he wasn’t allowed to touch.

(laughs)

A veritable treasure cave, in fact!

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

He never said that!

CAPTAIN

(cheerfully)

Something very like it! I imagine the wall was ripped

out when the dinette was built on. But if you do want

the wall back, I’m sure Jack Powell—

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(crossly)

No! I said!

CAPTAIN

No, very well, darling. But we might bear it in mind

for the future, if you need a quiet place to work

when Baby Bunting’s at the rambunctious stage.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(uncertainly)

Um, yeah.

CAPTAIN

(cheerfully)

So what was wrong with these bookcases Susan

liked?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(sourly

I couldn’t tell if they were the right colour or the right

wood.

CAPTAIN

Darling, I don’t think Susan would be wrong about

something like that.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(sourly)

I dare say.

CAPTAIN

(looking at her uncertainly)

Mm. Well, I’ll try and make time to come and look at

them… Did you manage to look at floral sofas?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(sourly)

Yeah. She kept going on about conversation nooks

and crap.

(aggressively)

Was there ever a window seat in that front window?

CAPTAIN

No.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(limply)

Oh. Um, Susan’s got one, she says you can store

stuff inside it, like, the seat’s a kind of lid, it lifts up.

Then ya put a padded cushion on it. Like, she had

hers done by a proper firm, they came and

measured and everything.

CAPTAIN

Of course! We could—

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(interrupts)

John, it’ll be a piece of foam rubber with some cloth

on it! She paid a ridiculous price for it!

CAPTAIN

(twinkling)

But the result’s quite charming. A window seat

would suit the room, I think. You could put your feet

up, have a cosy read, when the weather’s not warm

enough for Jamaica!

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(smiling reluctantly)

Um, yeah. Are you sure you’ve never had a window

seat?

CAPTAIN

(cheerfully)

Quite sure! In fact I don’t think anyone in the

family’s got one. You’d be the only Haworth with a

cosy window seat! And then all we’d have to do

would be to add a coffee table. Oh, and perhaps a

china cabinet: we’ll have to do something about

some of the wedding presents, darling: people

expect to see them on display. And there’s room for

a couple of floral armchairs and the obligatory floral

sofa!

    At this point I should have agreed with it all, don’t say it, thanks. What I actually said was, real sourly: “Right, floral frills’ll go really good with those austere black beams and that leather stuff you got by the fire.”

    To which poor John replied on a weak note: “Er—well, it is what people seem to have. Um, was there perhaps a suite that Susan seemed to prefer?”

    “Three,” I noted, extra-sour.

    He grimaced slightly.

    Clearly woman sympathy was called for here, so I came out with: “It’s no use making faces! I can see they’re different but I can’t choose, and when I think about your lovely rugs they all seem wrong, only I can’t say why!”

    Being John, he just rubbed his chin and said: “Hmm… Susan’s tastes are very conventional… But England is full of country houses featuring floral sofas side-by-side with old rugs, sweetheart.”

    Well, yeah! “Um, yeah. Only do ya like that look. John?”

    Gee, he couldn’t say. All I got was: “Er… I suppose I’m used to it… It’s the norm. I suppose I like it, yes.”

    “You’re hopeless! Totally hopeless!”

    Not replying in kind (fully deserved, don’t say it), he just said on a hopeful note: “Yes, that’s why I thought Susan would be a much better person to help you choose this stuff, sweetheart!”

    Deep breath—almost losing it. “I tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna wait until you’re free, I don’t care if it isn’t till next year, and if Susan still wants to come she can, and you’re gonna make the decisions on everything! So no matter how wrong it is, no-one can blame me!”

    “What? What’s all this about blaming—”

    Okay, at this point I lost it. “I’M NOT GONNA CHOOSE ANYTHING! And I hate this bloody putrid mushroom soup! It tastes like reconstituted plasterboard! And if you don’t admit here and now you’ve never liked the bloody muck, John Haworth, I’ll pour the rest of it over your head!”

    “Calm down. I’ve never liked the bloody muck, I buy it because Mother always seemed to have it; is that what you wanted to hear?”

    “No, but I can believe it’s the truth. And anybody but a total nong woulda guessed I couldn’t choose stuff for the cottage: I’ve got no taste!”

    He didn’t react to the “total nong” crack—ya guessed he wouldn’t, eh? As they say in The Right Stuff, “he maintained an even strain.”

    “Well, you didn’t say much about your mother’s renovations when were in Sydney, but I could see you didn’t think much of them. I suppose I just assumed our tastes coincided…”—Grimace.—“It’s another of those bloody Pommy accepted things, is it, Rosie?”

    Instead of dimpling and nodding sweetly at this reminder of an earlier cosy exchange of confidences not to say harmonious agreement as to future action, I replied sourly that yeah, it was, and marriage wasn’t an instant cure.

    “I see,” the heroic main said nicely. “Then I think we’d both better make a conscious effort to go back to our previously agreed policy, hadn’t we? I’ll try not to expect the bloody Pommy expected thing from you, and when I do, for God’s sake point out I’m doing it—okay? I’ll make a start by chucking out the bloody soup. Plus any more tins that may be lurking in the cupboards.” He got up, piled our soup plates together, and picked up the tureen.

    “Um, well, Aunty Kate likes it because it’s the soup the Queen eats… No, all right, go on.”

    He nodded, but paused on his way to the kitchenette. “What’s the main course?”

    “Steak, it’s on the bench for you to fry, and baked potatoes and a veggie casserole. I went down the market with Mrs Singh and bought some real veggies and done Joslynne’s Mum’s recipe, only if it’s horrible we won’t eat it—deal?”

    “Deal.”

    Fortunately for yours truly, not to mention poor John’s digestion, the veggie casserole turned out good. In fact the conclusion was: “Mmm, delicious! Chalk one up to Joslynne’s Mum! –Rosie, now don’t fly off the handle, but I think possibly we’ve been taking the wrong tack about quite a few things. Well, all this…”—pause to rub the chin—“this down-home domesticity. It’s not you, is it?

    “Um, well, I don’t do much, really. Though I admit that whatever I do do usually doesn’t turn out good.

    “Why should it? You’re a sociologist and a fellow, not a cook-housekeeper. Not to mention a very fine comedienne. –No, I mean it, sweetheart—not taking the Mick. We’ve got the money: I really think we’d better make up our minds to spending it.”

    Eh? We are spending it, we’ve got lots of help with the housekeeping! “We are. Jessica comes in once a week here, and Lynne Carter comes in twice a week at the cottage.”

    “Not just dusting and floors and beds and things, Rosie. Bite on the bullet and think very seriously about getting a nanny.”

    The obvious response to this should have been to fall all over him with gratitude for this truly splendid, life-saving suggestion. So I snapped back, actually feeling my mouth tighten as I did so: “I geddit! This is all tactics, isn’t it? Ya want me to be a clone of ya Mother and Susan Corcoran!”

    “Perish the thought. If I was a younger fellow I wouldn’t mind so much battling our way through this period, but at my age it’s a damned waste of time. We’re not managing to live a decent life, are we?” (At this juncture, folks, I went very, very red, but he pretended not to notice.) “I’d like to—well, for a start, take you to the Continent, darling: show you some of the good things—”

    He was trying to turn me into an English-lady clone of his bloody Mother! “Look, I don’t want a nanny!”

    “Well, more help in the house. Um… Look, what about Yvonne? She’s very fond of you.”

    What? “John, she’s a qualified Personal Dresser, not a cook-nanny or whatever it is you’re envisaging! And I’ll be at the cottage for most of the next five years: what about Li?”

    “It might make him get off his chuff and propose.”

    Yeah, right! “And it might make him forget the whole bit, too!”

    “At least think about asking her. Well, her or someone else. Someone nice, that you’d like to have around the place, and that you’d trust with Baby Bunting when you’re working. And that we wouldn’t mind taking with us, while he’s little, on the odd motoring trip through the Loire and so forth. –I am serious, Rosie. The current set-up doesn’t seem to be working too well, does it? I realise that you’re tired and that Kate’s getting on your nerves, but I’m taking that into account. –Can you manage some more of this delicious vegetable casserole?”

    “What?” Talk about maintaining an even strain, not to say proceeding smoothly to the next item on the agenda! “No; you can finish it. I’d better save a bit of room for pudding.”

    He got up, picked up our plates and asked mildly what was for pudding. To which I returned numbly that it was ice cream.

    So he said mildly: “In that case, I will finish the vegetables.”

    He went out to the kitchen and returned—get this—carrying a pudding plate full of ice cream and the casserole dish.

    I was way past wondering if this was a diversionary tactic, Royal Naval personnel for the use of; I just croaked feebly, as my eyes bolted from my head: “You’re not gonna eat out of the casserole, are ya?”

    He sat back down and said in his usual unemphatic tones: “Why not? –Have you thought about it?”

    I was watching numbly. He was eating from the casserole dish, all right. Lady Mother would have had ten fits—no, would not have believed it possible. “What? Um, ye-ah. Sort of.”

    The veggies—it is a great recipe, Joslynne’s Mum’s a vegetarian and she does come up with some good ones—as I say, the veggies must have been going straight to the little grey cells, because he then produced brilliantly: “Listen, if we do buy some furniture it won’t be fixed as the laws of the Medes and Persians—I mean we can always get rid of it if we decide we hate it. And if we don’t take Susan with us there can be no question of her nose being put out of joint if we do decide to junk it!” —Grin, grin, raising the eyebrows at me.

    “Yeah. Great tactics. All right. –Horatio.”

    “Good! Any thoughts about help in the house? No-one too young, sweetheart, we want them to be a help, not a hindrance.”

    “Um, I wasn’t really thinking of Imelda. Well, I could ask Yvonne. Only if she does want to, or anyone else, where are we gonna put her?”

    So the Naval brain produced this: “There are two beds in the nursery, darling. But— Well, Greg needs a room of his own, doesn’t he? What about building a garage with a nice little flat over it? Greg can have it to start with, and perhaps when Baby Bunting’s five your nice helper could move into it.”

    My what? Oh, dear! “John, ya don’t have to be tactful with me to the point of calling her my nice helper. Um, well, ye-ah… But that’d mean there was always someone in the place at night.”

    “Of course!” Then the face fell. “Oh.”

    “Yes, ‘oh’, ya nana! Not to mention in the afternoons!”

    Sheepish grin. “Yes. Well, suggestions, darling?”

    At this point I was actually suckered into believing this was all my own idea—musta been the milk. “Well, ya do own that lumpy paddock next to the cottage, don’tcha? Build a cottage on it?”

    “Why didn’t I think of that!”

    Folks, it began to dawn. I put down my ice cream spoon slowly. “Why didn’tcha think of that earlier than eleven months back, I think ya mean, don’tcha?”

    The naval throat was cleared.

    Jesus! “You wanking, manipulative— Words have failed me, really.”

    “That is a first. No, well, Thwaites is due to retire this year, and I’ve been wondering for some time if he and Mrs Thwaites might fancy a place near us. She’s got her own little car, and the grandchildren are only in Portsmouth. And she grew up in a village. One for them and one for whoever?”

    Look, I gave in. Not to say refrained from mentioning the responsibility hang-up: Mr Thwaites has been his yeoman for yonks. “Yeah, okay, it sounds really ideal, John. Um, plus and a flat for Greg?”

    “Plus and a flat of Greg, of course. Agreed?”

    Gee, by this time I was like a limp rag, but I managed to say: “Agreed.”

    “And you will ask Yvonne?”

    “You’re pushing it, John. But I will, yeah. No harm in asking.”

    “Good. Um, Rosie, since the subject of bloody Pommy expected things was raised, what exactly is the problem about the furniture? –Aside from Susan’s conventionality and the fact that I may not get the time to look at it with you before I have to get back to Dauntless.”

    “Nothing.”

    “Did you or did you not agree to speak out when I expect the bloody Pommy expected thing?”

    Oh, shit. “Yes, but it’s nothing to do with that.”

    This did not slip by him, funnily enough. “So it is something, then.”

    I did try a “No” but it went over like a lead balloon: he took a deep breath and said: “I can see you’re lying, Rosie, but if you don’t want to tell me, so be it.”

    “All right, then! I was scared of buying something that’d be exactly like what your last puce and magenta hag put in there! Like Rebecca!”

    “Who? Uh—never mind. Susan wouldn’t have let you do that, Rosie. But I’m glad it’s out in the open at last. Susan didn’t mention the crap that was in there before, I gather? –No. Well, good for her, wouldn’t’ve credited her with that much tact. I doubt if I can describe it meaningfully, but there was a lot of it, and frills, flowers and cushions featured largely. Um… Well, all colours, really. I suppose the backgrounds were, um, pale cream.” He looked dubious, and added: “Not much yellow in it.”

    At this point I sighed and gave in almost completely. “You’re even more hopeless than me. Oatmeal, I think you mean.”

    “Think so, yes. No little roses like our lovely bedroom pattern, though, sweetheart!”

    “Um… Actually, John, there was a nice sofa with little roses, a bit like our little rosebuds. I liked it because it wasn’t frilly, but Susan said the wooden bits weren’t real rosewood. Then she said it was rather feminine.”

    “Rosie, my darling, if you want what I imagine was a fake Queen Anne sofa covered in little roses, for God’s sake have it!”

    Fake Queen— “SEE? Ya do know about antiques and stuff!”

    “Sorry. Showing off. Um, I only meant it descriptively. It sounds very pretty. No, well, can’t remember the place Kay went to, but it wasn’t Harrods. Some trendy interior decorator’s. Oh, there were huge ties on the curtains in some sort of checked stuff. Um, shiny. Hang on... Taffeta! Some of the cushions were made of that, too. Vile.”

    Eh? “Shiny checked taffeta plus and flowers and frills?”

    “Yes; and she used to favour huge floral decorations tied up in hairy hemp. And tall jars of lemons in water, believe me or believe me not.” –Dry look.

    Shit! I kind of went all limp. “I’ve seen those in the mags. They were really In, a bit back.”

    “There you are, then. Anything that was really In would be something that Kay Wadham-Smythe had to have,” he said with, I’m glad to report, folks, a shrug. “Was there anything besides the pretty little sofa that you liked, darling?”

    Yeah, but they were bound to be wrong. But I admitted it anyway: “We saw some nice glass-topped coffee tables with brass legs.”

    “I’ve always liked those.”

    “Ya would do, Susan reckons they’re very Seventies.”

    “Would that matter?” he said in his usual mild fashion.

    I didn’t mean to sigh, honest, but somehow it just came out. “Probably not, John. Only are you telling the truth?”

    “Yes. But I have to say this, darling: if Queen Anne’s what you fancy, Mother’s hanging on to some genuine stuff that my grandfather left me.”

    Jesus Christ! “John, it’ll be the family cradle do all over again!”

    “No, it won’t, sweetheart, the stuff’s in the attics. Mother may protest that it doesn't suit the style of the cottage, I grant you, but I don’t think it’ll go further than that. It’s covered in something that was Grandmother’s taste: a very formal lilac brocade. We’ll choose a pretty fabric with little roses on it instead, shall we?”

    I just nodded numbly, and I defy anyone to have produced speech in my shoes.

    So he went on happily: “There are two sofas and, um, six assorted chairs, I think. Well, if they take up too much room we can always bring a couple up to town. No coffee tables: they didn’t have those in Queen Anne’s day, and I’m afraid Fiona came in for the Queen Anne coffee-pot! But there is a nice little commode.” Grasping that my ignorance would probably need enlightening, he elaborated kindly: “A little cabinet, darling.”

    Gee, I managed another numb nod.

    “Finished your ice cream, darling?”

    Uh… yeah. Another numb nod.

    He got up, looking amiable, and picked up my pudding plate.

    “John,” I managed to croak as he prepared to depart: “was this the hidden agenda all along?”

    “No! My God, you do have a low opinion of me, don’t you? No, I had no idea you liked that style. And I didn’t suggest it because—uh, well,”—grimace—“I was afraid you might feel you had to pretend you liked it, and then you’d be stuck with it.”

    Yeah. I was still completely numb. “In that case,” I croaked, “we’re both about as silly as each other, aren’t we?”

    He gave me one of those really genuine grins. “About that, yes! Coffee? Jamaican coffee?”

    “I’d absolutely love a Jamaican coffee!” Oh, bummer: a horrid light dawned. “But there isn’t any cream.”

    “Yes, there is,” the Captain replied in his calmest, most managerial mode: “I picked up one of those aerosol cans from Machins’. Barry tells me that you like it even though it tastes as if it came out of a can, that right?” He exited to the kitchen, grinning, before I could reply.

    Well, at least that sorted out a few points. Though on thinking it over, his grandfather’s Queen Anne furniture probably was at the back of his mind all along, like building a garage for the Jag, with or without a flat over it, and putting up a couple of cottages further along from ours. Oh, well. At least I didn’t go and buy a fucking sofa that was an exact replica of the one that bloody Kay Wadham-hyphen-Smythe bought. And the veggie casserole went over really good; I mean, he’s pretty good at disguising his feelings when he wants to, but what man scrapes out the dish of something he doesn’t like?

    … Though if any man did, it’d be John Haworth. Put it like this, if he did go so far as to do it to pull the wool over my eyes, it’ll serve him right, won’t it? Because he’s gonna be eating it for the rest of his natural, that’s for sure!

INT.  THE marital home - DAY

Captain and Captain’s Wife holding Captain’s Baby discovered in the brown

sitting-dining room. The door-phone is heard.

CAPTAIN

(answering phone)

Haworth here. …Thanks, Higgs. I’ll be right down.

Captain’s Wife makes ferocious face.

CAPTAIN

(hanging up)

Sure you don’t want to come downstairs, darling?

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(sourly)

No, it’s a horrid blowy day, I don’t want Baby

Bunting to catch a chill. Anyway, I don’t wanna be

left with the memory of you disappearing in a great

big Navy car, thanks.

CAPTAIN

No. Come here.

(kisses her firmly; kisses Baby gently)

Goodbye, Rosie, darling. I’ll write, okay? And I’ll ring

whenever I can.

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(tearfully)

You’re gonna miss months of him, John!

CAPTAIN

(firmly)

At least I managed to be here for his first month.

Kiss me again, mm?

Captain’s Wife kisses him.

CAPTAIN

(releasing her reluctantly)

Blast! Gotta go, sweetheart.

(opens door)

Love you, Rosie. Bye!

CAPTAIN’S WIFE

(bursting into sobs)

I love

(sob)

you, too,

(sob)

John!

(sob)

Bye-

(sob)

-bye!

Exit Captain, closing the door firmly behind him.