Erewhon

19

Erewhon

    According to the omniscient Google, this was the address. Stan made a face. But as the huge, fancy modern wrought-iron gates stood wide, he proceeded along the drive. It ran for a considerable distance along the cliff top, with the blue of the Hauraki Gulf—if Almighty Google and His Archangel, Maps, had it right—visible beyond some dark native growth and very ordinary overgrown grass to his left, and to his right one—two—three pretty little houses, the first one, not far inside the gates, being what possibly in England would have been called the lodge, and the other two undoubtedly guest houses. Then came a large fenced field, abutting the last of these, to the right, and more of the view to the left, more field to the right, and— Shit. He pulled over and looked at it limply. Okay, the crap on the Internet had said it was a large house, but there had been no picture of it at all—presumably Sir Jake Carrano would have been more than capable of suing even Almighty Google at any attempt to film his house—but this was very large. Cream stone.

    After a few moments his eyes cleared and he realised that the big block off to the right was a garage. That still left a fair stretch of house, though no larger than some of the frights on the Sydney waterfront. This was quite a pleasant house as large cream stone mansions went. Fairly plain, two-storeyed, reasonably simple square-pillared portico. Not very many windows on this side, and he realised it must have been built with its main views over the Gulf. The house itself would have been off-putting enough, he admitted wryly to himself, but the odd thing was, it appeared to be undergoing extensive renovation. To the point of reconstruction: that parked over there on what must be excessively well-laid cream pavers, none of them had cracked, was a giant crane. Another crane was visible somewhere in the hinterland, not as big. There was no scaffolding in evidence but there was a considerable amount of racket from various sorts of power tools, and as well as the crane a large collection of builders’ lorries and vans was drawn up on the sweep, one truck being laden with bags of what looked like cement. As he sat there in his hire car a workman came out of the front door and headed for this truck.

    Hurriedly Stan got out and went over to him. The man ignored him. This was pretty typical of your Antipodean workman, whichever side of the Tasman you were on.

    “Gidday, mate,” said Stan mildly. “This Lady Carrano’s house?”

    “Neh. Noddany more,” he grunted, hefting a bag.

    Oh, shit. That left the whole of the greater Auckland metropolitan area that she could be in, didn’t it? The which, it had now dawned, was around the size of the Sydney ditto: not as densely populated, but extremely spread out. The little settlement of Pohutukawa Bay, which was technically the house’s address, and which he’d driven through to get to the cliff top, was at one of its north-eastern extremities.

    “Right. Dunno where she is, do ya, mate?” he asked without hope.

    “Neh. Bruce’d know, but he isn’t here today. If ya wann’ed the foundation stone do,” he added, suddenly becoming positively loquacious, “ya too late, they had it yesterday.”

    “Uh… Oh! Yeah, I think she did say something about having to turn up to lay a stone.”

    “Yeah. Well, it’s faked-up, see, all they done was screw a ruddy plaque onto the house, so she never hadda lay it, eh? Just pulled a little curtain.”

    The man’s Kiwi accent was so thick that Stan had difficulty in following him. “I geddit,” he said weakly.

    “Yeah. Barmy, eh?” He turned for the house, just as another figure in grimy overalls appeared from somewhere beyond the garage. “Steve might know,” he grunted. “Oy, STEVE!” With this he headed inside.

    “Thanks, mate,” said Stan weakly. The second man was older, not as burly, and had a folded rule and a folded sheet of what looked like plans sticking out of his top pocket. He didn’t speak, however, which did not bode well.

    “Gidday, mate. I’m looking for Lady Carrano but I gather she doesn’t live here any more?” said Stan without much hope.

    “Nah, decided to turn it into a kiddies’ hospital.”

    “Oh, so that’s what all this activity is?” Stan realised, smiling.

    “Yeah. Dunno where she is. You’d have to ask Bruce, he’ll know.”

    “Bruce Who?” he asked weakly.

    “Bruce Smith, of course. Only ya can’t ask ’im today,” he realised: “yesterday he said ’e hadda be in town for a meeting with the types from the Med School, that’s right.” He sniffed slightly. “Trying to get a slice of the pie, ask me. They won’t cut no ice with Bruce, though.”

    “I see. I—uh—I can’t manage tomorrow, I’ve got an appointment that I can’t break. I’ve only got today, really.”

    “You a friend of hers?” Steve enquired, giving him a suspicious look.

    “Yeah, met her in Australia,” replied Stan laconically.

    “You an Aussie, then?”

    “That’s right. Said I might look her up if I was over here. Only this was the only address I had for her,” he replied lightly.

    “Yeah,” said Steve, scratching his head. “Well, she might be up at the bach. Your best bet’d be to get on up to Kingfisher Bay—motorway all the way, now—and ask there. It’s up that way somewhere, dunno where, exactly.”

    “Right.” Not chancing his luck by asking what the Hell “the bach” was, Stan added: “Thanks very much, mate,” and slung his hook.

    According to Almighty Google, this must be Kingfisher B— Oops! Okay, this was right in Kingfisher Bay: the motorway off-ramp had led onto a well-paved road which had seemed to head on and on to nowhere, but then suddenly taken a dive down the slope. He pulled up beside a low seawall. He was facing the wrong way, but there was no traffic in sight and as there were no “No Parking” signs either— Shrugging, he got out, though reflecting that a ticket for a bloody traffic violation on his first day in the country was not likely to endear him to Baranski.

    The view was not enticing. Well, on the right it was frankly hideous: a slab-like high-rise hotel on the point of the little bay, presumably for the tourist trade, though why any overseas tourist’d want to stay here— To the left was the settlement proper: a lowish slope of hillside filled with ranked excrescences of horrid modern houses, mostly white, far too big for their sections, with hideous giant awnings over their north-facing windows, and here and there the turquoise gleam of a swimming-pool. Below them, nearer to him, was the marina, even horrider and more rigidly ranked, and beyond it a pretty little beach that would seem to render the swimming-pools redundant to any but the minds that would desire one of the said excrescences. Directly before him was what, if Almighty Google’s Map had it right, must be Carter’s Inlet. Greyish-green, not attaining blue even though it was a lovely sunny day, and over on the far side some very low, dull-green growth that was obviously mangroves, though they weren’t nearly the height of the ones he was used to seeing in northern Australia. Beyond them was a very flat vista of nothing very much. Patches of dark scrub on what looked like the remnants of degraded farmland, and, way over to his left, a glimpse of light glinting off something horrible and high-rise. Well, if Almighty Google had it right that’d be Sir George Grey University. Uh—how the Hell did you get there? Stan sighed.

    After quite some time he became aware of a silent presence to his right. He looked round without hope. This’d be yet another local inhabitant who, if he imparted any information at all, would be ninety percent unintelligible.

    The thin, middle-aged bloke was wearing faded jeans, but these were topped by what Stan would have taken his dying oath was a Dacron shirt of surpassing crispness. Red and white checks. Sharply pointed collar. Undone, true. In fact it looked like a Western shirt—yes, it was, by God! Tailored, and all.

    “Say, you wouldn’t be lost, would you?” the bloke drawled in an unmistakable American accent.

    If he hadn’t had to get up at three a.m. in order to catch his trans-Tasman flight which left at 6.05 a.m. from Kingsford Smith, only twenty minutes’ drive from his sister’s flat where he was staying, and had had more than an unspeakable cup of Qantas coffee and a flabby piece of Qantas toast in his stomach—there had been more but it had looked extremely unpalatable, especially the sausage, so he’d left it strictly alone—and if he hadn’t been faced with one frustration after another from the moment he stepped off the plane, the inability of the Hertz outlet at Auckland  International Airport to find his rental-car booking not being the least of it, Stan might not have said what he did.

    “Not if Almighty Google was right and this is Kingfisher Bay.”

    The thin-faced bloke grinned. “Almighty Google, huh? Say, that’s a good one. Well, it’s right in this instance, yeah. –Myself,” he added thoughtfully, “I been known to yell ‘great Google Almighty’, mind, but only iffen the thing’s gone real wrong. –Never, ever ask it for duck soup,” he advised mournfully.

    Stan’s shoulders shook. “Were you looking for the film?”

    “No, guy, I was looking for a recipe,” he said heavily.

    Stan collapsed in sniggers,

    “There was pages of it, pages and pages,” he said mournfully. “Not just every pirate video ever recorded on Youtube, and not just Wikipedia like what you might expect, but the Enyclopedia Britannica, yet!”

    “Eh?” croaked Stan.

    “Yup. I kid you not. Mind you, they cain’t spell it,” he noted sadly.

    “Can’t sp—” Stan broke off, his eyes twinkling. “No, the spelling ‘ae’ has long since vanished from the earth.”

    “Yup,” he said mournfully, shaking his head. “The Britannica! Never thought I’d live to see the day.”

    “And did you eventually find a recipe for the soup?”

    “No, I decided I wasn’t gonna live that long, so I just dumped the carcasses in the big pan I usually use for chilli with a chopped onion and a carrot and a few herbs. Brightened it up with a slosh of shiraz, why not? Let it stew for four hours. Strained it, and let it set in the icebox overnight. Made the velvety cold consommé of your dreams.”

    “Sounds all right,” said Stan, grinning.

    “Yeah, it was. Only nobody but me appreciated it, so I hadda boil it up again. Wal, it wasn’t bad, hot,” he conceded.

    “I geddit. Shoot ’em yaself, didja?”

    “Uh-uh. Had a brace off of a friend what’s got relations on a farm.” He eyed him thoughtfully. “Dare say you might know her. Her name’s Polly.”

    Stan’s jaw dropped; he goggled at him. “What the— Who the fuck are you?”

    The thin bloke scratched his narrow jaw. “Dunno that my name’d mean anything to you. Sol Winkelmann. Known Polly nigh on—sheesh, twenty years, I guess. My wife’s her second cousin.” He held out his hand, looking bland.

    Stan shook it somewhat limply. “How are you, Sol? I’m Stan—” He broke off. “Well, Polly knows me as Stan Smith. Stanislaus Gorski, officially.”

    Sol Winkelmann just replied mildly: “Good to meet you, Stan.”

    Stan made a rueful face. “Yeah, well, when you’re scraping a living in flaming Gorski Bay selling fish to the bloody holiday-homers that have infested the poor little dump, ya don’t go round saying your surname’s the same as that of the founder of the place if you want to save your sanity.”

    “I guess that says it all,” replied Sol very, very mildly. “Welcome to Kingfisher Bay. Your holiday-homers’ houses bad as this lot?”

    “Much worse. All colours of the rainbow, all styles—make that all the modern want of style you could imagine in your worst nightmares.”

    “Goddit. Wal, guessed we can chalk one up to Jake Carrano, anyroad. See, his bulldozers scooped out this here Kingfisher Bay in the first instance—back in the mid-Eighties it didn’t even exist. Then his Carrano Development built them second homes and retirement homes up there on the slope behind you. But they was sold on the condition they hadda be white and in a set number of styles. Look quite colourful now, I grant you, but that’s all them fancy awnings. Come winter, when they been taken down or rolled up, according, it’ll all look real homogeneous.”

    “I see. I don’t think our local council has any regulations about styles or colours,” he said heavily. “Anything expensive and horrible; the bigger the better, so as they can slap them with the rates bills.” His eyes twinkled. “Mind you, you should hear the whinging when the water rates bills arrive!”

    “Oh, sure, we got that syndrome here, too. The better off they are the meaner they are, huh? Guessed Polly and Jake were the exception.”

    Stan eyed him drily. “I got the impression that Carrano was so rich it wouldn't matter a damn to him.”

    “Wal, yeah, ya not wrong, there. Real decent guy, though.”

    “Was he?”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “She—” Stan hesitated; then he admitted: “I hardly know her, really. She didn’t mention him to me, but then, we only managed about half an hour together, before she had to check on the nineteen-year-old kid I’d stupidly let drink himself silly on firewater while I was stupidly drinking myself silly on firewater.”

    “Uh-huh. That’d be her friends’ kid, Buster, huh?”

    “She mentioned him, did she?” replied Stan grimly.

    “Yeah, but not that you got him drunk, guy, she ain’t that type.”

    Stan sighed and sat down suddenly on the low seawall. “Ye-ah… Shoulda been shot. She gave me a piece of her mind, too: good on ’er. Well,” he said to Sol Winkelmann, not asking himself why he was imparting this titbit, not to say revealing so much of himself to a perfect stranger, “I’d convinced myself she was never gonna look twice at me.”

    “Understandable,” said Sol mildly, sitting down beside him.

    “Yeah.”

    Silence reigned for a while. Then Stan said on a desperate note: “Look, Sol, I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but I keep having a weird feeling that we’ve met before. We haven’t, have we?”

    “Nope. It’s the Jack Klugman lookalike thing,” replied Sol heavily. “Often seem familiar to people of our generation.” Stan was looking blank so he added helpfully: “Quincy M.E.? No? What was that other thing he was in—I can see it clear as I see you. They made a movie of it, too, but this was the TV series. Uh… gee, it’s galloping Alzheimer’s,” he muttered. “Oh! The Odd Couple. Two straight guys—well, according to the storyline—sharing an apartment together. Who was the other guy? Didn’t come over as all that straight, mind, but a real good comic actor. Oh, yeah: Tony Randall, of course! Jack Klugman was the messy guy.”

    “That’ll be it,” said Stan very weakly indeed. “Jesus, that was years back.”

    “Uh-huh. Once seen, never forgotten,” said Sol Winkelmann wryly.

    “I don’t usually watch much TV. Well, none, really, these days. Pick up the ABC news—uh, that’s our ABC—on the laptop, now that they’ve started screening it online. –Though I don’t think screening’s the word,” he ended on a dry note.

    “Nup, Almighty Google will’ve dreamed up a special word. It’s like Polly says: all little groups have to have their idiolect to validate themselves,” said Sol very mildly indeed.

    Stan smiled slowly. “That right? I can just hear her saying it, too…”

    “Uh-huh. Wal, she’s home again—been down Taupo way staying with some old friends, after the funeral—you know her mom died just recent?”

    “Uh—no, I didn’t know. On top of the husband’s death? Shit.”

    “Puts it well. Not that it was unexpected; Polly was the benjamin of the family—’bout ten years between her and the next brother, and the oldest brother, he died quite a whiles back, in his sixties. The mom woulda been around ninety. But it hit her real hard. Only, the visit with these friends—real decent folks, they are—seems to have got her pretty much back on her feet again.”

    Stan swallowed. “Good,” he said hoarsely.

    “She’s probably up at the bach, iffen you wanna risk your springs up the Inlet road—it is sealed for about two-thirds of the way.”

    “Uh—yes. Thanks very much, Sol. Look, what the Hell is ‘the bach’?” he added desperately.

    Sol’s eyes twinkled. “Heard it before, have ya?”

    “Yeah, the blokes on the building site at what I thought was gonna be her house—” He broke off to let Sol have a coughing fit.

    “Sorry, Stan,” he said, grinning. “I sure oughta know what it’s like, coming to a foreign country where you’re assuming that you got a common language.”

    “Yeah, it must have been even worse for you,” Stan realised.

    “Uh-huh. More so as most Kiwis are real insular. Mind, I’m not saying the average American from Hicksville, Iowa, ain’t just as bad. But first year I was out here I was more or less stumbling from faux pas to misunderstanding and back on a daily basis. –‘Bach’ is the vernacular usage of northern New Zealand for a beach house, holiday home or fishing shack,” he said matter-of-factly. “Way down in the South Island they have a different term, which I’m told derives from their Scottish heritage. Oh: that’s always ‘the South Island’, by the way, they don’t like it if you just say ‘South Island’ or ‘North Island’ like what’s written on the maps.”

    “Right. Thanks,” said Stan, smiling at him.

    “You’re welcome. Fancy a coffee before you tackle that road? –Italian-style, not American,” he added quickly.

    “Uh—yeah. Thanks very much, Sol: I would.”

    “Okay. Come on, then.”

    It was only now that Stan registered that the end shop in the horridly fake-Federation little block of three that they were now facing sported a large sign: “Sol’s Boating & Marine Supplies”. “Good spot for your business,” he noted.

    “Yeah. Be even better iffen they’d let me moor my little runabouts for hire right acrosst that there road at the foot of that there seawall, only that’d spoil the look of his here pristine waterfront.”

    “Eh?”

    “Yeah,” said Sol mournfully, as his shop’s doorbell produced a surprising “Clonk!” and his visitor jumped. “Sorry about that bell. Gets ’em every time.”

    “Hah, hah!” noted the lanky, unattractive youth behind the counter crossly.

    “I don’t mean it don’t work good, Trent, only that it’s unexpected. –His Dad fixed it, this last time,” he explained over the kid’s mollified: “Aw.”

    “Goddit,” Stan acknowledged, poker-face.

    Sol’s eyes twinkled, but he merely headed down in back, silently wondering if he’d better call Thomas soonest and report that his geologist-fisherman was Stanislaus Gorski, and definitely still a good guy, or wait and let him interview the guy and form his own judgement—not that he wouldn’t anyways. …Yeah, wait, he decided.

    Polly had woken up very late: the sun was glinting through the gaps at the sides of the ancient dark brown Holland blinds that she’d found in the garage, currently in use as a storage shed, and rehung in the bach’s big main room after abolishing Jake’s ghastly fully-lined black curtains. Unfortunately she hadn’t been able to find the Indian cotton bedspread in shades of navy and dark crimson that the big bed had had back in the 1990s. Jake had said they weren’t her colours; well, possibly they weren’t, but she’d really liked that bedspread; and the horrible heavy black cotton thing that had replaced it certainly hadn’t been her colour! Nor had the pale grey paint on the walls—that had been about eight years back, before he’d really gone minimalist—make that minimalist and bonkers—and had them painted that depressing dark grey. Certainly it had looked very smart with the white window and door surrounds, but— Oh, well. The walls now looked as if they were coming down with something fatal: she’d got a coat of white onto them but the grey was showing through in patches. Large patches. Back when they’d had that gorgeous Indian bedspread they’d been white-painted hessian: it had been lovely, though the luckless decorators appointed to put the stuff up had sweated and cursed over it. Likewise over painting it.

    It was only March, and still too warm for a duvet, so the bed at the moment featured some pale pink sheets that she’d rescued from the big house, a mixture of pale lemon and pale apricot pillowcases that ditto—they’d probably all been bought for guest rooms, she couldn’t recall ever having had them on their bed—an aircell blanket, and a duvet cover, minus its actual duvet, that she’d bought in Wollongong, partly because it was very lightweight and partly because it was such perfect kitsch that she hadn’t been able to resist it, in spite of Buster’s cries of: “Heck! Ya don’t wanna buy that!” It was a tiger pattern, complete with a large tiger face smack, bang in the middle of it, but not tiger colour, which Buster had conceded might have been all right. The dark stripes were black, but the rest of it was a fruity fuchsia. Not surprisingly, it had been on special. Even Jenny had been taken aback at the sight of it, but good old Tom had laughed his socks off, bless him. Every time Polly looked at her offensively fuchsia tiger spread she got a warm feeling.

    Not bothering to check what the time was, she got up, staggered out through the lean-to kitchen to the tiny bathroom for a pee, reflecting yet again that it was a great pity that Jake hadn’t managed to knock a hole in the wall and turn it into an ensuite while the decorating fit was upon him, and then decided to have a decent breakfast for once. Or possibly a decent brunch. Scrambled eggs on white toast. True, there was a nice rye loaf in the freezing compartment—at least, it was probably mixed rye and wholemeal, it didn’t look like all rye to her, though it tasted okay—but she ignored it firmly. With lots of strong but milky coffee and just for once, a nice big spoonful of sugar in it. Mmm!

    After that she felt very warm and happy indeed, so she just popped back into bed for forty winks…

    Jesus! What the—? She sat up in bed with a pounding heart. Oh, shit. Some idiot at the French doors—the back if you took it that the back was facing away from the road, but actually the bach’s big main room, combination bedroom and sitting-room, fronted onto Carter’s Inlet. Blast! She crawled out of bed and, since she seemed to have started to get undressed, or maybe dressed, and was only in the Wednesday lilac bikini panties from Jake’s set, grabbed up the pale green floaty thing that Phyllis had forced her to buy in Sydney, which was the only dressing-gown handy, swathed herself in it and staggered over to the French doors.

    It was a slim guy in a new-looking navy tee-shirt, cream whipcord trousers of the sort popular with the more affluent citizens of the Australian Outback but not seen elsewhere in these modern times, what looked suspiciously like R.M. Williams elastic-sided brown boots, highly polished, and the cream straw cowboy hat that generally completed the outfit in the Aussie Outback.

    “Gidday, Polly,” he said, taking off the hat. “Came over.”

    “Are those actual R.M. Williams boots?” replied Polly, gaping at him.

    “Yeah. Had ’em for a while, now. Don’t usually favour the denizens of Gorski Bay and environs with ’em, though.”

    At that Polly gasped: “Stan!” And burst into tears.

    Which was pretty much okay. Stan simply stepped up to her gently, put his arms right round her, and walked her backwards to the big bed. And pushed her gently down onto it and fell more or less on top of her. “Don’t bawl,” he said in her ear. “It is me. Here—have a hanky.” He hauled a spanking clean one out of his back pocket.

    “Ta,” said Polly groggily, blowing her nose and wiping her eyes. “I thought— I thought—”

    “Yeah. I know. Hadda wait and see if I’d get a job interview here, ya see. Anyway, didn’t have your address, as it turned out.”

    “I’m an idiot,” she said, sniffing hard.

    “I’ll say,” he murmured into her neck, smiling. “Hey, ya smell good. I like this fuzzy green thing, it’s a real turn-on. You had it on before, remember?”

    “No,” said Polly groggily.

    He hitched himself up on an elbow and managed to pull the green thing gently apart. “Not a thing a bloke could forget,” he murmured. “Well, two things,” he corrected. “You had it on when you opened the door at the Mayhews’. I was trying to sell you some fish. Well, that was me excuse,” he admitted wryly.

    “Oh—then,” said Polly, going very red. The more so as he was now squeezing one breast gently. “Um, that was the morning I had that terrible hangover.”

    “Mm. Think you had yellow panties on, that time.”

    “Cuh-could you see them?” she gasped.

    “Yep. See pretty well everything. This green thing’s pretty see-through,” he replied cheerfully.

    She gulped. “Phyllis more or less forced me to buy it in a stupid Sydney boutique.”

    “Good on ’er,” replied Stan simply. “Blow your nose again and give us a kiss.”

    Dazedly Polly blew her nose and held up her face.

    Stan kissed her very, very gently.

    “Oh, Sta-an!” she wailed, bursting into tears again.

    Sighing, he just held her tight until she seemed to have calmed down. “You’re a nit,” he said into the tangled curls. Ooh, all silky, maybe she’d just washed them yesterday? “Told you I’d manage something.”

    “Mm. But I duh-didn’t hear from you…”

    “No, because this other nit here never asked you what your address or phone number was. Well, read up about you and Sir Jake on the flamin’ Internet— Never mind that, I’m here now. If you can stop bawling your eyes out for two minutes maybe I could get into this here bed with you, eh?” He took his boots and socks off in order to encourage her.

    “Mm,” she agreed, sniffing. “Are those R.M. Williams pants as well?” she added as he stood up and unzipped them.

    “Yeah,” said Stan weakly. “They’re not unknown on the other side of the Tasman, love.”

    “I know. But I’ve only ever seen you in jeans before.”

    That was good. In that case he must still have been dressed when he’d passed out at Mac’s place. The contrary would have been all too likely. Phew! “Yeah, well, I don’t wear me best R.M. Williams daks to sell fish to Ma and Pa Brinkman and their ilk.”

    “No!” said Polly with a sudden laugh. “You are a fraud! Ilk, and denizens?”

    Stan sniffed slightly. “Cuttin’ me coat to suit me cloth.”

    “Yeah, and the rest.”

    “Something like that,” he said vaguely, hauling off his tee-shirt and hurling it in the general direction of— “Bugger. I better shut that door.”

    “Mm,” she agreed mildly as he went over and closed the French doors.

    “Shit, where’s the key?” he asked, looking at the empty lock.

    “I’ve lost it,” replied Polly serenely.

    “What? Stuck up here beyond the Black Stump on your ownsome, with an unlocked door? You’re mad, woman! Where’s the nearest locksmith?”

    “I don’t think there is one.”

    “All right, I’ll replace the bloody thing. Where’s the nearest decent hardware store? You got Mitre 10 or Bunnings over here?”

    “Um, yes, there is a Mitre 10 in Puriri.”

    “Ri-ight. Uh—yeah, think Almighty Google steered me round that, or through it, or something. Okay, we’ll get down there this arvo and get you a new lock and a set of keys and you can give a duplicate to a mate. How about that Sol Winkelmann bloke? Seemed like a very decent bloke.”

    “Um, yes, he is,” she said dazedly. “Did you meet him?”

    “Yeah.” Stan removed his underpants. “Put me on the right road. Not to say clarified what the Hell the word ‘bach’ means.”

    Polly clapped her hand over her mouth in dismay.

    “Yep,” said Stan with some satisfaction. He got back onto the bed and rolled against her. “Mm-mmm. Hey, it’s very fetching when you do that.”

    ‘What?” she croaked.

    “Clap your mitt to your mouth. Very feminine little gesture, that.” He slipped a hand between her thighs, smiling. “Oy, it isn’t Wednesday, ya know,” he murmured.

    “What?” said Polly dazedly.

    “According to these mauve underpants of yours, it’s Wednesday.”

    “I just grabbed the nearest pair.”

    “I think I mighta guessed that!” he gasped, shaking. “Come on, give us a kiss, angel-face.”

    Dazedly Polly held her face up…

    “Oh, God,” said Stan weakly at long last. “Jesus, Polly, I think I might come at any moment. I was gonna show you how sophisticated a dinkum Aussie bloke could be: at least forty-five minutes of foreplay—”

    “Shut up, you idiot!” she gasped, putting her arms round him and hugging him to her.

    Stan gave in, kissed her madly, hauled the mauve bikini panties off her—noticing, though he was pretty far gone, that the bush was putting up a good fight against the panties, so to speak, got on top of her and came like the clappers, yelling his head off. He was just about capable of realising that Lady Carrano had given a shriek, put the legs right up, and was coming like the clappers on him.

    About ten aeons later he was able to mumble into a tit what his face seemed to’ve somehow been resting against, somewhat unmanly though this pose might have seemed: “Jesus, love. You were bloody well milking me old man: I swear I could feel ya pumping it out of me!”

    “Mm!” replied Polly in a squeak.

    Stan just lay there with his head against her tit, smiling. “Mmm…”

    … “Flamin’ bloody Norah, did I just shove it up there and fall asleep like a stone?” he croaked, sitting up groggily.

    Polly was lying back on her pastel pillows, smiling. “Yes.”

    “Uh—I seem to vaguely recall a certain amount of pumping that went on as to the party of the second part, so, uh, ya did have a come, didja, love?”

    “Yes, you twit!” she gasped, laughing like a drain. “Couldn’t you tell by the decibel level?”

    “Uh—oh. Well, I think I mighta done a certain amount of yelling at the time, meself,” he admitted.

    “Yes, you did, thank goodness. I can’t stand the push, grunt and flop sort.”

    “No,” he croaked, goggling at her. “With you? Musta been something wrong with them!”

    “I think there probably was,” she replied with that serene smile of hers that he had, actually, noticed before.

    Suddenly Stan felt real all-overish, hugged her to him, buried his face in her neck and muttered: “Jesus, Polly, if I don’t get this bloody job with Baranski I think I’ll top meself.”

    “Well,” replied Polly with a sigh, hugging him, “I could say that with that trust fund Jake went and set up behind my back I’ve got lots of income that I can’t stop coming, so I could easily support you. But I suppose that would grossly insult your dinkum Aussie bloke’s sensibilities. –By the way, I should warn you that I’ve definitely taken a raincheck on that sophisticated forty-five minutes of foreplay.”

    After a minute Stan looked up groggily and said: “Are you quoting my own words back at me, or something?”

    “Mm. You probably don't remember all that well: it was just before you got up there and came like a rocket.”

    “Forty-five minutes? Can’ta known what I was saying,” he decided. “I could manage, uh… four.”

    Polly choked.

    “Yeah,” he said, smiling a bit. “Um, no, seriously, pet, I can’t let you support me, it’s not on.”

    “If I said ‘two rational adults’, would it still be not on?”

    Stan grimaced. “Yeah. Dunno why; me cultural brainwashing, dare say. But I do know myself well enough to know it’d never work, love.”

    “No, I didn’t really think it would. Um… well, I do know of another job going, but it's not an academic job. I don’t think it pays all that well, but it’d be enough to support you—let you pay your way.”

    “Share the expenses, eh?” he said with a little smile.

    “Yes. Well, of course there’s no mortgage on this place, there’s only the rates and the electricity. –Jake inherited it from his first wife’s father: he left it to them jointly, and when they got divorced he wanted to buy her out, but she hung onto her half for spite: she never used the place. I don’t know why she wanted to marry him, really—I never knew her back then, but I met her years later. She was quite a bit older than him, and he was very good-looking, but back then he was pretty broke, and he admitted to me that she didn’t even like sex much. I rather think she did it to spite her father, because he was dead set against it at first. And of course back then the social pressure to get a husband must have been a lot worse than these days—though mind you, even though lots of them don’t bother to get married until they’ve had two kids, being in an established couple by the time you’re twenty-two or so is still very much the norm, and singles tend to be excluded from everything.”

    “Twenty-two?” replied Stan in horror.

    “Jenny said it’s just the same in Oz. Think about it.”

    He thought about it. “Shit,” he concluded.

    “Mm. Anyway, Esmé—that was her name—did agree to sell, eventually. Was that— Um, yes, that was before the murder. There was some business deal— No, I’ve got it wrong. Anyway, the guy that was involved in the deal was murdered on Jake’s patio, and everyone concluded Esmé had done it, after she took a pot-shot at Jake and then shot herself.” Stan was now goggling at her. “But I didn’t believe it then and I still don’t—the police never proved anything, but they closed the case. She was gonna make quite a lot of money out of the bloke that was murdered, you see, she had every reason not to kill him. But anyway, Jake ended up buying up her half, and then he bought the land over the road that the motor camp was on, the excuse being he was gonna keep all this end of the road natural, you see, only then he put the ruddy copter landing place on it.”

    “Too much intel, darl’,” said Stan, putting a hand to his head.

    “Sorry. It’s ancient history, anyway. Um, I think I started out to say that this place only costs a minimum, really.”

    “Sure. So what is this other job, pet?” he asked, hugging her gently.

    “Um, driving for Col James—he’s Jolly Jim Carriers up here, you see. It’s mostly furniture removal, but he does have some courier work as well, delivering stuff—you know. Um, the man was who was doing it chucked it in, and if anybody tells you,” said Polly loudly, going very red, “that I was sleeping with him, well, I wasn’t! If ya wanna know, he couldn’t take the Lady Carrano bullshit!”

    Stan just hugged her, propped his chin on her head and said mildly: “Musta been a tit, then.”

    “Yes,” said Polly with a sigh, relaxing: “he was.”

    Making a mental note to get hold of Sol Winkelmann some time and get the real gen about all this murderous first wife crap—sounded as if there were some unresolved issues there, poor girl—Stan said cheerfully: “Sounds like a goer! It’d mean I’d see a bit of the district, eh? Good exercise, too. Good-oh: if Baranski turns me down, I’ll check it out.”

    “Oh, good!” she replied with relief, smiling.

    Stan could only conclude that she’d been surrounded for most of her life by a load of useless wankers. Jesus.

    “Anything to eat in this joint?” he asked mildly.

    “Um—help. Not much. Um, there’s eggs,” she offered feebly. “And plenty of bread in the freezer.”

    “Eggs and toast, then? I dunno what the time is, but I haven’t had anything to eat since that slice of flabby Qantas toast at round seven, Eastern Time.”

    “Um… I always get the time difference wrong,” Polly admitted.

    “You’re two hours ahead of the east coast,” said Stan, looking at the watch that somehow he’d forgotten to remove like a little gent.

    “Ye-es…”

    “Woulda been nine o’clock your time.”

    “You must be starving. What time is, it, anyway?”

    “Uh—something very odd,” he admitted.

    “Where’s my watch?” said Polly, looking round vaguely.

    “Uh—here.” Stan retrieved it from the far side of a fancy fat floral vase on the bedside table. Er… Worcester? There was a lot of pink in it but that very dark blue trim… Yes, well, very nice. The vase on the opposite side of the bed was, however, almost definitely Famille rose. “Bloody Hell, it’s nearly five o’clock!”

   “It can’t be. I only had breakfast—oh. Actually I don’t know what time it was. Then I popped back to bed for forty winks—”

    Stan collapsed in sniggers. Though recovering to admit: “We’d better skip the eggs and toast and get on down to your Mitre 10 pronto, get that lock for you.”

    “No, it’s all right, it’s Thursday, the Puriri shops are open late on Thursdays!” she beamed. “Isn’t that good? It seems quite providential, really!”

    “Something like that,” he agreed mildly, re-setting his watch by hers, though silently acknowledging that on her track record so far it could be completely wrong. No, well, he had lost two hours, of course… Which meant he’d only been up for twelve hours. Barring the odd doze in Lady Carrano’s bed, that was! Grinning, he got up, and said: “Think I better have a shower. –Stir ya stumps, woman, and get that meal on the table!”

    “I’m only good at scrambled or fried,” Polly admitted, getting up and assuming the green fuzzy thing that hid nothing much.

    “Scrambled would be lovely, thanks, darling,” replied Stan, smiling very much. “Oh, fuck! Don’t cry again, sweetie, for God’s sake! It’s okay, everything’s gonna be okay, I’ll take any bloody job that’s going—Hell, if the worst comes to the worst I’ll supply Winkelmann with bait!”

    Polly sniffed valiantly but the tears ran down her cheeks. “I’ve been so miserable— And then Mum died and things just seemed to get on top of me—”

    “I know. I’m really sorry,” he said, hugging her tight. “Shoulda bitten on the bullet and come home with ya. But I— Dunno. Thought we’d both better think about it, I suppose.”

    “I couldn’t think,” she said soggily.

    “Nor could I, really,” Stan admitted. “The brain doesn’t work too well when you're hard as bejasus from morn till night. Good ole Mac offered me a freebie, to ease it, kinda thing, only I didn’t want that: shows ya how far gone I was, doesn’t it?”

    “Mm,” she agreed. “I kept feeling I was slipping back into the old groove, even though I’d got rid of the house… But you know. Seeing the same people. Which is very ungrateful, some of them are very kind friends, they’ve been wonderful, really.”

    “I know whatcha mean. Ma Brinkman and Ma Corrigan kept on ordering fish, and Mac’s trade hotted up—uh, sorry, that came out wrong: the influx of holiday-makers at Christmas meant that she needed more fish for the fish and chips trade, you see, same as every year; and… Yeah. It was same old, same old, and it seemed as if there wasn’t gonna be any light at the end of the tunnel.”

    “Mm.” Polly hugged him tightly. “So does Mac usually charge the blokes?”

    “Huh? Oh! Yeah; she doesn’t usually hand out freebies, she reckons if they want it the can cough up the dough. Well, types like Brinkman can more than afford it.”

    “Phil Brinkman?” she gasped, looking up at him in astonishment. “You’re kidding!”

    “Nope: regular customer. The story is, there’s this blokes-only bridge club. Bloody Louise lets him go to that, ya see: bridge is respectable. What she doesn’t know is that they take turns to nip off to Mac’s. Tuesdays and Thursdays, the club meets. He doesn’t get it every week,” he added, his shoulders beginning to shake, “because there’s eight or so of them in it—takes four for a hand of bridge. But every time they come down he manages to get his share.”

    Abruptly Polly collapsed in a gale of giggles.

    “Yeah,” said Stan, grinning all over his face. “Not one of them under the age of sixty, mind, but—”

    “Stop—it!” she gasped helplessly.

    “That doesn’t stop ’em,” he ended placidly. “Well, I’ll grab that shower. You get the eggs on, eh?” With that, he patted her bottom, and vanished.

    Far from scurrying into the kitchen to carry out her womanly duties, Polly just sat down heavily on the bed. “Heck,” she uttered weakly.

    Jill Davis’s bony fingers nigh to met in the flesh of her housemate’s upper-arm.

    “Ow!” gasped poor Gretchen, tears starting to her eyes.

    Ignoring her agony, Jill replied tensely: “Look! That’s Polly with a man!”

    “So vhat’s new?” she croaked. “Vhy are you torturing me about that?”

    “No! A completely new one!” hissed Jill. “And if he’s not an Aussie then I’m a Dutchman in his clogs!”

    Gretchen looked pointedly at her feet, but her sneakers didn’t metamorphose into clogs. “This iss crap, Jill. How can you possibly tell that from halfvay across the supermarket?”

    “It’s these new glasses,” Jill admitted on a sheepish note. “And it wasn’t halfway, they were just at the end of this aisle. I’m positive those were those Named Aussie boots! –The famous elastic-sided ones!” she hissed.

    “Do not spit,” replied Gretchen, stepping back. “Just because ve saw that interesting documentary about the vay the leather iss cut to make those boot uppers—”

    Jill had been nodding fiercely. “Yes!” she hissed. “They were! And I’d take a hefty bet those trousers are Australian! Well, look at the locals!”

    Gretchen winced. “I would rather not.”

    “Uh—no, you’re right,” agreed Jill, wincing as a typical older male—snail-like, slightly bent and creased, clad in a no-colour sagging short-sleeved knit shirt and truly horrid baggy grey shorts above his spindly legs in their immense sneakers, shuffled past them to give way to a view of two young ones, uniformly clad in baggy and very crumpled long black shorts topped by hugely baggy black tees. They appeared to be comparing the rival merits of two brands of baked beans, and probably were.

    “Those are not real sardines,” she sighed as Gretchen lifted a tin. “Sild. Scandawegian.”

    “Very true,” she agreed, putting them back. “Gott!” she gasped, as two more samples hove in sight. Middle-aged, slightly overweight, entirely clad in black stretch lycra.

    “Puts it well. Mamils,” gulped Jill.

    “Vhat?”

    “Middle-aged men in lycra. Mamils,” she sighed. “Current buzz word.”

    “It vill be forgotten by the year 2020,” she predicted.

    “Yes. Come on, there are no real sardines in this dump. Polly and the chap went thataway.”

    Sighing, Gretchen followed her in the direction of thataway.

    “There!” she hissed.

    “Ja. They vill not find anything fresh in that dim green cave,” she predicted.

    “How true. Look hard at his boots!” she hissed.

    “I am,” she sighed.

    “Well?”

    “Ja, I think you’re right as to the provenance of the boots. But possibly he’s a Kivi who buys some clobber ofer there vhen he’s on holiday.”

    “Rubbish. Kiwi men can’t dress. –Nice figure, eh?”

    “Very. Did you expect Polly to pick one who had not?”

    “Uh—no,” croaked Jill, wondering frantically if that syntax was correct.

    “Oh, dear, he picks up a lettuce,” noted Gretchen, peering.

    Four large matrons with trolleys had suddenly surged up from nowhere and blocked Jill’s view. She tiptoed. “Blast! Can’t see a thing!”

    “Come on, ve had better warn him off those lettuces, if he iss a new fancy she vill be incapable of it,” decided Gretchen.

    Before Jill could grab her or even gasp “No!” she was cleaving her way through the matrons. Gulping, Jill tottered in her wake.

    By the time she got there Gretchen was shaking hands with him, saying: “How do you do, Stan?” and he was saying: “How are you, Gretchen?”

    Jill’s lips moved silently in “Bonn manners” but she allowed Polly to beam at her and say: “Hi, Jill! This is Stan.” At which the aforesaid Stan—shit, he looked rather like Steve McQueen might have twenty years on from The Great Escape, if he hadn’t got sick, poor bastard: no wonder Polly was distinctly pinkish round the edges—at which he stuck out his hand and said in what was definitely an Aussie drawl: “How are you, Jill?” Which would have proved it even without the drawl, wouldn’t it? Jill eschewed the vernacular “Hullo” minus the name of the addressee, and replied: “Nice to meet you, Stan. Been over here long?”

    “Nah, just come over this morning for a job interview,” he drawled.

    “It’s tomorrow,” Polly explained.

    Contrary to appearances, the laws of time and space had not been suspended, so, no, it was still tod— Oh. “Right. Whereabouts, Stan?” she asked feebly.

    “Sir George Grey University. Don’t think I’ll get it, though. Been out of the field too long.”

    “May one enquire vhat field?” asked Gretchen politely.

    “Geology.”

    Jill had to swallow. “Cripes, isn’t that Baranski’s empire?” she said to Polly.

    Polly nodded but before she could speak, if she’d been going to, Gretchen was asking clinically: “So would that be out off the field in the sense of the discipline off geology, or merely out off field work?”

    To which Stan replied, his eyes twinkling: “Both, Gretchen.”

    “Hah, hah. Bonn nil, the Aussies take it out,” said Jill.

    “Don’t you mean, ‘Stan takes it out for the Aussie side’?” suggested Polly.

    “Them an’ all. –Sorry, Stan. It’s the Aryan passion for Ordnung,” Jill explained.

    “Merely, I prefer exactitude,” said Gretchen calmly. “Stan Vhat, may I ask?”

    “Stan Gorski,” he replied. At the same time Polly said: “Stan Smith.”

    Then a nasty silence reigned before the dim green-lighted cave in which the Puriri supermarket kept its wilting lettuces.

    The agonised Jill was about to seize her housemate’s arm and melt tactfully into the distance but before she could move Stan said: “Uh—no, sorry, Polly. It is Gorski, same as the bay, but I didn’t fancy the idea of how Ma Brinkman and her pals’d react if I let on my ancestor founded the ruddy place. So I decided to be Smith.”

    The Kowhai Bay housemates looked anxiously at Polly but she just smiled sunnily and said: “I see! Ugh, no, it doesn’t bear thinking about! –But what about the locals? Or did you fool them, too?”

    “No, they all know. Think it’s hilarious. Bree Wilson down the supermarket, she called me ‘Mr Smith’ in front of the cow last time I was in there and then had a giggling fit, only types like Louise Brinkman don’t bother to notice the odd incongruous reaction from the hoi polloi. –That’s ‘odd’ in the vernacular sense of ‘occasional’, Gretchen,” he added kindly.

    Jill choked.

    Gretchen’s eyes twinkled. “Ja, I got that, thanks, Stan.”

    “I told you about the Brinkmans’ awful barbie,” Polly reminded them. “She’s the graciously condescending sort.”

    “In Australia?” croaked Jill.

    “Yep. There’s a fair bit of it about in the second-homer belt,” drawled Stan.

    Yo, boy. No wonder Polly had fallen for him! The looks—very masculine looks, in case nobody had noticed—the figure—he was a slim man but there was a considerable depth of chest there, probably a lot of boxing or swimming or both in his youth, diagnosed Jill—and quite obviously a bloody sharp mind. Not to say that macho laconic bit. Polly always had fancied the macho type—well, look at Jake.

    “Ooh, Gretchen, I’m sorry! How was Bonn?” Polly then gasped.

    “Very cold and boring, thank you, Polly, but that vas to be expected. But my sister iss recovering vell from the operation and has begun bossing her husband and sons about as much as effer, I’m glad to say.”

    “Oh, good! And the rest of the family?”

    “Very vell, thanks, except that Friedrich has had to haff some small lumps removed from an eyelid. They are not uncommon in later life, and not at all dangerous, but he was very annoyed because there vas some footling sports event on TV that veek that he vanted to vatch and he could only see out off one eye.”

    “Serve him right for trying to crack a Brazil with his bare hands!” she squeaked, suddenly breaking down in giggles.

    “Ja, exactly!” agreed Gretchen with a laugh.

    “Was that him? I thought it was Gerhard,” groped Jill.

    “No, Gerhard bought Mutti the silly meat hammer, Jill.”

    “Right,” she conceded limply. “Er—sorry, Stan, this must sound like Greek to you.”

    “Nope, sounds pretty much like family life. So you’re from Bonn, Gretchen? Soulless place, I always felt.”

    “Ja, all that post-Var architecture,” she agreed.

    “I’ll say,” said Polly. “I didn’t realise, and Jake dumped me in an awful hotel there while he went off to meetings. I tried going for a walk, but it got worse, not better. But did you get over to England to see Joel, Jill?”

    “Yes. He’s very frail, I’m afraid, Polly.”

    “Ja,” Gretchen agreed. “He did recognise us, but vhen we came the second day he had forgotten that he had already seen us. Oh, vell. He iss a lot older than Jill, you know.”

    “Oh, dear, I wish I’d gone to see him when I was in Europe last year. I could easily have popped over. But the weather was freezing and by the time I hit Paris all I could really think of was getting back to a bit of sunshine before our winter.”

    “Off course, very natural. And you had so much on your mind, vhat with the house and so forth,” said Gretchen kindly. “But you could still nip ofer, you know.”

    “Gretchen, it is a whole day in a ruddy plane,” murmured Jill.

    “She vill travel First Class on an Emirates plane and haff one of those sleeping pods that ve see on that ad for that unspeakable chick flick.”

    Seeing Jill was starting to glare, Stan put in mildly: “You could do that, love.”

    “Um, no, if that was the ad for Sex and the City 2—or actually I think it might have been Emirates taking advantage of the film to advertise themselves—anyway, those pods look claustrophobic.”

    “Well, dare say you could sit up in the little lounge they provide for First Class passengers knocking back the free champagne all the way,” he replied calmly.

    “I—I could,” she agreed shakily.

    Jill sighed. “Look, at this juncture I think you just need to take it easy, Polly. Get over losing your mum. And actually, they told us at the home not to stay more than five minutes at a stretch with Joel, he gets tired so easily. He’s not really up to receiving visitors.”

    “They haff moved him into the full-care facility,” explained Gretchen.

    “I see,” she said, biting her lip. “I—I’m very sorry, Jill.”

    Jill sighed. “Yeah. Well, he’s had a good run. Still in work at eighty—not many that can say that. –Sorry, Stan: my cousin Joel’s a character actor. He’s in a very nice home for old actors, but— Well. Even the best retirement home is depressing.”

    “Yeah. My older sister’s in a nice complex in the Sydney suburbs: she’s in an independent-living flat, but there’s quite a big block for the ones who aren’t so mobile—ranges from full bed-care to quite nice little bed-sit arrangements with their own ensuites. They lay on meals in the big dining-room that any of the residents can turn up to—for a price, naturally—and Sue sometimes goes over for lunch, but she reckons it’s a real trial, the most any of them achieve in the way of conversation is on the level of what happened in the last episode of ruddy Neighbours on the idiot-box.”

    “It’s an Australian soapie,” said Polly helpfully.

    “Ve get it,” replied Gretchen kindly. “That sounds most typical, Stan: one would find that very depressing. –I think Jill’s right, Polly: you would exhaust yourself going ofer to England for very little result, if any. –Come on, Jill, maybe The Deli vill haff Portuguese sardines, ve try there. Very nice to meet you, Stan. Good luck vith the yob interview.”

    Swallowing in the wake of this last phrase, well-intentioned though it was, Jill agreed: “Yes: best of luck, Stan. Uh—think the only advice I can give you is stand up to Baranski at the interview: he despises people who knuckle under to him. Nice to meet you. –’Bye, Polly.”

    “Ta-ta, Jill. –Let me know if you can’t find Portuguese sardines, Gretchen: I’ve got loads in the shed.”

    “Thank you, Polly, I vill.” With this she seized Jill’s arm and dragged her off between two huge matrons with piled trolleys.

    Stan looked limply at Polly. “What was that?”

    “The Kowhai Bay Inquisitor and Frau Igor, her assistant!” she replied with a loud giggle.

    “Goddit. Known them long, have you?”

    “Since I was an undergraduate.” Happily Polly explained who Jill and Gretchen were. Stan didn’t listen all that much. He just tucked his arm in hers and smiled a lot.

    The Deli having yielded nothing in the way of a Portuguese sardine, Jill and Gretchen retreated to the carpark in silence. Jill just got into the heap and sat there while Gretchen put what meagre provender they had managed to find tidily in the boot.

    “Ve forgot the eggs,” she said, getting in beside her.

    “Shut up, I’m thinking.”

    Obligingly Gretchen shut up. As Jill was in the driver’s seat, she just sat there.

    Finally Jill sighed and said: “Well, the answer’s a lemon. All I can conclude is he’s an Aussie and she possibly but not necessarily met him at this dump that’s named after his ancestor, possibly but not necessarily the last time she was over there.”

    “Ja, and he looks like an older Steve McQveen.”

    “I noticed,” she said heavily.

    “Qvite intelligent, I think? A very masculine type, but she likes that.”

    “Gretchen, this bloke is applying for a job with Baranski—Baranski!—with no recent time in the field!” she cried.

    After a moment Gretchen admitted sadly: “I vas trying not to think that.”

    “Uh—were you? Sorry,” said Jill lamely.

    Silence fell.

    Finally Gretchen said: “I vote for going home and knocking back several stiff chins.”

    “It’s only Thursday, and I’ve got work tomorrow, not all of us are retired plutocrats with huge bank accounts in Bonn,” she sighed. “Your brothers are right, you know: nobody’s getting rich on that dough but the bloody bank.”

    “I do not trust any stock market in the world.”

    “Uh—no, well, good point. Dunno that at this stage in global history it’s a good idea to trust any bank, either.”

    “Put it in a safe deposit box as Jake did vith all that stuff Polly gives to Oxfam?” she suggested dubiously.

    “Apart from the ruddy bearer bonds, those were appreciating assets, you twit.”

    “Oh, ja. But the bank did not suffer in the GFC.”

    “True.”

    Silence fell again.

    “You’re right,” decided Jill heavily, coming to and starting the car. “A few stiff gins;”—she backed out carefully—“and then stand by to pick up the pieces when the bloke doesn’t get the bloody job,” she concluded grimly.

Next chapter:

https://anothercountry-apuririchronicle.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-candidate.html