Ghosts Of Christmas Past

2

Ghosts Of Christmas Past

    “Eh?” croaked Pete, staring at his son-in-law. “Ya don’t have to buy a flamin’ Christmas tree round these here parts, matey!”

    Jan cleared her throat. It was true most of the middle of New Zealand’s North Island was covered in “Christmas trees”—radiata pine to the cognoscenti—but they were not actually the property, nor yet the legitimate prey, of Pete McLeod. Even if he had behaved all his life as if they were.

    “Well, where did you get that lovely one we had last year, Dad?” asked the innocent Jayne in bewilderment.

    Jan shut her eyes.

    “Eh? Same as usual: me and young Sean just— Um, off the property,” he lied.

    “I didn’t see any when I was clearing the Rewarewa Trail for the summer trade,” noted Andrew.

    Jan had been about to open her eyes. She left them shut. Summer trade? The phrase had never been heard round these parts! Well, over at Fern Gully Ecolodge—yeah: God knew what went on there, in between the organic breakfasts and the pole-vaulting—um, not that, um, obstacle coursing and, um, volunteeri— No! Orienteering!

    “What, Jan?” fumbled Andrew.

    “Eh?” replied Jan feebly, opening her eyes.

    Jayne smiled anxiously at her. “You said ‘orienteering’, Jan.”

    “Um, did I? Um, well, just wondering if there any likely Christmas trees over Fern Gully way, really, Jayne, dear,” she lied.

    “No,” said Pete instantly.

    Jan gave him an exasperated look. Ruddy twit! Did he want Andrew to know that for the last umpteen years he’d been nicking valuable timber from Forest Products that owned half the North Island?

    “They get in the way of the orienteering, ya see,” Pete added blandly.

    Jan coughed suddenly. “Yeah. Well, you go ahead and buy a Christmas tree, Andrew, dear: I’m sure there’ll be some nice ones in town,” she lied.

    Pete opened his mouth in amazement, caught her eye, and subsided.

    “Ruddy twit!” said Jan fiercely when they were safely back in their own little house by the lakeshore and Andrew had bustled off to be hostly to this morning’s minibus load of returning ecolodgers that Bob Kenny, who drove for them, could perfectly well have managed on his own. Well, heck, assuring them that there was stacks of time to go to their rooms before lunch—read, go to the loo—was all it amounted to.

    “Eh?” he groped.

    “Do you want Andrew to know that Forest Products could sue you for megabucks?”

    “Aw—that. They’ll never miss the odd tree here and there, Jan!”

    The forestry industry did control what was logged fairly carefully, there were regs about that sort of thing these days, though apparently not about the mess that was usually left behind, but on the whole he was probably right. Especially as, though the ecolodge’s guests’ lounge had a very high, gabled kauri ceiling built by Pete’s own loving hands out of exactly what was better not to ask, he’d only nicked miniature forest giants for previous Christmases, not actual mature trees.

    “Pete, in the first place if Andrew knows you’ve been nicking from them he’ll worry over it, and in the second place he’ll start worrying that you might go and do it again, and in the third pl—”

    “You can stop now, I get the point.”

    Jan did stop: she wasn’t too sure what the third place had been gonna be. “Yes, well. You’re a dill.”

    He sighed. “Yeah. –I just wish that Jayne had married Bob instead!” he burst out.

    Jan repressed an urge to tear her hair out with both hands. Bob Kenny was now married to Libby, Jayne’s younger sister, and the pair of them were blissfully happy together: you couldn’t have found two people more suited to each other if you’d scoured the whole of the universe! “Libby and Bob are—”

    “Yeah. Not that. I mean, I don’t mean I wish he hadn’t married her. You know: he’s an easier type to get on with.”

    He was about as feckless as Pete himself was, yeah! You had to be businesslike to make an enterprise like an ecolodge—well, glorified motel with restaurant—to make it work, and Andrew had a very good B.Com. that had landed him his former job, coincidentally with the Carrano Group, but when he’d decided to take on the ecolodge he’d also done a small business management course and read up loads of books on hospitality management, horrid phrase, and in short done all the right things, and Taupo Shores Ecolodge was now more in the black than it had ever been in its entire history. Whereas Bob, well-meaning though he was, would have run it into the ground in less than six months. No business acumen whatsoever. But yes, he was very, very easy to get on with. One of those big, gentle, easy-going men.

    “Mm,” said Jan peaceably. “Well, we could get on over to their place this arvo, if you like. Or has Andrew got Libby scheduled to take a lot out in the Tallulah Tub, and him for another drive to the junk shops or something?”

    Pete didn’t correct her terminology to Taupo Shores Tallulah: he’d actually got used to the unkind nickname for the beloved boat—well, other manias had intervened since the miraculous year he’d done her up, put it like that.

    “Dunno. Could look on the ruddy timetable, I s’pose.” Andrew had efficiently given them a copy of the Kennys’ weekly schedule, but as on the whole Jan was quite grateful to have it she hadn’t said anything. Pete had said plenty but only behind the bloke’s back. And at least Bob had the sense, not to say the guts, to put his foot down good an’ proper when Andrew tried to overload Libby with work. He’d put the kybosh on the idea of her waiting in the ecolodge’s restaurant in the evenings, thank God. She was in her forties and though she had a very equable temperament she wasn’t coping too well with the menopause. Awful cramps when she got her periods, for a start. Added to which she couldn’t stand up to Andrew’s nice but managing personality. Or to anyone, really. That bitch of a first wife of Pete’s had more or less squashed all the enterprise out of her. Thank God she had found Bob!

    “What’s up?” said Pete in alarm as she got out a hanky and sniffled into it,

    “Nothing. Being silly. Well, just thanking God that Libby found Bob when she did, really.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed. “You sit there, lovey, I’ll check his blimmin’ timetable.” It was on the back of the kitchen door. He mooched in there. “BUGGER!”

    He mooched out. “Nah,” he reported sourly. “He’s got Bob doing the half-day National Park tour and Libby down for the boat. Well, depends if there’s any takers—but yeah. Down for the boat.”

    “Mm. She loves driving it, though, Pete.”

    Pete had long since given up telling his female belongings you didn’t drive a boat. He eyed her tolerantly. “Yeah. Hey, tell you what! We could go on it! Why not?”

    “Like tourists?” croaked Jan.

    “Yeah! Why not? We’re retired, aren’t we?” he said on a proud note.

    To his relief Jan burst into a gale of a laughter. Phew! It had been touch and go there, for a minute. She’d had bouts of bawling ever since they came back from poor ole Jake’s funeral. Not like Jan to give way, ya might of said—no. But heck, Jake was different.

    And it wasn’t helping that Polly’s bloody relations seemed to have talked her out of coming down here, after all. Well, heck, the funeral had been back in October and it was nearly Christmas and they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her! Jan had muttered something about settling the estate, but for God’s sake! The man had had fleets of bloody lawyers! Not just an ordinary lawyer like any bloke might have to make his will, but corporate lawyers, as well! There was nothing for the family to do but sit back and let them sort it. Well, in any case young Davey was only interested in his farm—and good on the kid, at least he was making something of his life—and Johnny as usual had his head in the clouds with his ruddy varsity stuff. Uh... At this point a vivid vision of the red-headed Katie Maureen Carrano’s pretty little face and horribly stubborn chin swam into Pete’s McLeod’s mind. Yeah, well. But Polly didn’t need to be there while the kid told the lawyers what was what! Anyway, it had probably been the aunts or cousins or something. Her sisters-in-law were okay, couldn’t of been them, and the oldest one, she was a widow herself, she’d know what it was like.

    “How the Hell old is that bloody aunt of Polly’s, anyway?”

    Jan jumped. “What?”

    “That bloody Aunty Kay of Polly’s! How the Hell old is she? Isn’t she that one that was her mum’s twin, for God’s sake?”

    “Um, still is, Pete,” said Jan on a weak note. “Well, I dunno: I suppose they’d be in their late eighties, Polly’s oldest brother was a lot older than her. Her mum’s pretty frail, the daughters-in-law made her go straight to bed after the funeral service,” she reminded him.

    “That’s what I’m saying. That ruddy Kay must be strong as a bloody horse. It’ll be her that’s bullied Polly into not coming down here, that’s what!” he said viciously.

    Could you bully someone into not? He was right, though, she was pretty sure. “Mm.”

    “Um, would Polly still have the copter?”

    Cripes, what in Hell was he envisaging? “No, ya nit, it was the Group’s, not Jake’s own!”

    “Aw. Yeah.” Pete’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything.

    “What are you planning?” asked Jan in a doomed voice.

    “Nothing. Only a wee trip on the good ole Taupo Shores Tallulah like the tourists!” he said jauntily. “I’ll get the lunch, lovey, you have a bit of a rest. Cheese doorsteps with piccalilli, how’s that grab yer?”

    Ghastly though it sounded, in fact it’d just hit the spot! “Yeah, great. Ta, Pete.”

    “Good-oh. Wash it down with a nice lager, eh? Ya don’t wanna be ruining yer insides with tea on a lovely day like this,” he said happily, ambling off to the kitchen.

    Jan blinked and looked out the window at the view of the vast expanses of Lake Taupo. It was, actually. A glorious day.

    ... Could he be planning something mad? He hadn’t broken out—not really broken out—for ages and ages. But even if he could manage to steal a helicopter from somewhere—there’d be a mate with a mate that did crop dusting, come to think of it—even if he could, he didn’t know how to fly it. Um, hitch a plane ride up to Auckland with that mate of a mate—no, son of a mate, same diff’—that did air freight and small group tours of the Rotorua-Taupo area? Uh—and then what? Kidnap Polly bodily? Rats!

    Polly opened the front door of the Carrano mansion on the cliff top at Pohutukawa Bay, and gasped.

    “Gidday, Polly,” said Pete jauntily.

    “What are you doing here?” she gasped.

    As he’d thought, her eyes were bloody red, so Pete replied grimly: “Come to fetch you for Christmas. Don’t argue, ya don’t need another dose of them blasted relations of yours. You can grab a few clothes but don’t bother bringing nothing fancy, ta.”

    “Um, no. I mean, yes,” she said dazedly. She peered behind him. “Does Jan know you’re here?”

    “Nah. Thinks I’ve gone off to give Mike Short a hand with ’is ruddy launches for the day. Get yer stuff.”

    Polly swallowed hard. “How—how did you get up here, Pete?” –It was possible to make it all the way up here from Taupo in about six hours, if you broke the speed limit. And if you knew all the tricks of the snarl of motorways leading into Auckland, out of Auckland to the Harbour Bridge, and thence up to North Auckland. Which she was pretty sure Pete didn’t.

    Looking airy, Pete replied: “Copter. Mate of Dave Reilly’s—don’t think you’d know him. One of Vern’s boys. Runs an air freight business.”

    “I—I thought he ran a trucking business?”

    “Nah, that’s his brother—Greg.”

    Polly licked her lips. Pete was as bad as Jake, and there had been instances in the past of illegally landing the Group’s helicopter up Carter’s Inlet over the road from their bach, semi-legally landing the Group’s helicopter in the horse paddock here—it was their land but they had no permission, whether from the Puriri County Council or New Zealand’s air traffic authorities, to land anything there—and, quite possibly worst of all, illegally landing the Group’s helicopter on the flat roof of Puriri Private Hospital, right in the middle of the built-up area of the township.

    “Um, where did you land it, Pete?” she quavered.

    “Your horse paddock, and get a move on before somebody notices!”

    They were pretty isolated up here on the cliff top, but in order to get here you had to come past the settlement of Pohutukawa Bay—unless they’d flown in over the sea?

    “Did you—did you fly in over the sea?” she faltered.

    “Eh? Yeah: come up the Gulf, if it’s relevant! Will ya for Chrissakes stir ya stumps!”

    Reflecting dazedly that she could always phone the family from Taupo, it wasn’t actually the ends of the earth, Polly gave in. “Okay. Come in, Pete.”

    “Right,” he agreed, coming into the huge, airy, kauri-panelled modernistic entrance hall. Great big fancy green glass window down the far end—she was fond of green, but that hadn’t been her choice: all this lot was down to him. Polly would’ve been quite content, Pete would have bet his right arm, with an old, dark, verandahed wooden farmhouse like what her older son and her mum were living in.

    He went upstairs with her, he wasn’t gonna chance her changing her mind while his eye was off her.

    “Leave that lot,” he said firmly as she opened the wardrobe doors and looked blankly at the ranks of fancy clobber. “Where’s ya jeans?”

    “Um, in a drawer, I think. I think Daph put that last lot of laundry away...” she said vaguely.

    This was the moo that worked for her—well, had worked for Jake since he first come to Pohutukawa Bay. She was quite a decent woman but bloody typical, she’d try to talk Polly out of just coming down, so Pete didn’t remind her to ring her and let her know she was going away.

    “Right, that’ll do,” he said as she shoved the jeans, a couple of tops, and some extremely lacy bras and panties—what probably weren’t designed to go under yer daggy jeans and washed-out tee-shirts but too bad—into a fancy-looking case. “Come on.”

    “Um, I might need a jumper, the nights can be chilly, Taupo’s more than a thousand—”

    “Feet above sea level, we know! Jan’s got loads of jumpers, if ya need one. Come on!”

    And with that he grabbed her arm and hauled her out of it.

    Jan went over to the ecolodge in the afternoon, since Pete had disappeared for the day. Why he wanted to give Mike Short a hand, God knew: she’d been under the impression that he couldn’t stand the man—he’d be well into his fifties now, but the phrase that best described him was still “loud-voiced lout”—but no doubt it was one of those male peer-group things: a bloke needed a hand, so you had to— Yeah.

    Lunch was over, the dishwasher was chugging away peacefully—it no longer made a noise like a Boeing taking off: whether Andrew had found the right bloke to come in and do something to its insides—highly unlikely round Taupo way—or had simply replaced the old one, Jan wasn’t asking—and two batches of scones for afternoon tea were cooling on the kitchen table. The clients from the ecolodge’s six double rooms had either opted for the afternoon minibus tour to National Park with Bob, or were sitting somnolently down by the lake shore, digesting. The bunkhouse was full but its twelve young people had long since pushed off, either for a long tramp over National Park, or down the Rimu Trail with Jayne’s daughter Tamsin as their guide. It led off the property and into the wilderness of Crown land for about six miles or so and then cunningly led back by a shorter route. The other workers had vanished: Andrew was doing accounts in the office, the invaluable Michelle Callaghan had long since finished the cleaning and gone home, Libby had done waitress at lunchtime and then gone home, Bob having vetoed Andrew’s suggestion that she might like to pick some beans for them this afternoon, and Janet Barber, who’d been with Jan and Pete for years and was still helping in the kitchen, had seen the lunches prepared but then gone home to feed the two huge useless lumps of sons who were still battening off her at the ages of thirty and thirty-three respectively. And in all likelihood the divorced hubby as well: he was a bludger, too. “The boys” didn’t actually live at home, no: they just came over and bludged— Oh, well. The woman’d have nothing at all to do if they didn’t, she wasn’t the sort that went in for hobbies or clubs, or anything, really. So it was just as well that Andrew’s super-duperising of Taupo Shores Ecolodge hadn’t included getting rid of her, eh? She was due back at two-thirtyish, so any minute now—

    Jan and Jayne had just raised the teacups to their lips when in she came. Wait for it... Yep, took one look at the pots of homemade strawberry and loganberry jam set out near the scones and: “You’re not wasting your lovely Devonshire teas on the tourists, are you, Jayne?”

    “Tourists” was a pejorative word round Taupo way, even though most of the population gained their livings from tourism or related industries.

    “Um, tourists?” faltered Jayne—she wasn’t yet used to her.

    “She means that the actual guests have mostly gone out for the arvo with Bob,” Jan explained kindly.

    Janet sniffed.

    “Oh,” said Jayne weakly. “But—but we do advertise Devonshire teas, Janet. I mean if—if people come to the restaurant for afternoon tea, that’s what they expect.”

    Janet sniffed again. “Wasted.”

    Jayne’s lovely oval face had taken on a bewildered expression. She looked helplessly at Jan.

    “Rubbish, Janet,” said Jan briskly. “Scones are dead easy, you know that!”

    Sniffing, Janet went over to the fridge. “I could make some meringues if you’re planning fruit salad for this evening, Jayne.”

    Jan gave Jayne a warning look.

    “Well, I—” she floundered.

    Oops! Obviously hadn’t known how to interpret the warning look! “Janet’s a dab-hand at meringues, Jayne, I’d accept that offer if I was you.”

    “Oh! Um, yes, that would be lovely, Janet, thank you! Then I won’t have to worry about a third pudding.”

    “I should think not!” replied Janet, turning from the fridge with a carton of eggs in her hand and an impossibly virtuous look on her thin, sallow mug. “I’ll just let these come to room temperature. It’s best for meringues, you know,” she said smugly. She inspected the teapot, sniffed yet again, said: “I’ll boil up the jug again,” and did so.

    “So what are the other two puds, Jayne?” asked Jan kindly.

    Jayne jumped. “Oh! Well, um, a pumpkin pie, actually, Jan: Michelle gave us this huge puh—”

    Janet snorted loudly.

    “Pumpkin,” ended Jayne in a small voice. “It was lovely of her, of course, but—”

    “Stringy,” said Janet flatly.

    Jayne gulped. “It was a bit, I suppose, but I couldn’t waste it, Janet, it was so generous of her.”

    “Jayne, dear, she doesn’t grow them, they’ve gone wild down the back of that place of hers: they’re some from that one of her dad’s that they let go to seed.”

    While B was undoubtedly true, did this mean that A had to be— Oh, forget it! “So how did you deal with it, Jayne?” asked Jan briskly.

    “I cooked it up and sieved it.”

    “By hand,” noted Janet darkly.

    Jayne licked her lips. “Yes, well, I could’ve used the blender, but I don’t think the texture would have been right, Janet.”

    “No. Stringy,” agreed Janet, but quite happily, for her.

    Jan sagged a bit. No-one could possibly dislike Jayne, she had a terrifically sweet nature, but Janet was so much in the habit of disapproving of everything and everybody—

    “Good on you, Jayne! Well, that’s one. What other culinary delight are you wasting on them tonight? –Besides Janet’s miraculous meringues, which I have to say that lot down by the shore do not deserve.”

    Jayne looked at her in dismay. “What on earth have they done?”

    “Suggested a bus shelter,” said Jan heavily.

    “What?”

    “A bus shelter. To sit in, Jayne.”

    “But that’d ruin the lovely view of the lake!” she gasped.

    “Exactly.”

    “And—and the deckchairs have got those little verandah thingos anyway! Um, I don’t mean verandahs; um, well, you know what I mean.”

    “That describes them very well, actually,” said Jan quickly before Janet could tell the poor thing what she did mean. “Yes, well, they weren’t complaining about the lack of shade. Don’t let it worry you, Jayne, love, they’re all like that.”

    “Typical,” agreed Janet. –She herself had no aesthetic sensibilities whatsoever, of course.

    “Mm,” said Jan. “The suburban retiree syndrome. –Sorry, side-tracked myself! I was asking you what the other pud is.”

    Brightening, Jayne told them. A Black Forest Cake. Possibly cake wasn’t up-market enough for the small proportion of the restaurant’s clientèle who tended towards the gourmet side, but Jan just kept stumm. It’d sure go over big with the majority!

    “That’s always nice, dear. –She’s planning to put boysenberries in the fruit salad,” noted Janet.

    Jayne looked anxiously at Jan.

    “That sounds yummy. I’d put them in last, just in case they might bleed a bit.”

    “That’s what I said,” noted Janet virtuously, looking down her nose.

    “Yes, I will,” Jayne agreed meekly.

    “I wouldn’t waste any on the bunkhousers, though,” Janet advised.

    Honestly! Jan was just opening her mouth to flatten the woman—enough was enough—when there was the most Goddawful racket from outside! Jesus! Sounded like the sky was a-falling!

    Janet dropped her mug, who could blame her, and Jayne gasped: “What’s that?” and clapped her hands over her ears.

    It dawned, as the racket got even louder: Jan had heard it before. Once. She got up grimly.

    “It’s a helicopter!” she screamed.

    “What?” they screamed, screwing up their faces in pain, now both with their hands over their ears.

    “It’s a—HELICOPTER!” bellowed Jan into the sudden silence. She swallowed. “Helicopter,” she repeated lamely.

    “But Sir Jake Carrano’s dead!” gasped Janet.

    Well, quite.

    “Come on,” said Jan grimly, leading the way outside.

    They reached the front sweep just as Andrew rushed out of the front door looking alarmed, no wonder, and three panting retirees appeared from the direction of the shore.

    “Heli-copter!” gasped Mr Morton, redundantly. Mrs Morton and Mr Baines just panted.

    They all watched numbly as its door opened and a thin figure in a checked shirt and tired jeans got out.

    “Dad!” gasped Jayne.

    “What the— What’s up, Pete?” called Andrew sharply.

    “Nothing. Just fetching Polly, here!” the bugger replied jauntily, as a glamorous figure in a flowing multicoloured garment, which it had to hitch up somewhat inelegantly, then followed him out of the thing.

    “But that’s not the Carrano Group’s helicopter!” gasped Janet.

    Well, quite.

    “Nah. –Oy, Don! Come on, it’s quite safe here, no-one’ll spot you!” cried Pete as the thing’s bloody whatsits finally stopped revolving and it became clear that no-one’s head was literally gonna roll. Though a certain head was For It in the very near future.

    Old Baines, the old bugger, had got his breath back and bustled forward officiously. “Tt, tt, tt! It’s illegal to land a helicopter on unauthorised—”

    Quite.

    “This was an emergency,” drawled Pete. “Out of fuel.”

    “Yes!” agreed Polly with a nervous giggle.

    Jan was about to say couldn’t she have stopped the silly bugger, but copped a gander at the puffy eyelids, and didn’t.

    “Yes, well, never mind all that,” said Andrew unexpectedly, cutting Baines off in his continued flow. “Anyone could hear the copter was just about out of fuel.”

    “Absolutely!” Jan agreed quickly. “Lovely to see you, Polly.”

    “Ta, Jan,” said Polly uneasily.

    “Yes; welcome to Taupo Shores Ecolodge, Lady Carrano,” added Andrew at his smoothest.

    Hah, hah! Old Baines was heard to gulp! He was the old bastard that had suggested a fucking bus shelter, of course.

    “Thank you, Andrew,” said Polly in a small voice. “Hullo, Janet; hullo, Jayne; it’s nice to see you again,” she added, still in the small voice.

    Quickly Jan put an arm round her. “Come on, we were just getting afternoon tea, you can come in the kitchen and give us a hand. –We’ll talk later,” she threatened her life partner.

    “Sure!” the blighter agreed breezily. “—Yeah, ta, Don, bring that bag—this way, no need to go through the bloody lodge!”

    In the ecolodge’s kitchen Polly collapsed onto a chair. “I—I couldn’t stop him.”

    “No-one can when he’s got the bit between his teeth,” agreed Jan, sitting down heavily beside her.

    “He’s like that, Lady Carrano,” agreed Janet kindly.

    “Mm. Just ‘Polly’, Janet, I hate that silly title.”

    Janet bridled pleasedly. “Polly, then! Now, I don’t suppose Pete gave you time to have any lunch, did he?”

    “Um, no. I think I... Um, Daph came over this morning and we did the laundry... I think we had morning tea,” she fumbled.

    “Then you could do with something nice for afternoon tea!” Janet decided briskly. “I’ll just boil up the jug!”

    Jayne had followed them in silently and was merely standing there looking numb, so Jan said: “Good; ta, Janet. Jayne, why don’t you make a few ham sandwiches?”

    She jumped. “Um, yes, of course!”

    And by the time Andrew came in looking very dry indeed they were all sitting round the table having it, not excluding Pete and the pilot.

    “I hope you don’t have these fuel-less emergences very often, Don,” he said before any of the guilty could open their mouths.

    “Uh—no!” the second male wanker replied with a silly laugh. “Sorry, Andrew.”

    It wasn’t even as if he was a silly young lad, ripe for any sort of mischief, let alone being dragged into bloody Pete’s peer group: he must around fifty, for God’s sake!

    “It’s all right, he done it official,” noted Pete. “Reported ’e was low on fuel to Taupo airport and he’d better make an emer—”

    “Shut up, Pete,” said Andrew tiredly, sitting down. “We all know he can’t help it, Don, but why the Hell did you let yourself be talked into it?”

    The pilot swallowed. “Seemed harmless?” he offered.

    “Mid-life crisis,” said Janet unexpectedly, with a loud sniff. “I don’t know what your sainted mother would have said, Donald!”

    “I’d say you’re right, Janet,” agreed Jan, eying the now very red-faced Don drily. “You know him, do you?”

    “Donald McLeod,” agreed Janet, giving him a filthy look. “He bought that place of ours in George Street, back before he split up with that Verity Laing.”

    Jan’s jaw had dropped. McLeod was, of course, Pete’s surname!

    Pete cleared his throat. “Been in Oz for the last twenny years or so, though. Um, me second cousin or something, Jan, love. Um, well, me dad’s cousin Jim’s youngest.”

    “Yes, second cousin,” put in Polly.

    Pete jumped slightly but made a quick recover. “Right. Um, well, this is Jan, of course, and ya know Andrew, eh, Don? –Yeah. This here’s Jayne, me eldest!” he added proudly.

    “How are you, Don?” said Jayne numbly in the Australian vernacular—accent on the “are”—with which she’d grown up.

    To Jan’s surprise Don gave the conventional Aussie reply: “How are you, Jayne?”—accent on the “are”—rather than the Kiwi “Good, thanks,” which assumed that the speaker had actually asked a question. Okay, possibly he belonged to the point zero, zero, zero and holding percentage of the population that didn’t have cloth ears. That or he’d absorbed the vernacular usage unconsciously during his period on the far side of the Tasman and had no idea he was using it. By the look of him—he was a burly, wide-shouldered character who’d looked very cramped in the driving seat of his bloody helicopter—Jan would have said the latter.

    “Yeah, well, kindly don’t do it again,” said Andrew grimly. “Baines won’t keep his ruddy mouth shut, it’ll be all over Auckland, and old Morton’s from Christchurch—“

    “All right, we get the picture!” said Pete huffily. “It was an emergency, geddit?”

    “Pete, you could have driven Polly down from Auckland!” cried Jan.

    “Bullshit. I wouldn’t of got her further than Dairy Flat before she’d of been nipping out to go to the bog—don’t say you wouldn’t, ’cos I know what women’s bladders are, ’specially at your age,” he warned the now glowing-cheeked Polly—“and giving the bloody relations a bell, and that’d be all she wrote, they’d of talked her out of it again!”

    There was a short silence.

    “See, Dairy Flat’s not far south of their place,” offered Don kindly to the blank faces.

    “You can shut up, second cousin or not,” said Jan grimly. “All right, Pete, you had a point, but for God’s sake! Why didn’t you warn us?”

    “Didn’t want an argument.”

    “Dad, it did give us a terrible fright,” murmured Jayne. “That thing’s motor’s awfully loud.”

    “Um, yeah. Well, never thought of that, actually. Um, nowhere else close to put ’er down, really. See, we got here and Don sussed the place out and short of landing in that cleared patch next-door where the permaculture nuts had their early peas—”

    Andrew shuddered. “Thank God you spared us that, at any rate!”

    “That’s the place that’s run by a retired general, eh?” said Don. “Yeah, thought we better not get on the wrong side of him.”

    “What about getting on your employer’s wrong side?” asked Jan grimly.

    “Uh—no, ya got the wrong end of the stick, Jan.”

    “Don’t tell me Dave Reilly gave you permission to do anything so dumb, because I wouldn’t bel—”

    “Nah, it’s his,” said Pete.

    Jan gasped indignantly. “That thing’s got Dave’s ruddy CAF logo all over—“

    “No, I’ve bought it off him,” said Don quickly.

    “He’ll sub-contract to him, but this way it’ll give him his independence,” explained Polly. “He was telling us about it on the way down, weren’t you, Don?” She awarded him her lovely smile and the bloke, Jan Harper for one was not in the least surprised to see, went all pink round the edges. Well, it was on the cards it’d be her or Jayne: they were both very pretty—very alike, actually, same kind of oval faces and same sweet manner. Though there were very few males that’d be able to take Polly’s brains and that detached thing she did, for very long.

    Andrew sighed. “All right, let’s forget it. But there’ll be no repeat performance, Pete—I mean it.”

    Pete glared. “Well, heck, how many times is Polly’s husband gonna go and drop dead on ’er— Shit! Sorry, Polly,” he growled.

    “That’s all right, Pete, it was a perfectly logical thing to say,” she replied with calm detachment.

    See? Jan glanced at Don McLeod, but he was merely looking at her dopily. Okay, at this stage she could’ve said anything and it wouldn’t’ve penetrated, but give him time. Even Jake’s and Pete’s very old mate, Wal Briggs—who as a matter of fact had grown up with Jake in the same orphanage—had always found that detached, analytical mind of hers impossible to deal with. And he was a very bright joker indeed, New Zealand’s top criminal lawyer before he retired.

    It would take someone of Jake Carrano’s brains, natural ebullience and completely optimistic temperament, reflected Jan somewhat grimly, getting up and collecting up empty mugs and cups, to really cope with living with Polly once it had dawned that her mind could run rings round his and that that detachment wasn’t just manner, or a defence mechanism, it was part of the essential her. Well, made her a bloody good scholar—yes. But very few blokes put up their hands for that, either, even in the flaming twenty-first century. Jake had been the exception, but how many multibillionaires—could ya say that? Well, how many of those could a tiny country like New Zealand produce within one lifetime?

    “Do we want to find her another husband, though?” said Pete weakly some time later. The conversation hadn’t at all taken the turn he’d expected. Once they’d got Polly laid down for a nap in their small guest bedroom and Jan had told him he could get that bloody fishing tackle out of it tomorrow, he’d expected to have his ear chewed, good an’ proper.

    She scowled. “Yes. She’s the sort that needs a man.”

    Pete rubbed his thin jaw slowly. He wasn’t gonna argue with that. And apparently at times had needed more than one—though he wasn’t gonna bring that up, neither. Well, Jake had been a lot older than her and by that time he’d recognised she needed a bit more than he could give her—very fair-minded bloke, Jake, always had been—and was turning a blind eye. And she’d been discreet enough about them—and they’d never been serious, at all.

    “Yeah, but a second husband, love?”

    “Yes,” replied Jan with frightening grimness.

    All right, she needed a second husband. Pete didn’t say it was far too early to think of that, or that she’d never replace Jake, he’d been unique. He just nodded meekly.

    Livia Briggs had warmly invited them all for a barbecue on their lakeside lawn. Giant lawn, went with the giant mansion on the far, or the “good” side of the lake. The barbecue was not gonna be a scruffy affair like anyone else’s, it was gonna be like Livia’s usually were, with a crowd of her own friends invited plus and, very kindly, the ecolodge guests. To give dear Jayne a night off from the cooking for once, unquote. Giant, in other words. Oh, dear. True, Livia was very fond of Polly, and vice versa, but Jan didn’t think she needed cheering up with what Livia called “just a little jollity”, she needed to be allowed to get over it in her own way. And although the Carranos had entertained quite a lot, Polly had never really enjoyed this sort of large do. In fact some of theirs had been pretty well disasters, hadn’t they? Wal Briggs had a frightful story about one bloody party—not a barbecue, but on the lawn—oh, yeah, a garden party, à la Buck House, if you please—back when he’d first met Livia. Jan couldn’t remember the ins and outs of it—although Livia was his fourth, it had been twenty years back. She did mental arithmetic. Very nearly twenty. El Nino blowing incessantly had been the least of it. Everyone getting off with the wrong ones, all the pseuds and social climbers out in force, no-one getting off with the ones Polly had fondly imagined they would—was that the do where one of her bloody cousins had done the wrong bloke entirely in the patio pool? Uh—no, perhaps not. But someone had certainly snubbed Livia, she had flirted madly with all the wrong ones; and— Oh, yeah: Wal and her had had a real run-in: he’d told her where to get off, or something. No, well, it was all lost in the mists of time, and they’d got together not that long afterwards and been blissfully happy ever since, but it had most certainly been an object lesson in the dangers of throwing lovely outdoor parties in the hopes that the attendees would get it together. An object lesson that Livia, clearly, hadn’t taken to heart.

    Actually, Livia’s own bloody barbecue back when Jayne and Libby had first come over from Australia should have been an object lesson in itself! Was that the one where Libby had got off with— Oh, no: that had been Livia’s ghastly dinner party, come to think of it. Um.... Oh, yeah! At the frightful barbecue Libby had failed to get it together with the bloke she’d been keen on at the time—he’d been all wrong for her, so it hadn’t been entirely a bad thing, but— Mm. And Jayne and Andrew hadn’t managed to get together. Though at one point it had looked promising, but—uh—oh, yeah! Five hundred bloody chatty retirees had intervened, and never mind Pete going round muttering about no backbone, Jan defied any bloke to baldly ask the lady of his choice that he hardly knew for a date in front of the blighters! And her own cousin’s daughter, self-invited to the ecolodge that Christmas but never to be allowed to set foot therein again, had disappeared into the bushes with an ecolodge male guest. A married male guest. Under his wife’s nose—yeah. Even that hadn’t taught Livia a lesson!

    “You’d better wear that floaty thing you came down in, Polly,” Jan advised her. “I have washed it.”

    “The Ken Done thing? Is it washable?”

    “Uh—must be, it came up okay.”

    “Okay, then. I dunno why I was wearing it... Jake bought it in Sydney, it’s not my taste. Because it was comfortable, I think,” she said vaguely.

    Jan bit her lip. “Look, Livia’ll be all gussied up, but we could just wear our jeans, it is only a ruddy barbecue!”

    “No, that’s okay, I don’t mind wearing it.”

    So they eventually piled onto the Tallulah Tub to get across the lake with Polly in a Ken Done caftan—leisure wear for the leisured classes of Sidders, quite. Pete’s daughters were similar: Jayne in her long green tropical-pattern thing with frangipanis and budgies on it—Tamsin, her daughter by her first husband, had chosen it at a Brisbane boutique, and according to her they were not budgies, but small parrots—and Libby looking resigned in a yellow floaty thing, whose swirls, if you looked closely and didn’t become too dizzy to take anything in, resolved themselves into large butterflies—same boutique, also chosen by Tamsin. Jan herself was in her best shocking-pink long skirt. It dated from about 1968, when it had belonged to a loose dress. The material was still good, especially as she hardly ever wore it. She had a new black top; that was, new for her. Basically a tee-shirt, but dotted with sequins here and there. She’d got it at a second-hand shop in Taupo but Livia had already approved it, so that was okay.

    Tamsin wasn’t with them: she and her Neil, who was Bob Kenny’s son, were living in Turangi at the other end of the lake these days. The excuse was that he had a job with the Department of Conservation down there but in Jan’s opinion the poor kids didn’t need any excuse. Why the Hell should they want to live in the Olds’ pockets?

    Andrew of course was looking spruce in a crisp white shirt and well-ironed slacks, and Pete and Bob were both looking morose in clean tee-shirts and horribly clean jeans. In fact Bob’s looked brand-new.

    Jan got Libby aside up the prow, or slightly less blunt end, of the Tallulah Tub. “Those new jeans Bob’s got on?”

    “Yes. Neil came over and dragged him off to the shops,” replied Libby simply.

    Jan didn’t laugh, but it was a close-run thing. “Right.”

    Libby’s big brown eyes twinkled. “How about Dad’s?”

    “New last birthday, worn once, washed and ironed.”

    Promptly Libby clapped her hand over her mouth and collapsed in horrible sniggers, nodding madly.

    Jan grinned. Fond though she was of Jayne, she rather wished it was Libby who was living right on their doorstep. She was brighter than Jayne, and had a great sense of humour. And although she was no cook, they had a bit more in common, really. Well, both great readers—Libby had been a librarian for years, though these days that was no guarantee, most of Tamsin’s and Neil’s friends with degrees never picked up a book from one year’s end to the next—and, well, tended to laugh at the same jokes. Whereas Jayne didn’t really have much sense of humour.

    Livia, who was a petite blonde woman, was shining in purple and gold. Well, it was purple. And very shiny. And some of the bling was definitely real gold, Wal Briggs wasn’t short of a few bucks. Um... possibly not a dress... Tunic? Floaty, uneven hem. Over very tight... Possibly not tights, no. Very tight, shiny trousers?

    After the ecstatically gushing, though to give her her due genuinely delighted cries of greeting were over, and she’d shown them where the drinks were and warned them with a giggle that Wallace had insisted on dong a sucking pig—“No, well,”—giggle—“if you say the piglets won’t be young at this time of year, Pete, dear, I’m sure you’re right, but a small pig! And goodness knows when it’ll be done, but there’s stacks of other things to eat!”—After all that, and after forcing glasses of muck on them that they’d just been thinking they were gonna be spared, she mercifully tottered away on her usual summer wedgies to greet more arrivals.

    Andrew had taken the Tallulah Tub back to collect the ecolodgers, so Pete was able to say without risk of a reproving look: “Chuck that muck away, she’ll never know. There’ll be some real grog around, you can trust Wal for that.”

    Libby looked dubiously at the giant bar set up on the stone verandah of Livia’s Tex-Mex mansion.—Trestle tables, Wal stored them in the giant two-car garage.—“I can’t see anything sensible, Dad.”

    “No square bottles, Dad!” agreed Jayne with a smile.

    “No,” agreed Jan dazedly. “Cripes, what are they? –Livia must have put them out,” she decided.

    “Yeah, while Wal was farting round with ’is so-called sucking pig,” agreed Pete on a dry note. “Uh... No, bugger. Um... whass this? Russian writing, might be vodka, I s’pose: can anybody read—”

    He broke off: Polly had taken it off him and was reading out what it said on the label.

    “Shit, when did you learn Russian?” he croaked.

    “I started about ten years ago: I thought it’d be interesting. Actually its structure isn’t as interesting—well, I suppose I mean as different from the Germanic or Romance languages—as Maori is. Not nearly,” the linguist replied calmly.

    Pete gulped. “Yeah. –Sometimes ya forget that face belongs to a statistical linguist,” he said numbly to his favourite son-in-law.

    “Yeah, I know,” replied Bob calmly. “So what actually is it, Polly?”

    “Plum brandy.” She grinned. “It’ll pack a real wallop if it’s anything like the muck our Polish friends used to brew up!”

    “Yer on,” decided Pete immediately, wresting it out of her hand. “Come on, Bob: chuck that yellow muck away!”

    Bob tasted the yellow muck very, very cautiously. “Shit!” he gasped.

    “Isn’t it just a pineapple thingo, though?” ventured Libby. “You like those.”

    “I’ll drink ’em,” he conceded. “No, lovey, it’s... You ever had a banana milkshake?” he asked thoughtfully.

    “Um, yes, they’re lovely.”

    “Not a real banana shake, I don’t think he means, Libby,” said Jan, doing her damnedest not to laugh. Libby and Jayne’s frightful mother had taken them off to Queensland when they were tiny, so there was some excuse for her, the things grew like weeds there.

    “Nah. Banana flavour,” explained Bob. “Like that.”

    “Artificial,” agreed Polly, tasting hers cautiously. “Ugh! Um, yes,” she said, smiling at them. “It’ll be that banana liqueur stuff.”

    “Banana liqueur?” gulped Libby. “But bananas are...” Words failed her.

    “Starchy?” offered Jayne. “I must say I don’t see how they could make a liqueur out of them, Polly,” she added shyly.

    “No; it’s interesting isn’t it? But they do.”

    “Ya not gonna tell me Jake let anything like a flaming banana liqueur have house-room?” croaked Pete, apparently blithely unaware of Jan’s warning thought-rays.

    “Of course he did, Pete!” said Polly with her little gurgle of contralto laughter. “He had every kind of liqueur known to Alcoholic Man!”

    Pete thought again, and granted: “Right. I was thinking of the cellar, where ’e kept the good stuff. Be some of that muck behind the main bar, eh?”

    “Yes,” said Lady Carrano succinctly.

    “Well,” he said cheerfully, taking her glass and casually pouring its contents onto the manicured Briggs lawn, “doesn’t mean you have to drink this, does it? Pass us that tea-towel, Libby, lovey.”

    “Dad, I don’t think it is a tea-towel,” she said uneasily.

    “Pass it over anyway.”

    Obediently Libby passed over a damask Briggs serviette. Pete wiped out Polly's glass carefully with it, then ceremoniously poured Russian plum brandy into it. “Get that down yer.”

    “Look, Pete—” began Bob uneasily.

    Too late, Polly had swallowed a slug. “Good!” she gasped.

    “Don’t get yer knickers in a knot: I’ve seen her knock back the straight gin without a blink,” Pete advised his son-in-law.

    “I see,” said Bob limply. “Uh—no, Pete, don’t give it to Libby, ta.”

    “Aw, can’t I try it?” cried Libby in disappointment.

    “You can have a taste of mine,” Bob decided kindly. “But with your head, that’ll be it.” He poured the yellow contents of his glass away, wiped it out carefully with the serviette, and allowed Pete to refill it. “Down the bloody hatch,” he noted, sipping it. He coughed. “Yeah!” he gasped.

    “Good-oh,” decided Pete, giving his own glass the treatment. “Cheers! –Phew!”

    “Um, thanks, darl’,” said Libby on a weak note, as Bob held his glass out to her. She tasted gingerly. “It’s not— Help!” she gasped, grabbing her throat, as it hit.

    “Good, eh?” noted Polly happily, taking another hefty swallow.

    Jan looked sideways at the smirking Pete. “All right, then, Pete,” she conceded, letting him give her glass the treatment. “Mud in yer eye.” She sipped. “Christ!” she choked.

    “Yeah,” Bob agreed. “That bottle have anything like ‘Extremely Over-Proof’ on it, Polly?”

    “No; I don’t think the Russians go in for that.”

    “They wouldn’t!” coughed Jan. “Um, don’t, Jayne, dear: I don’t think you’d like it.”

    “No,” agreed Libby, swallowing hard and feeling her throat dubiously. “Help! I can still sort of feel it!”

    Bob put his free arm round her. “Never mind, lovey, there’s bound to be some plain pineapple juice somewhere: why not have a nice glass of that?”

    “Mm, that’d be nice,” she agreed sunnily.

    Pete, Jan was not too sorry to see, even though she applauded his effort in re Polly, was now pretty much thunderstruck. ’Cos why? Gee, ’cos a few years back, that Christmas the girls had first come over from Brisbane to see their old dad—actually on Christmas Day itself, come to think of it—Pete had made the mistake of officiously questioning why Bob had let some dame give Libby a glass of pineapple juice doused with something over-proof, and Bob had thereupon officiously taken it off her and drunk it himself, and Libby had been so furious with the pair of them for not treating her like an adult that could knock it back like they could that that had very, very nearly been the end of anything’s ever developing between her and Bob! Jan had been in the kitchen at the time, but she’d got first Libby’s incensed version and then Pete’s drunken version and, some time later, Pete’s sober, and very bitter version.

    Pete recovered himself. “Yeah,” he noted jauntily. “Does take yer back, eh?”

    “Shut up,” ordered Jan. “And for God’s sake find some decent whisky, I can’t drink this muck!”

    Amiably he went behind the bar and ferreted, discovering a whole carton of it. “Anyone else for a Johnnie?” he offered generously.

    “Yes, ta,” said Bob firmly, pouring his glass of Russian vitriol onto the Briggs lawn.

    “No, I like the plum brandy, Pete,” said Polly quickly.

    “All right, love, you stick with that,” the blighter replied, poker-face. “Come on, Jayne, there’s some Coke here: can’t see any rum, but you’ll like a whisky and Coke!” he encouraged her. “Then we can go and take the weight off, eh? Can’t stand these bloody does of Livia’s,” he noted, not lowering his voice: “there’s never enough seats. But with a bit of luck we can grab the chairs before the ruddy ecolodgers turn up.”

    And, no-one dissenting, they did that. Polly with her tumbler of Russian vitriol, Jan and Bob each with very generous neat Johnnies—Pete never bothered with niceties like ice—Jayne with her whisky and Coke, Libby merely with a glass of the pineapple juice that Bob had found behind the trestle tables, and Pete with his glass and the Johnnie in one hand and the Russian bottle in the other. It was the right move, all right: Polly was looking happier already.

    ... Smoke billowed up from the direction of the barbecues down near the Briggs landing stage, little lights twinkled in the trees ringing the gracious Briggs lawn, Livia had some frightful music going, the crowd had thickened, a couple of local girls had circulated with trays of nibbles, delightedly recognising Jan, Libby and Jayne and stopping for a chat—even Livia hadn’t managed to get the notion of swift and silent service into the local heads—certain persons had mentally thanked God for Pete’s forethought in (a) bringing both bottles with them and (b) grabbing the chairs—and there was still no sign of the threatened barbecued pork.

    Pete was now fidgeting and muttering things under his breath like: “What the fuck’s ’e doing down there?” And: “Too much fuel on it, the nit!” and similar arcane barbecue-chef phrases. Andrew, who was wisely keeping very much out of that, had taken his wife off to dance to the frightful music. Bob, who was an expert dancer—his ex having forced him in the past to do competition-level ballroom—had dragged Libby, who wasn’t an expert, into the dance, too. Livia’s friend Bettany Throgmorton and her husband, the retired general—English general, at that—who ran the permaculture place next to the ecolodge had come and chatted for a while. In spite of the frightful getup, almost as putrid and definitely as flashy as Livia’s own, she was a very pleasant woman. Not out of the top drawer, unlike her husband. He was the sort of man who always made sure the ladies had been provided with drinks, and he made the mistake of refilling Polly’s glass with the vitriol, politely not only not asking what in Hell it was, but not even trying to read the label! They had chatted comfortably for a while on non-controversial topics such as their adopted children’s progress at school, and the developments at Taupo Organic Produce—a friend had suggested guinea fowl as well as their hens and ducks, what did they all think? Polly thought that sounded lovely, she adored pintade, and Jan thought, though not saying so, that ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent of EnZed had never heard of it. Never mind, there were a few foodies in the area who’d probably buy them, and Fern Gully Ecolodge undoubtedly would, so long as they were sure they were organic. Um, could poultry be organic? mused Jan, absently thanking Hugh Throgmorton as he refilled her glass...

    Even more little lights twinkled in the trees and along the verandah of the Tex-Mex mansion, flambeaux were now burning here and there, some of them far too close to the trees for comfort, Andrew and Jayne had gone off to socialise, Bob had given up trying to teach Libby the two-step and they’d sat down with Jan again, Pete had stopped muttering and had marched off to show Wal what was what, more smoke was billowing up from the ranks of barbecues...

    Jan came to, blinking. “When did that happen?” she demanded crossly.

    “Eh?” replied Bob.

    “Um, what, Jan?” asked Libby.

    “That,” said Jan, glaring at the lawn, where amongst other drunken adults more than old enough to know better Polly was now plastered to the chest of a completely unknown male in horrible leisure wear.

    “Um, well, you were here, Jan,” said Libby weakly. “Um, that’s the man that’s staying in the house belonging to... Is it the Fanshaws, Bob? Those friends of Livia’s further round the lake that sometimes let their house when they’re overseas.”

    “Yeah. Wal knows him. Lawyer-type from the Big Smoke,” said Bob, completely neutral.

    Ouch! Back in the day it was a lawyer-type from the Big Smoke that Libby had rather fancied. He was now happily married to someone else and in fact Libby was very fond of his wife, but Bob never had been able to stand the bloke, and still didn’t much care for him, either. Uh—come to think of it, he’d been from Sydney rather than Auckland or Wellington, but yeah, ouch.

    “Has Polly met him before?” asked Jan.

    “Nope,” said Bob, as Libby just swallowed.

    Silence fell.

    Eventually Libby ventured: “That’s a Versace shirt he’s wearing.”

    Jan’s jaw dropped. Libby knew nothing whatsoever about fashion. “Eh?”

    “Polly said it.”

    “Yeah: asked ’im if it was, and he said as a matter of fact it was, and she had a fit of the giggles,” reported Bob neutrally.

    Oh, God.

    More silence. Nobody said that in actual fact the bloke might be quite a decent joker: it was all too evident that none of them were thinking that for a moment.

    By the end of the evening—and this did not surprise Bob Kenny, who was not nearly as stolid or unintelligent as the persona he liked to assume—Jan was almost completely out of it on the Johnnie, Pete was completely kaylied on the Johnnie followed by the Goddawful concoctions he’d let Wal force on him, Andrew had competently taken Jayne home to Taupo Shores with the ecolodge clients before it could dawn on her what a state her father and his de facto were in, and Polly and the fancy-shirt bloke had completely disappeared. Whether over to the Fanshaws’ place or into one of those convenient guest rooms bloody Livia kept unlocked for the purpose off to the left as you looked at the place from the landing stage—or tried not to, they had genuine Mexican tiles all along ’em to about thigh level—Bob wasn't asking. Though he was pretty sure Livia’d know. She wasn’t pissed. Merry, yes. Sparking on all cylinders, though.

    And Libby was sober but rather upset. She’d thought Polly Carrano was well, you know, Bob—nice. Going very pink. Bob didn’t make the point that several Christmases back at one of Livia’s bloody does Libby had let that poncy lawyer type that she hardly knew take her into one of the bloody cabins and do her—he didn’t feel it needed making, really.

    “Getting over it in her own way. You’ve never had someone very close to you die, eh?” he grunted.

    “No,” said Libby, looking at him dubiously. “Well, Bill Dahlenburg, I s’pose.”

    “Eh? Aw, yeah, Jayne’s first husband.” Not pointing out that the man had been a first-rate prick, loathed by all who knew him, not excluding her, Jayne herself, and young Tamsin, Bob said mildly: “Nah, closer than that, love.”

    Libby shook her head hard.

    “No. Well, the death of someone in the family makes some people randy.”

    Libby gaped at him.

    Bob scratched his wide, lean jaw slowly. “Yeah. Uh—unconscious need to, um, dunno. Affirm they’re still alive and kicking? Something like that. Seen it more than once, love.”

    “I see!”

    Good. He let her have one more drink, a very mild vodka and pineapple, and sure enough, by that time the reliable Andrew had turned up again with the Taupo Shores Tallulah, and they loaded Pete and Jan into ’er and got out of it.

    “Oh, there you are,” said Jan mildly as Polly turned up at their place around eleven-thirty of the following morning. “How’s the head?”

    Polly tried to smile and failed. “Splitting. How’s yours?”

    “Thumping. Fancy a coffee?”

    “No,” she admitted, wincing.

    “Chilled soda water?” offered Jan.

    “Yes—thanks, Jan. Where did you get that one from?” she asked, seizing it gratefully.

    Jan looked wry. “I could say, long and sad experience, but actually it was off a very married, very, very much older bloke, way back when. Should never have taken up with him, really, it was never gonna go anywhere. Well,” she said, scratching her short grey hair, “maybe my thirtieth birthday was in there somewhere, looking back. Never mind. Water under the bridge. And he sure as Hell taught me a lot about sex.”

    “Good,” said Polly mildly.

    On second thoughts Jan poured another for herself. “It makes you pee,” she warned.

    “What, sex?”

    “No—well, that, too: actually my doctor advised me to go afterwards. Was that when I had that damned bladder infection?” Jan asked herself. “Well, could’ve been. No, drinking huge glasses of soda water.”

    “Oh, right. –Was it like pissing wire?”

    Jan shuddered. “Barbed wire. Yep.”

    “I’ve had that,” said Lady Carrano detachedly. “It was after I’d done it in the Domain on a windy day. –Funny, I can remember the weather quite clearly, and what I had on: it was that green floral skirt, quite a bright skirt, I was very fond if it; but I can’t remember who the Hell the bloke was. Um, could’ve been that guy that was out here for a conference, come to think of it. Um, was it before I went to France?” she asked herself. “Heck, I’ve forgotten. –Did your doctor actually tell you what it was?”

    “Nope. Could’ve been anything, up to and including an STD. It was a woman doc, too.”

    “Mm: they’re just as mealy-mouthed as the men. I just assumed it was nothing catching, ’cos he didn’t say it was.”

    “Me, too,” Jan admitted.

    They looked at each other and laughed weakly.

    Jan drank soda water thirstily. “So, how was the type in the Versace shirt?”

    “Limited,” replied Polly thoughtfully, experimentally pressing her fingertips to her temples. “Ow.”

    “Uh—sexually?”

    “No, mentally.”

    Mm, well, it might go on for a bit, depending on how good the sex had been, but that was it for the smooth Versace-shirted lawyer: he’d had his chips.

    “Right. And how was he sexually?”

    Polly wrinkled her still-smooth brow over it. “I can’t remember all that well. I did have a come. And then I passed right out.”

    Jan had to swallow. “Mm. And did he have a come?”

    “Yes, he was even quicker than I was, I do remember that.”

    And then he gave her one? Not like the EnZed majority, then, that was for sure! And Jan had taken a pretty representative sample, in her time. “Good-oh,” she said comfortably. “We could ask him to Christmas dinner if you like, Polly. It’ll be all the ecolodgers, of course, but if he’d fancy it?”

    “No, thanks awfully, Jan, but don’t bother,” she said serenely. “I don’t want to have to make conversation with him.”

    Mm. There you were, then.

Next chapter:

https://anothercountry-apuririchronicle.blogspot.com/2023/08/christmas-present.html