Modified Rapture

21

Modified Rapture

    “That explains it,” said Dorothy mildly at the end of Thomas’s long, garbled and distinctly sorry-for-himself exposition.

    “What?”

    “I was in the front garden around ten forty-five this morning looking at those silver-leaved things I got from the Puriri Garden Centre and wondering if they were gonna die the death like everything else except those basic scarlet geraniums Jill and Gretchen gave me way back—”

    “Yes,” said Thomas involuntarily.

    “Quite. When I saw Polly’s runabout heading across to Sir G.G. with her in it plus a cowboy in his cream cowboy hat. Presumably it was an Australian hat, then, not an American one.”

    He just looked at her limply.

    “Whether or not the sun’s over the yardarm—don’t enlighten me again, ta, my virus scanner is set to automatically excise any- and everything nautical—whether or not, you’d better have a drink,” she decided.

    “Thanks,” said Thomas numbly. He just sat back and let her bring it to him. “Thanks,” he repeated dully. He downed it and shuddered. “God! What was that?”

    “It said whisky on the bottle,” replied Dorothy temperately.

    He coughed, banging himself on the chest. “Just fetch it, thanks.”

    Raising her eyebrows slightly, Dorothy fetched the bottle.

    “Jesus, woman! This is that Jap firewater that ruddy Takagaki forced on me last time I was in Tokyo!” he shouted.

    “It still says ‘whisky’, though. If it’s that bad, throw it away. Or use it to light your ruddy barbecue,” she added on a pleased note.

    “Hah, hah. Er—not that it doesn’t smack distinctly of lighter fuel,” he admitted. “Look, can we get back to the point at issue here?”

    This discussion was going on in the kitchen, Dorothy having been on the point of making herself a miserly cheese sandwich for lunch when he turned up. “I thought you needing a drink was the point at issue,” she said mildly, sitting down at the kitchen table.

    “No. Merely a corollary. May I point out that the fact you saw Polly with a chap this morning does not necessarily mean that he was my geologist chap?”

    “The evidence would tend to point that way. Did your one have a smart cream cowboy hat?”

    “YES!”

    Dorothy just let the echoes ring.

    Thomas passed his hand over his face and sighed. “I’m bloody sorry, darling. I feel the most complete fool: had it all worked out: collated all the evidence, sparse though it was, formed a viable hypothesis, tested it on Winkelmann, and decided that the proof could only be obtained by inviting both of them to dinner and seeing if—er—”

    “They clicked.”

    “Yes,” he admitted.

    “Well, isn’t this better? I mean, whether or not she actually met him at this eponymous bay of his, I think we can safely assume that she won’t be lapsing into gloom and according to you, blushing at the word fish, any more.”

    Thomas leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. “Yes,” he said indistinctly. “Much better.”

    Dorothy took a deep breath. “It’s all this admin crap you’ve been doing: not enough to occupy that devious mind of yours. You need a lovely bathysphere-y project to get your teeth into. What about your hydrography bloke? Can you join in that?”

    “Uh—no. His baby.” He sighed and sat up. “I cannot believe that after twelve years or so of cohabitation you actually said ‘bathysphere-y.’ You’re right about the admin crap, though. Trouble is, McRae’s too good, he ought to be getting back to research, really, I don’t want to dump any of it on him. Well, unless Gorski’s forgotten everything he ever learned about marine propulsion systems,” he added, his eyes narrowing, “he can tinker with the bloody boats instead of him.” He reached absently for the bottle and poured himself another.

    “Jesus!” he gasped as it hit.

    “Bloody twit,” noted his wife cordially. She removed the bottle and poured its contents down the sink.

    “Oh, dear,” said Thomas limply. “I thought I was being so clever… Talk about anti-climactic!”

    “Mm. I’d have said you were feeling effete, though.”

    “No, darling, my great scheme didn’t come to fruition,” he replied, beginning to smile.

    “Fru— Hah, hah, very good,” recognised Dorothy weakly. “Blast—phone.” She picked up the extension that Thomas had, legally or not she hadn’t inquired, installed in the kitchen, the main phone having of course been installed by the technician, as was traditional in the country, whatever the utilities in question might be calling themselves these days, bang opposite the front door in the draught of the front passage—in this case merely a lobby.

    “Hullo,” she said in surprise to whoever had replied to her initial hullo: “shouldn’t you be at work? –Oh. Well, old Mrs Tonks’s chutney can’t be bad, Jill. –Isn’t it?”—This last did not seem to refer to the chutney, because she turned an astonished face to Thomas and groped for a chair. “Uh—thanks!” she gasped as he got up and shoved one under her bum. “Yeah, go on, Jill. One of the Puriri supermarkets, did you say? –Oh, right: Carter’s Bay doesn’t have late night Thursdays. –Australian boots? Oh, yes, I know! He didn’t have a lovely cream cowboy hat, did he?” she asked with a smile in her voice.

    “What?” said Thomas.

    Dorothy nodded madly at him but said to the phone : “Yes, I do know, actually, Jill. He’s an old geoling mate of Thomas’s from twenty years back, and he’s just had his job interview. –Eh? Um, well, I can’t swear to it, but as he’s just been muttering about putting him on to look after the bloody boats’ filthy insides, in order to free another geoling mate up to do some solid research, I’d say yes.” The phone then spoke at some length and she merely listened, smiling. Finally she said: “Yes, of course. Well, pinkish can’t be bad, Jill. –No, fingers and toes! –Right! ’Bye.”

    “Go on,” said Thomas heavily.

    “Jill and Gretchen saw Polly and him down the Puriri supermarkets last night and she’s reported to have been all pinkish and he’s Steve McQueen twenty years on from The Great Escape in Aussie pants and boots. Spot on?”

    “Spot on,” he said numbly. “Last night?”

    “That would explain why she was ferrying him across the Mers—sorry, the Inlet, this morning,” she replied mildly.

    “Yes. –Then when the Hell did he get here?”

    “Whenever Madam Medes and Persians’ minions—that’s a good one, eh? Bit of a tongue-twister, though.—Whenever they booked his ticket for, I’d say.”

    “Yes,” he said limply. “Why did I let you chuck that booze out?”

    “I don’t think you let me, did you? It was a pre-emptive strike. Fancy cheese sandwiches for lunch?”

    “No, thanks. Oh—did I say I invited him to dinner tonight?”

    “Uh… Not exactly, I don’t think, Thomas, though somewhere in the voibals there was a muddled mention of a deep-laid plot involving dinner invitations. Have you?”

    “Yes. Sorry.”

    “Cripes, don’t apologise, I can’t wait to meet him!” Dorothy’s eyes shone. “Steve McQueen twenty years on! Tight cream Aussie cowboy pants! Polly all pinkish! Gosh!”

    Thomas just looked at her limply.

    Polly’s phone rang later that afternoon, just as she was about to try and get out of the macho man exactly how his interview had gone, the report so far having entailed: “All right, I suppose,” and having been interrupted—if it had been going to proceed, which on the whole she doubted—by their arrival at the bach to a view of that nice big bed glowing under its fuchsia tiger stripes with the sun coming in through the French windows.

    “I see,” she said with a laugh in her voice to the somewhat extended monologue at the other end of the line. She winked one large grey-green eye at Stan. “Of course I’d love to, Dorothy, but isn’t it rather short notice for you? I thought that casserole of yours had to be told what was what and soaked in red wine overnight?” The phone responded to this and she collapsed in giggles, gasping: “I’ll ask him!”

    “Yeah?” said Stan mildly.

    “Dorothy suh-says—” She collapsed in giggles again. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she then managed to say: “She’s Thomas’s wife. She wants to know if you’re a vegetarian or if she’s guh-got that all wrong and that was the Cuh-Canadian one that Thomas couldn’t stand!”

    “Is he there?”

    “I duh-don’t know!” gasped Polly, collapsing in yet more giggles.

    “Mad as a snake,” noted Stan unemotionally. “Gimme that, ya silly moo.” He took the phone from her resistless hand and said: “Gidday. Dorothy, is it? This is Stan Gorski. I’m not a vegetarian, you’ve got me mixed up with another bloke. …That right? Sounds as bad as the so-called supermarket back home. –Eh? Yeah, Gorski Bay, he’s got that right. –Crock pot? I’ll ask her. –Oy, Polly! Stop laughing and pay attention. She wants to know if you’ve got a crock pot, whatever that is.”

    “It’s a slow cooker,” said Polly weakly, wiping her eyes. “What on earth was all that about Canadians?”

    “Never mind that. Have ya got one?”

    “Y— Um, no. I gave it to the Carter’s Bay Primary School Fair.”

    “No, she hasn’t, Dorothy, sorry.”

    “Anyway it’s too late to cook anything in a crock pot now,” said Polly, looking at her watch. “Um, I’d better speak to her, I think.”

    “Righto. –Look, ya don’t have to go to any trouble, Dorothy, I can eat anything and judging by what she seems to’ve been living off here, so can Polly. –Eggs and toast, far’s I can tell. Aw, and Vegemite. –Vitamin B, right,” he agreed drily. “Here she is, ya can tell ’er yourself.” He passed the phone back to Polly.

    “Um, it’s me,” she said. “Um, no. –No, Vegemite is Australian!” she said crossly. Stan grinned to himself. “What? Oh: yes, we did. Your spies are everywhere, aren’t they? –No, the lettuces were all limp and horrid. –Well, it must have been around eight by then, because we’d already been to Mitre 10. –Um, a new lock for the French doors. –Um, yes, as soon as we got home,” she admitted in a small voice. Stan could hear Dorothy Baranski laughing: he grinned. “What? …Has he? Oh, dear. Most men like it, it’s full of saturated fats and milk products.—Thomas has forbidden her to make macaroni cheese,” she explained to Stan.—“Stringy? Help, you didn’t buy that awful own-brand supermarket cheese, did you? Ugh! –What? Oh: sausages?”

    She lowered the phone but before she could utter Stan said laconically: “Endemic to the Aussie way of life.”

    Polly stuck out her tongue at him. “Apparently all Aussies eat sausages, Dorothy,” she reported heavily. “Um, squid? Buster Mayhew told me that that’ll go rubbery on the barbie.”

    “Brinkman’s always does, yeah,” he noted.

    “Um, actually I’m not fond of seafood, anyway. …Well, if he wants to do a barbie, let him, ’ud be my advice. –I know, but they’re always revolting, whatever they try to cook, aren’t they? –Jake’s? Um, well, no, but then he could afford the best ingredients in the Southern Hemisphere. –Like what? Well, um, huge hunks of sirloin or rump steak from his special secret butcher. –I don’t know. Somewhere down Sandringham way, I think. You’re not thinking of that awful time he did the sucking pig, are you? –No. I can’t think what else, really… Um, trout, I s’pose, but it’s no use asking me what he did, I always ruin fish. –Well, we didn’t often have sausages, Dorothy. The kids always liked chipolatas, but I just did them in the pan, they’re much easier to cook than the ordinary fat ones. –With them? Wuh-well, just bread, I suppose…”

    Her voice had got very small. Stan frowned, said grimly: “Gimme that!” And grabbed the phone again. “Oy, Dorothy, ya can stop interrogating her, she wouldn’t know one end of a barbie from the other. –Eh? Yeah, a bit. Don’t worry about it. …Yeah, sure I’ll tell her, but like I say, don’t worry about it. And if Thomas wants to cook flamin’ sausages on his flamin’ barbie, let him, it’s no skin off my nose. At home we eat ’em rolled in white bread and anointed with tomato sauce: geddit? But it’s not mandatory: if Thomas has got some fancy French mustard that he wants to waste on them, why not? –Eh? Back then? Nah, as I recall he always burnt anything he touched, not that the boat’s so-called cook was much better. –Nope, he was an Indonesian, if that’s relevant. Anyway, sausages’ll be fine. –Righto, then! –Yes, I’ll pass it on, don’t worry. See ya!” He rang off. “Dorothy apologises for asking you what Jake cooked on his ruddy barbie,” he said firmly.

    Polly tried to smile. “It was stupid. I just— Back before we were engaged, even, he sometimes used to have his old mates over, to the old house. I liked it much better, really, it was more—more to human scale. He went nuts when the twins were on the way, you see, that’s why that blimmin’ palace on the cliff is so huge… I think I’m thinking of that awful barbie he asked Rog Browne to when he’d barely set foot in the country: they all did the standard Good Keen Man routine of telling him the English idea of trout were tiddlers and they’d throw them back… And the boys absolutely loved chipolatas in white bread when they were little!” she wailed, suddenly bursting into violent sobs.

    Mouthing grimly: “Bugger,” Stan put his arms round her and held her very tight.

    “Sorry,” she said groggily into his shoulder. “It’s silly.”

    “No, it isn’t: perfectly natural.”

    “The boys were so lovely when they were little!”

    “Yeah, ’course they were, love. Twins, eh?”

    “Mm. And now we’ve got nothing in common and they might as well be strangers, Stan!”

    “Yeah. Bloody. That’s life for ya.”

    “Mm.” She sniffled, but seemed to have calmed down. Stan just went on hugging her, saying nothing.

    Eventually she said: “Do you like sausages, Stan?”

    “Not especially,” he replied wryly. “I can eat ’em, though. You?”

    “Me, too.” They looked limply at each other and smiled weakly.

    “Oh, dear, Thomas is an idiot, he knows that Dorothy’s casserole needs two days’ warning,” Polly explained.

    “Yeah,” said Stan in a strangled voice. He shook slightly.

    “Go on, laugh,” she prompted kindly, smiling.

    Forthwith he collapsed in agonised splutters. “Can she—” he gasped. More splutters overtook him. “Can sh—” He shook helplessly. “Can she cook anything else?” he gasped.

    “No.”

    At that he broke down entirely and laughed until the tears ran down his face.

    Politely not asking why Dorothy had turned up on their doorstep on a Sunday afternoon with a bottle of plonk under one arm, Jill got her sat down in the sitting-room with a cup of the universal panacea. The plonk turned out to be, gulp, Veuve Cliquot. With a date on it, what was more. “Where did this come from?” she whispered.

    “Eh? Oh—that. Polly’s Australian cowboy found it in her shed. So-called. Large garage, really, with a fully-furnished loft over it. There’s a second fridge out there that apparently she’d forgotten about, stocked with booze. Presumably by Jake—at all events she disclaimed all knowledge. They brought over a few bottles on Friday to take the taste of Thomas’s burnt sausages away, but as he’d opened the beer before the man was even halfway up the path we didn’t drink them all.”

    “Very clear, thank you.” She took it tenderly out to the fridge.

    “Where’s Gretchen?” asked Dorothy as she returned.

    “Golf.”

    “Didn’t you want to go?”

    “No, her avowed intention was to beat that cow Myrna Kitson-Thurlow hollow. –Don’t know her? –You wouldn’t want to. She’s Kitson-Thurlow, he’s Thurlow.”

    “Oh, one of those,” recognised Dorothy.

    “Yeah.” Jill drank tea and sighed. “Go on, tell us the worst.”

    “It’s not the worst, Jill. I suppose it’s good, really.”

    She didn’t sound too sure about it. Jill looked at her dubiously. “The Aussie cowboy?”

    “What else? –He’d changed out of the cream Aussie pants, when they came to dinner. Not that Thomas’s barbecues can be classed as dinner.”

    Jill winced. “Right. Go on.”

    “Sufficiently tight dark jeans. He has got the most gorgeous bum,” she sighed.

    “Yeah, I thought that. Gretchen was very pleased to ascertain it wasn’t pouty.”

    “Ugh! –I dunno what’s worse, pouty or droopily pear-shaped.”

    “Please! You’re curdling me tea!” she said with a laugh. “Well? And?”

    Interpreting this as a request for more physical data, Dorothy elaborated: “A tight pale blue tee. He looks so slim from the front, and then you realise there’s a considerable depth of chest there.”

    “Er—mm.”

    “Thomas went on and on after they’d gone about boxing. –Have you ever heard of welterweights, Jill?” she asked desperately.

    “Yes. It’s a fighting weight in boxing—like a class, or rank. The big ones are the heavyweights. Period.”

    “What?”

    “That’s the sum of my knowledge of the manly art. I must say that that all sounds, speaking from the point of view of Polly’s known preferences in the way of male bums, chests and generally macho idiots, extremely promising.”

    “Ye-es. He treated her… As if he’d known her all her life, really, Jill!” she burst out.

    Er… “Isn’t that good? Um, you don’t mean over-familiarity?”

    “No!”

    Okay, no. Jill refrained from raising her eyebrows. “Taking her for granted?”

    “Y— Um, no, not really that… Bugger. I can’t explain it.”

    “Have another barbie: invite us and them, I’ll give you me expert opinion.”

    “I may well do that! Except that he was babbling about squid rings and lamb chops—have you seen the price of lamb lately?—and ham steaks!”

    “Er—the Aussie cowboy, was this?”

    “No, Thomas,” she said dully.

    Alas, Jill shook all over.

    “Yeah, hah, hah. –They get manias, Jill.”

    “I know!” she gasped.

    Dorothy sighed and drank tea. “Well, never mind him. I’ll do my casserole. Um, next Wednesday?”

    “Well, yes, thanks very much, Dorothy. Will he still be here, though?”

    “Mm, that’s the point! Not only has he moved his stuff into the bach—well, he didn’t have much, but what he had—but he’s started disinterring all the junk from the so-called shed that I’m quite sure Polly never wanted to lay eyes on again—”

    “Veuve Cliquot an’ all,” murmured Jill.

    “No, well, she does like fizz, but she doesn’t like red wine, she said in front of him that if it was more of the Coonawarra stuff it could go down to Jan and Pete at the ecolodge, and he choked.”

    “Hah, hah,” agreed Jill obligingly. “And?”

    “Where was I?”

    “I think you may have been trying to tell me that the man’s taking her over, Dorothy,” she said kindly.

    “I— Well, sort of. –He’s talking about cutting a hole in the wall for a blasted ensuite!” she burst out.

    “I have heard Polly say that it’d be nice to be able to just walk into the bathroom instead of having to go right through the kitchen,” she murmured.

    “Yes, but good Heavens, he’s been in the country for a couple of days! And now he’s saying maybe he won’t go back—he’s already arranged to change his ticket, or cash it in, or whatever Madam Medes and Persian’s dictates allow—he might stay on for a bit and take that job with Col James! –Jolly Jim Carriers!” she said crossly to Jill’s blank face.

    Jill’s jaw sagged. “Wasn’t that dead loss of a Dan Carter doing that?”

    “Yes,” she agreed dully. “The whole of Carter’s Bay’ll be licking their chops over it.”

    This was undeniably true. “Mm. But can it matter, if Polly’s happy?”

    Dorothy sighed. “I dunno… You knew her back when she first met Jake, Jill: what was she like, then? I mean, was she pinkish?”

    Jill blinked. “Uh—oh! Pinkish! Yes, very much so. Um… crumbs,” she said, ruffling her short grey hair. “I think—was it the end of term?” she asked herself. “I’ve forgotten. It was either the first or second time I met him, but definitely the first that lasted more than two minutes. Anyway, it was latish in the afternoon, the faculty building was almost empty. He’d come up from the Carrano Building downtown to collect her, and they came along to the Lang. & Ling. staffroom to illegally bum a cup of French Department coffee—it was all right, anything in the nature of a dean or a Madame Defarge had long since pushed off, in fact if was the end of term quite probably none of them had been in at all. Only Jean-Paul and I were in there.” She swallowed, in spite of herself. “It was exactly like you said, Dorothy: you’d have sworn from his manner that he’d known her all her life.”

    Dorothy gaped at her.

    Jill nodded hard. “Mm! You know, I’d completely forgotten… But yes. That.”

    “I see,” she said limply. “And Polly?”

    Jill managed not to grimace. “Well, definitely pinkish: yes. But—uh—submissive would be the wrong word, her mind’s too sharp for that. But all I can say is, it came close. –And you do know that when the macho twit decided unilaterally to break it off, she let him, without a murmur?”

    “Um, yes, you’ve told me before… Oh. I see what you mean.”

    “And then when he turned round and said he didn’t want just a relationship, he wanted to marry her—before there’d been any hint of wanting to get back together, please note—she agreed, just like that.”

    “Um, Jill, she was in love with the man,” said Dorothy weakly.

    “I haven’t got it over, have I? She not only lets the macho types take her over, she likes it.”

    “Yes, but— I agree it may not be different in essence, Jill, and Stan Gorski’s certainly the macho type, but by the time they got engaged she’d known Jake for over a year, hadn’t she? This is different. She’s known the man for five minutes!”

    “Um, more or less. Well, how much did she see of him in Australia?”

    Dorothy looked grim. “This morning I finally got the great Baranski brain to reveal that Sol Winkelmann told him—I think it must have been yesterday’s blimmin’ gossip session disguised as a need for something for the boat—he admitted that Sol told him that Gorski himself mentioned that he’d only managed to have about half an hour alone with her over there!”

    Jill was seen to gulp.

    “Yes,” said Dorothy tightly.

    She took a deep breath. “Well, like I said to Gretchen after the pinkish in the supermarket bit, all we can do is stand by to pick up the pieces if it goes wrong.”

    “Right,” Dorothy agreed glumly.

    “Now, have another cuppa and for God’s sake eat a slice of this walnut and date loaf: something has got to convince Gretchen that it’s edible!”

    Obligingly Dorothy took a slice. “It’s yummy,” she said, very puzzled. “Why doesn’t she like it?”

    “Not that. She won’t try it. Convinced it can’t be edible because yours truly baked it.”

    Dorothy choked on it. “Sorry!” she gasped, her eyes watering.

    Kindly Jill got up and banged her on the back.

    “Thanks!” she gasped. She rinsed her throat with tea.

    “Talking of the long ago when Polly met Jake,” said Jill on a dry note, sitting down again, “the recipe dates from back then. Given to me by Polly’s mum as infallible, as part of her campaign to fit me as a helpmeet for the valiant Bob Mitchell or failing him, his doughty pal, Mike Collingwood.”

    Dorothy knew these gentlemen: Polly’s brother Bob was a wimp and Mike Collingwood had married a cuddly little woman who was as different from Jill as could possibly be imagined: the complete homebody. She found she was incapable of any sort of response. She ate some more of the loaf limply and finally offered: “It’s got a lot of walnuts in it.”

    “Yes. Mrs Mitchell had a tree. The bloody things cost the earth in the supermarkets, which is why I’ve never tried making it before,” replied Jill affably.

    “Did they have a special?” she groped.

    “Nope. Dick White’s come back from Paihia—full of homophobes, apparently—and bought Mrs Adler’s old place: it’s got a tree.”

    “Oh, good. –I knew Paihia’d never work out.”

    “And so say all of us,” Jill agreed. She hesitated, but decided she’d better ask. “Er… Dorothy, you’re not worrying that the Australian chap’s after Polly’s money, are you?” she said cautiously.

    “No. I was, but Thomas rubbished that one. And once I’d met him I could see that he was right.” She eyed her drily. “Far too much male pride.”

    “Crumbs. Well, that’s good,” Jill admitted feebly.

    “Yeah, one thing in his favour.”

    Suddenly Jill laughed. “I’d say there were several things in his favour, not least the bum, the chest, and the fact that he is capable of taking her over! Well, compare him to the drip Dan Carter! Not that I saw much of him, but I had it from Sol himself that the bloody man was shit-scared of her!”

    “Oh, yes,” said Dorothy slowly.

    “Yeah. Well, it’s too soon to tell, but if he does settle here it may work out. –Hang on. This job with Jolly Jim Carriers: does that mean he doesn’t want the job with Thomas after all?”

    “No, that won’t start until the beginning of the second semester. This is to tide him over, apparently. We gather he’s duly told Col James that he may not be available after mid-July.”

    Jill looked at her limply. “Then I really don’t see there’s much to worry about, Dorothy. He sounds a wholly admirable bloke.”

    “Yes,” said Dorothy, “I think he is. But she’s rushing into it.”

    Yes, well, when didn’t she? Jill hadn’t been a fly on the wall, but she did know that Polly had met Jake at some bloody party, let herself be dragged home to his lair, and before the cat could lick its ear had moved up to Pohutukawa Bay and was living on his doorstep. She didn’t bother saying so. She just cut her another slice of walnut and date loaf.

    Grace rushed into the store, very flushed. “Dad, Mrs Swadling reckons she’s just seen a strange man driving Polly’s Merc!”

    Yo, boy. Well, it hadda come, didn’t it? But via May Swadling, the Carter’s Bay and District Town Crier? Shit! Sol had sort of hoped, what with keeping Grace busy helping out at the store all Saturday, and helping him with the franks for dinner, and helping her mom wrap the pots destined for Galerie 2 all this morning, and then making her responsible for seeing Michaela got some lunch down her, it could have been put off for—well, preferably the rest of his life, yes. At least until next week. During which she’d have school, of course, so what with that for a distraction— He debated briefly asking what was strange about the guy and rejected the notion. Likewise that of demanding nastily what in Hell she was doing at Mrs Swadling’s dairy in the first place—though there were many as wouldn’t have, he recognised drily.

    “Yeah, wal, I guess that woulda been her friend from Australia, honey.”

    “What friend?” she demanded, staring.

    Jeez, it wasn’t gonna get better, was it? “Wal, I only met him briefly—uh, Thursday, think it was—yes, Thursday—when he wanted directions to the bach. Wal, gee, Grace, honey, he’s just a nice guy she met over there when she was staying with her friends the Mayhews.”

    “She never told me about him! She only said there was an awful barbie with really awful people at it, and, um, there was a nice lady called Mac at the fish an’ chips shop who gave her some snapper and wouldn’t let her pay. I wish we had a fish an’ chips shop.”

    “Uh—yeah. Me, too,” he admitted, not adding that there had once been one, right smack-bang on Carter’s Bay’s main street: it had been pulled down to make way for the Goddamned mall.

    “But who is he?”

    Sol more or less gave in. “Look, the guy’s a geologist that used to know Thomas Baranski way back and he’s applying for a job at Sir George Grey—Thomas interviewed him Friday.”

    “This Friday?”

    “Yes,” he confirmed limply.

    Frowning, she demanded: “But why’s he driving Polly’s car?”

    “I guess she loaned it to him,” replied Sol very weakly indeed.

    “But she never lets anyone drive it, Dad! Heck, she wouldn’t even let Jake drive it!”

    How unfortunately true. “Wal, all I can say is that she seems to be letting this guy drive it. Unless there’s something wrong with May Swadling’s eyes.”

    “Very funny, Dad!” Grace scowled over it. Sol jest stood there behind his store counter a-wishin’ the sky would fall in.

    “Well, is he staying with her, then?”

    Jesus. “I guess, hon’. Wal, you know: you have to go to a strange place for a job interview and you got a friend lives nearby, guessed you would stay with them, huh?” –Was he merely digging his own grave, here?

    “But she hasn’t got any room. I mean, the loft’s full of stuff, I said maybe I could stay up there for Easter and she said have a look but she didn’t think I could even get in the door, and I did but there’s huge boxes and stuff all piled up, even on the bed, and the door to the ensuite’s all blocked off, she said the men that brought the boxes did that, she’ll never be able to get at those big cartons on top of the piles. And the little room, you know, that used to be the twins’ when they were little, well, it hasn’t got a bed in it any more, she gave it to Goode As Olde because she's gonna turn that room into a study. And those divans under the front windows, she let that Mason Butler have those for his flat, she said they were only two-foot-six wide and they don’t make them any more but he was welcome to them.” She panted.

    Sol shook his head as of one with water in the ear. “Uh—yeah. Ida Grey’s grandson, huh? Seems like only yesterday he was a boy soprano refusin’ point-blank to sing Yum Yum in the local production of The Mikado.”

    “Ugh!”

    “Uh—no, Grace, he had a real lovely voice.”

    Since the young man in question was about six-two, broad-shouldered, and a member of the Commonwealth Games rowing team, there was some excuse for Grace’s goggling at him.

    “Uh—wal, if his feet stick over the end, I guess he can always use them as sofas,” he said feebly.

    “That’s not the point, Dad! There’s nowhere to sleep at the bach, he can’t be staying with her!”

    Sol very nearly said a very rude word in front of the offspring. “Well, he is. Him and Polly had dinner with the Baranskis, Friday, and then they went back to the bach together. You’re old enough to understand that she’s a free woman who’s entitled to have a boyfriend if she wants, and it’s nobody’s business but hers.”

    Grace turned scarlet. “I thought she loved Jake!”

    Sol thrust his hand through what little remained of his hair—falling out by the handful, right. “Look, that’s got nothing to do with—”

    Clonk!

    “Hey, Sol, I’ve tied up the runabouts, only there’s one still out!” gasped his helper.

    “Uh—thanks, Trent.” He looked at his watch, and winced. “Whose? Not that dim honeymoon couple from the Pink Manuka Motel?”

    “Nah, they come back ages ago. Um… dunno.”

    Taking a deep breath, Sol enquired: “No-one under-age, was it?”

    “No, I remembered what you said,” he replied virtuously.

    Yeah, well, short of asking for ID… But at least that meant he wouldn’t have hired out any more aluminum dinghies, plus and outboard, please note, to ten-year-old kids. “Yeah, okay, Trent. Thanks. I guess you can get off home, now.”

    Needing no urging, he gasped: “Righto!” And shot out.

    Which left Sol and his red-faced, scowling offspring. He took one of those deep breaths. “Now listen, Grace, honey. Polly did love Jake, and in a way she still does, that don’t turn off like a tap. But this is something quite apart from that. She can’t stop living and turn into a dried-up old prune just because she’s lost her husband. She’s still a relatively young woman and—uh—” He looked at the red and scowling face that was still quite some considerable way below his and bit his lip. “I think you might be too young to get this, honey, but there are some women that need a man in their life, and Polly’s one of them.”

    Grace just stared blankly at him.

    “Yeah, okay, you maybe just better take my word on that. I never knew her way back when, but her friend Jill Davis did, and she says she always had strings of boyfriends. She’s that sort. And you needn’t worry that he ain’t a good guy: Thomas recalled him real well and seems since he knew him—wal, he’s the macho type, don’t say he’s been living the quiet life, but for some time he was teaching little Black kid in Outback Australia for nothing but his keep, you can’t say a guy like that isn’t a decent sort, now can you?”

    Grace’s lower lip quivered. “I don’t care! She’s betrayed Jake!” With this she burst into snorting sobs.

    Oh, Jesus. Sol hurried out from behind his counter and enveloped her in a hug. “Peanut,” he said when the sobs seemed to have dried up, “I guess everyone that knew and loved Jake has gotta feel like that. But it ain’t fair to a still relatively young and pretty woman like Polly to keep her tied to a corpse. Now is it?” He waited in fear and trembling.

    “Um—no,” she admitted reluctantly.

    “No. She’s got nothing in her life, you know, honey: them kids of hers are all self-centred little shits.”

    Grace looked up at him in astonishment.

    Sol pulled a horrible face. “Wal, wouldn't own it to anyone but you or Michaela, but yeah.”

    “Or Gramma Gracie,” she said after a moment.

    Sol grinned in spite of himself. “Wouldn’t have to own it to Mom, she’da spotted it before anyone else could even formulate the thought!”

    “Yeah. Polly hasn’t even got her mum any more. And, um, well, she was very nice, wasn’t she? Only you couldn’t really talk to her, not like Gramma Gracie.”

    “You said it, honey. Wal, her dad, he was pretty good value and so was her eldest brother, Vic. But they’re both gone, now. So—wal, I guess we can cut her some slack, huh?”

    There was another of those awful pauses.

    “Mm,” she admitted, sniffling slightly. “Okay.”

    “Yeah. Uh—wal, we can pack up here, I guess; to Hell with that last runabout, iffen they can’t get it in on time I don’t care if they drown themselves in it. Where’s your mom?”

    “Next-door in Galerie 2 telling Clara and Teddi all about her latest idea for pots,” replied Grace literally.

    “Uh-huh. Wal, guessed we better live up to our name, huh? And get on in there, winkle her out.”

    To his huge relief Grace replied with deep scorn: “Feeble!” and dashed out.

    Sol’s knees went so wobbly that he had to hang on to his counter for support. Yo, boy.

    Grace’s mention of her Gramma Gracie had incidentally made Sol determined to have one last real good effort at getting Gracie Rosenberg out here for good. She was ninety, now, was Gracie, but still feisty as ever, and it was true she thought nothing of hopping on a plane from Florida—but the airlines were starting to think twice about her. So he girded up his loins and put in a call to her. There was a real pleasant townhouse going right here in Kingfisher Bay, had its own little stair elevator, central heating, and, wonder of wonders in this country, was double-glazed against them piercing winter winds, not to say the drenching rains. To his complete astonishment Gracie said briskly that she’d been considering a move for some time: there was nothing to keep her here, and she’d had more than enough of his nephew Junior Winkelmann’s wife Ruthie treating her kindly like a moronic invalid and if she never saw another of the woman’s brownies as long as she lived it’d be too soon. Okay, Sol, she’d put the condo on the market and he could make a down-payment on that there townhouse: she guessed she trusted him not to be sold a lemon and no, she would wire him the money to his bank and what was the account number?

    This huge excitement of course occupied the Winkelmanns all week to the exclusion of everything else, though at one point Sol did wake up in the middle of the night and thank God it had distracted Grace from Polly’s new guy.

    “Never thought Mom’d agree!” he said to Michaela early on the following Saturday.

    “You said that before,” she replied calmly.

    “Well, honey, did you?”

    “No, but when you think about it, those horrible townhouses in Kingfisher Bay are quite like Florida, aren’t they?” she replied seriously.

    “They sure are!” he agreed, laughing like a drain. “Boy, did that clinch the deal!”

    “Mm,” she agreed, nodding. “Did we forget to buy wholemeal bread?”

    “Uh… Oh. Well, white toast?”

    “Yes. –I could make some wholemeal bread for later,” she offered.

    “Yeah! Great, honey! –You sure? What about them new ideas for pots?”

    “No, they’re simmering.”

    “Right.”

    “Did those supplies you were waiting for come yesterday, Sol?”

    Sol was happily putting white bread in the toaster. “Huh? Oh: at the store. Nope,” he sighed. “Guessed the system’s not fully operational, yet.”

    “That Australian of Polly’s has started for Col, though.”

    “Yeah. Wal, I think there was one Helluva backlog, honey.”

    “Yes, May Swadling said she got a parcel yesterday that was dispatched three weeks ago.”

    “Uh—dispatched where from?”

    “New Lynn. It’s from her cousin Babs.”

    Sol swallowed It was only a suburb of Auckland, the woman could have driven it up here in—well, depending on the traffic—but two hours, max’! “Yeah. –Well, serve her right,” he noted, scowling.

    “What’s she said now?” asked Michaela simply.

    “Uh—just generally big-mouth, honey,” he said cautiously as Grace came into the main room.

    “I see,” she replied placidly.

    Sol smiled. “‘Thy firmness draws my circle just, and makes me end where I begun,’” he murmured over the toast.

    “Mu-um! Have you seen my blue shorts?”

    “No,” replied Michaela calmly.

    Sol shook slightly over his toast. “Them an’ all,” he murmured, smiling.

    Take it for all in all he was in such a good mood that he was whistling when he unlocked the store, even though Grace had accompanied him with the declared intention of sorting out the stupid kids’ fishing lines and the bait that dumb Trent couldn’t keep track of once and for all.

    She was loudly expounding her bring-up system for the bait—which would work perfect, its only drawback being that in order for it to do so someone would have to remember to open the freezer and check if the bait had gone down to the bring-up tag—and Trent was looking sulky, when the doorbell went Clonk!

    And an Australian drawl said: “Gidday, Sol. Good to see you again. Got a delivery for you.”

    Grace stopped haranguing Trent and swung round with a gasp.

    “Yuh—uh, hi, Stan. That’s great. Catching up on Col’s backlog, huh?” he managed to croak, not daring to look in the offspring’s direction.

    “Something like that,” drawled Stan. “You sell plain white acrylic paint, by the way?”

    “Uh—nup, sorry. Marine-grade only. Wrightson’s over to Carter’s Bay sell it.”

    “Right, thanks. –Well, I’da said undercoat, but Polly’s already got a coat of the white on,” he admitted.

    “Uh-huh. Seen that. Leprosy came to mind.”

    “There was only her to do it, Dad!” cried Grace angrily.

    “Uh—sure. Don’t get heated, Pumpkin.”

    “I coulda helped her!”

    “Y— Uh, iffen we’d known what she was gonna do, sure.”

    “I could help her now!” she said fiercely, awarding Dr Gorski a horrible glare.

    “That’s right, ya could,” Stan agreed mildly. “If you’re up for the fiddly bits round the bloody windows and doors. Not to mention the skirting—ever noticed how women never get the paint right down to the skirting?” he said affably to Sol.

    “Uh—you ain’t wrong, there. Uh—this here’s my daughter, Grace, Stan. Honey, this is Dr Stan Gorski, Polly’s friend from Australia,” he said firmly, unfortunately failing to attain the inflection that Gracie Rosenberg sure as Hell would have, that meant: “And don’t you dare be rude to him.”

    “I know that,” she replied, glaring.

    “Yeah? Small community, isn’t it?” said Stan Gorski calmly, sticking out his hand. “How are you, Grace?”

    Sol was goggling at them in fear and trembling, but to his astonishment his daughter, going very red as she did so—embarrassment, he thought, rather than resentment, this time—shook the hand and replied grudgingly: “All right, thanks.”

    “And this here’s Trent, my helper.” Sol watched limply as Gorski again held out his hand, and this time asked Trent how he was, to which the boy replied with a loud laugh, shaking far too enthusiastically: “Good, ta!”

    The delivery was duly unloaded, Sol not querying exactly why it incorporated all that cheap fishing line that was only good for the kids’ specials what they only sold in any numbers over the summer vacation, which was now well and truly over—though he had a feeling he might bring the topic up, later—and he accompanied Stan out to the truck again.

    “Know a bloke called—I think—Ray Henare?” asked the Australian.

    The name did ring strange bells… Oh! “Rewi Henare, that’d be, Stan, it’s a Maori name. Well, uh, sort of, I kinda think ‘Henare’ was the colonial missionaries’ kind attempt to translate ‘Henry’ for the natives.”

    “I getcha,” he replied, unmoved. “Yeah, think that was the name. Is he hefty?

    “Uh—yeah. Huge. He’s the gang-boss of the guys what laid the seal on the Inlet road.”

    “The lot that got two-thirds of the way up: right.”

    “Yeah. Uh, if you don’t mind me asking, why?”

    “Need some help clearing out the loft over the garage. Polly can’t sleep with the fresh paint, it makes her really queasy. I wouldn’t have thought the acrylic stuff would, but she reckons it does. So we thought we’d sleep up there.”

    “Yeah, but what’ll you do with all the stuff ya haul out of it, guy?”’

    He shrugged. “Dump it on the lawn? Still only March, should be okay.”

    “Oh, shit,” said Sol faintly. “You sure must be used to a different climate. The weather here is usually good through March, might even last into April, and some years it’s real nice in May. But it’s completely unpredictable. Could pour any old day.”

    “That’s that great idea down the gurgler, then. In that case better send it all to storage, if she’s not gonna use it. You got Grace here?”

    Sol gave him a startled look.

    “Sorry, mate, that came out wrong!” he said with a laugh. “Grace Removals. They’re very big in Oz. They do storage, too.”

    Sol nodded weakly. “Yeah, I think so, but if you—or Col—can provide the truck and the guys, I know someone who can store the stuff for her. He’d be glad to, got acres of space going to waste. Goode as Olde: the recycling yard.”

    “That sounds like a goer. I can get the truck, no worries, only Col’s blokes have been working their guts out trying to get rid of the backlog, he’s promised them the next couple of weekends off. That’s why Polly said this Rewi bloke might help.”

    “Okay, wal, you get the truck, Polly rounds up the road gang guys, and I call Rab Perkins at Goode as Olde. When you planning to do it?”

    Stan scratched his head. “Dunno that I was planning, as such. Well, soon as  possible.”

    “Tomorrow?”

    “Why not?” he said easily.

    “Okay, then. I better call Polly first, see what the situation is with the road gang guys—they’re probably working today, come to think of it. Just hold your horses.” He produced his cell and rang Polly. She would try Rewi’s number and get back to him, and meantime, he suggested they could have coffee.

    “Might as well: thanks,” agreed Stan easily.

    Polly rang back as the coffee was brewing. “Okay,” he reported. “Rewi and the gang are at work, but they’re off tomorrow, and one, Simone, will tell the bludgers that they can get on over to the bach and no arguments. Quote, unquote. –You got the word ‘bludgers’ in Australia, Stan?”

    “Think we invented it,” he replied drily. “What did they bludge off her, for God’s sake?”

    “Only afternoon tea, and it was all her idea,” replied Sol with a smile.

    ‘It would be,” he acknowledged. “Think I better get some beer in.”

    Sol approved this idea, gave him the coffee, waited while he drank it, accepted his thanks for his help, fended off Grace’s “I could—” before the words was hardly out of the kid’s mouth, and waved him off.

    “I could help clear out the loft!” she cried indignantly.

    “Crap. Then big packing cartons weigh more’n twice what you do.” He looked at her again. “Make that six times.”

    “Well, I could help paint!”

    “Thought you was helpin’ out here at the store?”

    “Trent won’t take any notice of me,” she reported bitterly.

    “Never to mind. Won’t need so much bait, with the season winding down, anyroad. But what you could do is make up all that cheap line into nice kid-size reels ready for next season, okay? And inventory ’em and all.”

    She brightened horribly. “I could write a report! Mr Jackson says—”

    Sol swallowed a sigh. Mr Jackson was her form teacher at Puriri High this year. He was already real sick of hearing the words “Mr Jackson says”—and it was still only March! Sheesh!

    Rewi and his road gang blokes duly turned up. Not early, no, but then, it was Sunday, which generally came after Saturday night, didn’t it? They were without exception over six-foot-six tall and, at a guess, sixteen stone. The sort of blokes that not only made you feel like a midget, you would not have wanted to meet one of them on a lonely road on a dark night. They were all, however, extremely amiable, with grins almost as huge as their mighty shoulders, treated Polly very, very kindly, in fact you’d have sworn she was their little sister, thought Stan in some amusement—at one point Rewi, who must be around his own age, lifted her bodily out of the way, in fact—and of course once the truck was loaded consumed vast amounts of beer, as well as a huge platter of ham sandwiches and the large batch of scones she’d made.

    Once the stuff had been unloaded and stored in Rab Perkins’s giant shed that was the old bus barn, where it actually looked lonely, the place was so huge, black and echoing, Stan suggested the pub, but they couldn’t, they were all going round to someone’s aunty’s because they (presumably the aunt and uncle) had just got a new giant plasma screen and they were gonna watch Sky Sports. They were happy, however, to accept the last half-dozen of the beer he’d got in as they retrieved their vehicles and took off up the Inlet road with a roar of exhausts from their rusty ute and their giant Harleys.

    “Polly,” said Stan with a laugh in his voice as, having waved them off from the front gate, they wandered back to the little house, “you sure that was a road gang and not a bikie gang?”

    “I think it might be the same thing,” she replied thoughtfully.

    Promptly Stan collapsed in the hysterics he’d been manfully holding in all afternoon. “I coulda died when that huge Rewi lifted you up like you were a bundle of feathers, darl’,” he admitted, wiping his eyes. “I dunno about you, but I feel like a midget!”

    “Yes, they do have that effect,” she admitted, smiling. “So you weren’t put off by the brown?”

    Stan had been about to suggest he try lifting her up like Rewi had and depositing her on this nice big bed. Instead he sat down on it rather hurriedly. “What?”

    “They are all Maoris.”

    “So?” he said, staring at her.

    “Well, Sol was horribly disconcerted when I said I’d given them afternoon tea when they were working on our road. He admitted it must have been his old Florida prejudices surfacing. And there is a lot of racial prejudice in Australia,” she ended detachedly.

    “Thanks,” he croaked.

    “Well, you never know. And Gorski Bay is relentlessly white, isn’t it?”

    He winced. “Yeah. Well, I don’t give a fuck what colour a bloke is. I got mates all over the world that are any colour ya care to name.”

    “Black?”

    He sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Hang on.” He fished his wallet out, and on second thoughts got up and found his mobile in his backpack. He sat down and patted the fuchsia tiger stripes. “Siddown. –Right.” He fished out some dog-eared Polaroid photos from the wallet. “Central Australia. Me and Pete. Not his Aboriginal name, before ya start.”

    “What is it, then?”

    Looking dry, Stan told her. She gulped.

    “Yeah. Hang on, that one’s a no-no, we won’t look at it: that’s the old bloke that died, not culturally correct; shoulda torn it up, only I was really fond of the ole bugger. Um… right. This is Pete again with Bill Parker, he’s the bloke I was working with out there, and his obbo, Nev. Let’s see… Some of me Afghani mates.”

    Polly stared at the fierce, bearded, turbaned faces. “You—you weren’t in the Army, were you, Stan?”

    “Eh? Nah! Not bloody likely. Nah, did a bit of rock collecting.”

    “Of course, yes… They look very fierce.”

    “Yeah, they were. Good blokes, though. Like horses?” he asked with a smile. “Okay,” he said as she nodded. “Here.”

    “Ooh! Fantastic, Stan!”

    “Yeah, those buggers sure can ride. Took that one meself. Good shot, eh?”

    “Mm. Is it—that’s not polo, is it?”

    “Hell, no. It’s called buzkashi—they don’t use a ball, they use a goat carcase. Been played for thousands of years in those parts. It’d be related to polo: those horseback games all come from the nomads of Central Asia—be Mongol, originally, I should think. People who live on horseback, see?”

    “Mm.”

    “Very fast and hard. Typically Afghani: no quarter,” he said with a little smile.

    “I see… The goat’s not alive, is it?”

    “Not these days. I reckon it would’ve been originally, though.”

    “Yes, I should think so.”

    “Uh—not upsetting you, pet?” he asked cautiously.

    Polly smiled. “No, I’m a farm girl, I’m not squeamish.”

    “Good-oh. Well, lessee, where’s the one of good ole Aziz? Um… here. He’s from Syria, originally. That’s his wife with him, she’s a Saudi girl.” Smiling, he told her the story of Aziz’s safehouse in Pakistan and the trips across the Arabian Gulf… Ending: “There’s another on me phone, he emailed it to me when his first son started walking. Here it is. Cute little kid, eh? That’s Mohammed with them: knew him quite well, too. Very decent bloke, do anything for you if he liked you.” He eyed her wryly. “From Morocco, originally. Black as your hat.”

    “I see… Yes, Aziz’s little boy is adorable, isn’t he?” she smiled. “But if Mohammed’s from Morocco, what on earth was he doing in Saudi Arabia?”

    “Uh, well, he gets around. Bit of a middleman, I s’pose ya could say.”

    “A middleman for what?” she demanded, staring at him.

    Stan rubbed his jaw uneasily. “Uh—well nothing dirty, not drugs or slaves, though he knew a few types that were into that. And not guns, more respect for his neck. Well, uh, bit of money changing, but it was mostly jewellery—gold, mostly, still the main currency in the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent, really. Safer than paper money, they’ve always reckoned, and whaddaya know, the flaming Global Financial Criss has shown they weren’t wrong!”

    “I see.”

    “He travels all over the Middle East. Hang on.” He sorted through the photos again. “Uh—yeah. Mate took this when I was in Morocco for a bit. That’s Mohammed’s place and his wife and kid.” The photo showed Mohammed, in his native dress, with a big grin on his face and a tall, lovely Black woman in European slacks and blouse on his arm, a boy of about ten or so at his other side, and next to them Stan with his arm round the waist of another tall, beautiful young Black woman. He cleared his throat. “Uh—that’s her cousin. Mireille. They were both doing a bit of modelling in Paris at one stage, ya see—”

    “Don’t go on!” gasped Polly, suddenly collapsing in giggles. “It’s all—too—clear!” she gasped through the giggles.

    Stan grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, well, lovely girl. Said she was looking for stability, though. Married a banker, in the end. Bit of a stuffed shirt, but they’re happy enough.”

    “Good,” she said, smiling at him.”

    “Yeah. Anyway, I’m not prejudiced.”

    “No,” Polly conceded weakly. “Though I won’t mention the long history of exploitation and victimisation of Australia’s Aboriginal women by white men.”

    “I wouldn’t, not if ya don’t wanna be put over me knee,” retorted Stan grimly.

    “Um, no. Sorry. My mind always sees five sides to any given question,” she admitted with a little sigh. “Most people can’t stand it.”

    “That right? Most people are bloody bores,” he replied casually—not as if it needed stressing, at all.

    “Yes,” said Polly with a deep sigh, leaning against him. “They are.”

    Stan’s arm tightened round her waist and he leaned his head on hers, not saying anything for quite a while. Then he said: “So ya can whip up a batch of scones with the best of ’em, eh, CWA woman?”

    “What?”

    “Country Women’s Association! Salt of the earth! The worst bloody moos in the whole country!” Stan explained with a loud laugh.

    “It’s just the same here,” replied Polly with her typical placidity.

    “I bet. Boy, where have you been all my life?” he muttered. The arm tightened. “CWA scones and five sides to every question?”

    “Mm,” replied Polly uncertainly.

    “Better get into this here bed and celebrate the fact, eh?” he concluded, grinning broadly.

    “I’d like that,” she agreed, beaming at him.

    Stan at this went very red, swept all his souvenir photos and his phone off the bed, rolled her back onto it and got on top of her. “I’m crazy about you, CWA woman!” he said fiercely in her ear.

    “Me, too!” she agreed with a breathless laugh.

    A short struggle with two pairs of jeans ensued, together with some muttering along the lines of: “What the Hell didja haveta wear these for?”, and: “Bugger these bloody things, I think me zip’s stuck,” but finally they were on the floor and Stan was right in—

    “Oh!” she shrieked, putting her legs right up. “Oh, Stan; oh, Stan!”

    So that was pretty much all right. Corker, in fact, as he concluded quite some time later, when he was finally capable of speech.

    “Mmm,” sighed Polly, snuggling into his shoulder. “Corker.”

    There ya were, then!

Next chapter:

https://anothercountry-apuririchronicle.blogspot.com/2023/08/ecolodge-country.html