Back In Sydney

20

Back In Sydney

    Karen’s opinion, once the dust had settled a bit, was that the man was going to treat Kitten like a pretty little doll for the entirety of their married life. She conceded that he’d sounded okay on the phone, all right, Dick! But it was plain as the nose on your face—don’t DO that!—Dick stopped feeling his nose—that the poor bloke was blinded by the curls and the big baby-blues and the pink!

    Dick was inclined to share Mrs Macdonald’s and Mrs Andy McGregor’s opinion, so he’d had been about to rubbish this statement soundly, but he found he was echoing weakly: “The pink?”

    “You know what I mean!” retorted his wife crossly, rather pink herself.

    “Uh—well, yeah. Well, she always was a pretty little girl: ’member how cute she was when she was—“

    “YES!” shouted Kitten Manning’s mother terribly.

    “—toddling,” finished Dick lamely. “Um, sorry, darl’. Look, it’s never all one-sided, ya know. I mean, there’s give and take in all relationships. Uh—well, take the Wests—”

    “What?” cried Karen in indignant amazement.

    “You’d be surprised what he gets away with under her nose,” he muttered. “Never mind. Um, well, you’ve said yourself a million times that Kitten’s hard as nails under it all. If you ask me—I’m not saying you’re entirely wrong, mind, he does sound like the type that fancies the little doll sort—but see, it’s not a direct contradiction. I mean, like I say, it’s give and take.”

    “Dick, you’re burbling,” she warned dangerously.

    “Sorry. I’m just trying to say it’s not all one-sided, it’s give and t—”

    “Dick Manning, if you say give and take once more today I’ll strangle you!” the driven woman screamed.

    Sweating slightly, Dick replied quickly: “Sorry. Look, he likes the little doll type with curls and everything, and she likes running the whole show, well, that can work! It’s not a contradiction, is all I’m trying to say!”

    “Not a contra— Dick, it can’t be both!”

    “I reckon it can. Don’tcha remember how pretty Maybelle West was when she was that age?”

    Karen’s jaw sagged.

    “Dark, of course, not blonde like Kitten, but—”

    “I’ve never seen anything less like a little doll than Maybelle West!” she gasped.

    “Now, yeah. Well, he is a bit spineless,” Dick conceded.

    Karen snorted. “A bit!”

    “Yeah, but the thing is, that’s what he saw in her. –And maybe underneath he did kind of see that she’d run his life for him, he’d never have to worry about a thing,” said Dick thoughtfully. “Not consciously, of course.”

    “If you’re telling me Kitten’s on course to turn into a Maybelle W—”

    “No!” he said with a startled laugh. “No, um, not that, I mean, she’s an extreme example. But she was the little doll type, and she does run his life for him. Kitten’s a bit the same, is all I’m trying to say; and see, Hugo, he likes the pretty little doll stuff, of course, but maybe he needs that—well, let’s face it, Karen, love—that steel that’s in Kitten’s nature.”

    Karen swallowed hard.

    “See?” asked Dick hopefully.

    “Dick, isn’t the man the CEO of a huge—” She broke off.

    “See?” he asked hopefully.

    “Mm,” Karen admitted. “Cripes. When you think about it maybe the two things do sort of... mesh.” She swallowed again.

    “Yeah, think so. Well, hope so.” He eyed her cautiously. “’Course, he is a bit old for—”

    In the wake of Baby James Reardon, Karen’s objections to older men marrying her daughters had sort of got lost. Sure enough, she replied dismissively: “What does that matter, if their temperaments suit!”

    Temperaments suit, eh? That was a good one! Pity he hadn’t thought of it, really. Or no, on the whole it was much better that she’d come out with it herself. “That’s it, darl’,” he agreed.

    “If they’re coming out maybe we’d better do up one of the bedrooms,” she then suggested.

    Dick gulped. “Um, probably wanna stay at a hotel—”

    That one was rubbished. Okay, they’d do up one of the bedrooms—untouched, to his certain knowledge, since the twins had grown out of their bunk beds—for ruddy Hugo Kent that could buy and sell their whole flaming suburb. So be it.

    All Ingrid’s attempts to get together with Sloane during the day for a cosy chat had been foiled—she’d been very gloomy since her and Dad had got back from SA, so that bright idea hadn’t washed, had it? Not that Ingrid had thought it would, really, but it had been worth a try. She was still temping, currently doing some sort of database input for the head office of a mining company that had gone with the database software that RightSmart also used, so Gail had of course put her forward for the job. Technical manuals: she had to create a kind of catalogue record for each manual and, this was the most exciting bit, not, scan it and attach the digital images to the record so as the blokes out in the field could look at the manuals on their laptops. In all her temping days Ingrid had never once heard of any bloke out in any field looking at any manual whatsoever, they were all convinced they knew it all—just like Dad, really. One good thing, Ward had been really interested and said that maybe they oughta think about doing the same for some of KRP’s operations. Which meant if RightSmart liaised between them and the software suppliers they could get a percentage, so it might help Sloane’s guilt feelings about leaving Gail in the lurch. Not that she was left in the lurch: she’d just taken on a really good bloke that had been with one of the big employment agencies and was bringing them in quite a lot of new custom—contacts with the type of firm that wanted blokes with fork-lift licences, that sort of thing. True, he didn’t want a partnership, he and his wife had a young family—but then, Gail didn’t really want a partner, did she? She just wanted someone really competent that she could boss around and this Jase bloke seemed to be that, by all accounts. So Sloane should have cheered up, especially with Kitten’s good news. Only she hadn’t.

    “Hullo,” said Ingrid brightly, walking into the strange semi-lab-like long hutch that was the room that the so-called “Technical Information System” people used. The permanent staff consisted of the Technical Information Manager, a nice, rather anxious, thin-faced guy who’d trained as a librarian and didn’t have a technical background, an assistant with a B.E. who thought he knew it all but in fact was hopeless with the software, and a short, plump girl with ginger hair with a bright green streak in it, Kandi by name, who helped with scanning, photocopying, compiling reports (that was, physically putting sheets of paper, hopefully in the right order, into covers) and filing according to some awful numerical scheme the librarian had got out of some English book. Misfiling, usually.

    “What are you doing here?” replied Sloane dully.

    “Come to take you to lunch. Come on!”

    “But I’ve got a lot to do, Ingrid—”

    “Don’t worry about that! You go, Sloane!” Tim, her boss, ordered cheerfully.

    “Yeah, go on,” agreed Kandi, eyeing Ingrid avidly. “Hey, is that a Carla Zampatti?”

    Ingrid looked down weakly at her frock. “Um, yes, ’tis, actually,” she agreed weakly.

    “Thought so, I seen it in a Vogue Australia,” the green-splodged Kandi explained. “I s’pose those shoes cost a bomb, eh?”

    “Like the handbag, only he bought that for her,” said Sloane drily, getting up. “I suppose I’d better come, since the alternative seems to be to be nagged to death. Hang on, I’ll just go to the Ladies’.” She vanished.

    Ingrid sat down on her ergonomic chair.

    “Hey, is it a Louis Vuitton?” breathed Kandi after some concentrated staring at Ingrid’s handbag and heavy breathing.

    “Conspicuous consumption at its worst,” declared the assistant, Bob, before the handbag’s owner could draw breath.

    “Proves you’ve heard the name, anyway: you’re not as dissociated from the real world as you’d like the rest of us to think,” retorted Ingrid swiftly.

    At this the green-splodged Kandi and the mild-mannered Tim both went into helpless spluttering fits.

    Ingrid grinned, and handed the bag to Kandi.

    The verdict was it was nice, but she’d seen one quite like it at DJ’s for only a hundred and sixty, what did Ingrid think? Ingrid thought she shouldn’t be chucking her hard-earned away on expensive handbags, and warmly recommended a shop that sold really good rip-offs for a fraction of DJ’s prices. But wasn’t Kandi saving up for an overseas trip?

    “Yeah, but it takes ages,” she said wistfully. “Dwayne, he was thinking we oughta save up for a house.”

    “If you do that,” replied Ingrid swiftly, “you won’t have a hope of an overseas trip until you’re in your sixties: you wanna wait that long?”

    “No,” she admitted.

    “No,” agreed Bob with a shudder. “Now, if ya go up to—” He launched into it. Nobody listened; Tim reburied himself in his computer and Kandi unaffectedly examined the contents of Ingrid’s bag. Ingrid just stared peacefully into space.

    “There are no cheap flights to Darwin,” said Sloane flatly, coming back as the speech was winding down with the reminder that the trick was to go up to Darwin first. “Or WA,” she added quickly as the unfortunate Bob opened his mouth again. “We’ve told you that a million times. Come on, Ingrid, if you’re coming.”

    “Maisie’s is nice,” offered Kandi helpfully as they headed for the door.

    “We might try it,” replied Ingrid with a nice smile.

    “Maisie’s is a dump,” said Sloane sourly as her sister closed the door behind them.

    “Yeah. I’ve got a committee meeting later on, so it’ll be the Hyatt.”

    Shades of Kendall! “All right, but why?” she croaked.

    Ingrid was leading the way to the car. “Mm?—Phew, hotting up already, isn’t it?—Well, the meeting’s in one of their conference rooms, Sloane.”

    “What sort of a committee, for God’s sake?”

    It was a charity committee that Ward’s sister had suckered her into agreeing to join. Sloane gulped.

    Ingrid buckled herself in. “Do up your seatbelt, Sloane.”

    “I am! Do you think I’m James’s age, for Pete’s sake? –Who’s looking after him, by the way?” she asked as Ingrid backed out.

    “Mum. She volunteered, don’t look at me, I was gonna ask Maria.”

    Sloane smiled weakly. “Okay, it’s the granny hormones.”

    “Yep!”

    The place where Sloane was working was a fair way out but they were still in good time for lunch, as Mrs Ward Reardon didn’t have to hunt for a park like the rest of Sydney, but simply used KRP’s parking basement, since funnily enough the building was but a short walk from the Hyatt, fancy that. Sloane ordered a drink the moment they sat down: she felt she’d earned it.

    “Who else is on this flaming charity committee?’ she managed to croak, having downed a stiff swallow. “Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, perchance?”

    “Well, her name’s on the letterhead, but she doesn’t usually come to the meetings, she’s a very old lady, you know.”

    It had been a joke. “Yeah,” said Sloane weakly, taking another gulp and wishing she’d worn something decent instead of a rather tired black linen-look suit. But their strange lab-like room at work was rather warm, it had a long stretch of windows above the lab benches, and she’d decided a blouse under a jacket she could take off would be the go.

    “Talking of gracious ladies, have you seen that letter Mum got from South Yarra?” asked Ingrid with a grin.

    Sloane goggled at her. “No. South Yarra? Who’s she know there, for Heaven’s sake?”

    “She doesn’t know her, that’s the point. It’s a gracious note on gracious gold-embossed headed notepaper, from Mrs Kent herself.”

    Sloane looked blank.

    “Sloane! Wake up! Hugo’s mum!”

    Sloane’s jaw dropped. “You mean she’s still alive?’ she croaked after an appreciable period of just dazed goggling had passed.

    “Yeah. Surprised me, too,” Ingrid admitted. “Well, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch’s still going strong, so why shouldn’t she be?”

    “Ingrid, she must he a hundred and two!” she gasped.

    “Hundred and ten, I’d of said,” replied Ingrid calmly, studying the menu. “I wouldn’t have the prawns,” she advised.

    Prawns, in a downtown Sydney nosh-house, however fancy it fancied itself to be? “I wasn’t gunnoo!”

    “The lamb’s quite nice. A bit heavy for lunch, though. –Yeah, Mrs Kent must’ve decided that it’s the done thing when your son decides to get engaged to a girl you’ve never laid eyes on to write her mum a nice note, ya see.”

    “Was it nice?” asked Sloane limply.

    Ingrid eyed her drily. “Very, according to Mum. Haven’t you been home, since you got that scungy flat?”

    “Yes, but not this week. And it’s not that scungy, just ordinary. –I think I’ll have the salmon,” Sloane decided.

    “That’s nice, yeah. Me and Ward had salmon last night, though.”

    “Can you cook it?”

    “Yeah, it’s easy. Ignore anything you mighta seen on TV—”

    “I will!” said Sloane fervently.

    “Yeah. Just get the pan quite hot, not as hot as for steak, but quite hot, with a bit of olive oil, and bung it in skin side down.—Non-stick, of course.—Then ya cook it till it changes colour to about two-thirds of the way up the sides, and then turn it over and give it another couple of minutes.” Her sister was staring at her.—“Truly, Sloane!”

    “It’s that easy?” she croaked.

    “Yeah, sure. The trick is to watch the sides. Some people like it with the middle bit still a bit pink and raw—”

    “Ugh!”

    “I’m with you. Just take it out of the pan the minute the side looks cooked all the way through and it won’t get too dry, see?”

    “Mm. I suppose it is quite economical, there’s no waste,” said Sloane thoughtfully.

    “Yeah. You could do it for Mum and Dad, Mum’ll eat fish!” she encouraged her.

    “I’ve only got two dining chairs. Well, I could go over to their place, I s’pose.

    “Yeah, sure. Half a kilo’s plenty for three, it’s quite filling. –I’ll try the Caesar Salad, you can only die once!” Ingrid decided cheerfully.

    “According to Kitten, Caesar Salad doesn’t exist in the whole of Oz,” said Sloane detachedly.

    Ingrid sniffed. “Sounds like her. –Hey, didja know Melodie and Michael are coming out for Christmas?”

    “Is it definite, then?”

    “Yes. Planning to get married next June.”

    “Midwinter?” croaked Sloane. “Is she mad?”

    “Well, actually, and ya needn’t tell Mum this yet, I think the idea is to get her and Dad over to Spain for it.”

    “So are they gonna live there? I thought he had a flat in London.”

    “Yeah, but he hates it and Melodie loves the place in Spain, and he reckons he can work from there, anyway.”

    “Sounds all right,” said Sloane, smiling at her.

    “Mm,” agreed Melodie’s twin.

    They were halfway through their mains when she said: “Um, don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about Lallapinda, have you, Sloane?”

    “No,” replied Sloane with an awful scowl. “Why should I?”

    “Well, I thought Kitten might have mentioned something.”

    “Kitten?” she said staring. “No!”

    “Um, she rang me the other day... Well, KRP does own it, ya know,” said Ingrid uneasily.

    “So?”

    “Well, from what she said it sounds as if Hugo might take it over.”

    Sloane laid down her knife and fork. “You’ve just said he owns it, Ingrid. You’re not preggy again, are you?”

    “No, we’ve decided to concentrate on us and James,” replied Ingrid with a smile. “Maximise the time, ya see, rather than waste another nine months with me throwing up.”

    “That sounds sensible,” she admitted. “So what are you on about?”

    “Well, I think she’s gonna talk Hugo into buying Lallapinda off the company and, um, using it as a house.”

     Sloane just stared at her.

    “It has been losing money: they’ve put a lot into doing it up but the returns aren’t—”

    “Ingrid,” said Sloane faintly, “ya mean Kitten’s gonna be lording it as the mistress of Lallapinda?”

    “Y— Well, not lording it, if she’s the mistr— Um, I think so.” She eyed her cautiously.

    “I can’t even laugh,” said Sloane limply at last. “Good grief!”

    “Mm.” Ingrid ate a piece of tomato with a bit of anchovy. “Is Caesar Salad supposed to have tomato in it?” she asked idly.

    “Don’t ask me. –Look, Ingrid, has this been in that cunning noddle of hers all along, do you think?”

    “Um, well, didn’t she say at one stage that it was part of the plan?”

    “Y— Uh, if you’re thinking of that night on the beach in SA—before the Lallapinda dance, I mean—we were all drunk,” Sloane reminded her.

    “No, later, back in Sydney. Um, well, by that stage I wasn’t concentrating, really: all I could think of was Ward.”

    “We noticed,”  said her sister drily.

    “Yeah—didja? Yeah!” said Ingrid with a happy laugh. “Um, but I’m pretty sure that marrying Hugo Kent and living at Lallapinda was—was mentioned, Sloane.” She swallowed.

    “As a matter of fact I think you’re right.” Sloane turned round and waved at the waiter. A miracle occurred and he came over to them. Well, possibly he’d recognised that ruddy handbag of Ingrid’s. Or seen Mrs Ward Reardon’s photo in the ruddy society pages. “We’d like a glass of wine after all, thanks. The house white’ll do.”

    “I do have to stay awake for this blimmin’ meeting, ya know,” Ingrid noted weakly, when the glasses were in front of them.

    “Blow that!” Sloane raised her glass. “Here’s to Kitten Kent, mistress of Lallapinda!” She broke down in awful splutters before she could get the glass to her lips.

    “Yeah!” agreed Ingrid with a relieved laugh. For a moment, there, she’d been afraid Sloane was gonna have a dummy-spit at the thought of ruddy Kitten lording it at Lallapinda. “Good on ’er!” She drank hers off: she needed it. “Help! Chateau Cardboard!” she gasped.

    “Never mind: to Kitten!” Sloane downed her glassful. “Shit!” she gasped, coughing.

    “How ladylike,” drawled a sardonic voice from their rear.

    Ingrid gasped, and swung round. “Aw, it’s you,” she said in relief.

    “Yes,” agreed Gail. “Seen anything red-haired and in the worst mood since Attila the Hun was a babe in naps?”

    “She’s over there, by the window,” replied Sloane. “Who on earth is that fat man with her? Someone from the bank?”

    “Nope, a gnome. From Zurich itself,” Gail explained, eying Fee and the gnome uneasily. “Her boss at the bank’s ordered her to entertain him on pain of death, and she’s ordered me—”

    “Yeah! Don’t go on!” gasped Ingrid.

    Sloane grinned slowly. “Just tell me one more thing before you immolate yourself on the altar of partnerly duty, Gail. Why the Hell has she brought him here?”

    Gail made a sour face. “She was sure she wouldn’t bump into anyone we know, ya drongo.” She stalked off, valiantly pretending she wasn’t aware of the Manning sisters collapsing in hysterics behind her.

    Funnily enough, whether it was this demonstration that gay relationships were fundamentally no different from hetero ones, or just the enjoyment of Gail’s martyrdom, or relief that Gail didn’t seem to bear her a grudge for deserting RightSmart, or just the thought of Kitten in pink fluff and Hugo Kent’s jewels, coming the gracious station owner’s wife at Lallapinda—to the delectation, presumably of Ma and Pa Keating from Nearby Bay: well, work it out: who else was there? Pete?—or just a combination of these factors with a nice lunch instead of her usual chewy salad wrap from Maisie’s, Sloane felt miles better than she had done for ages. And even worked up the courage to accept that ticket to the opera from nice Tim at work, after all. He had season tickets but couldn’t go that night, it was a family anniversary.

    There was no reason at all to suppose that Hardy Saunders would be there that particular night—why should he be? And there was certainly no sign of him. Who she did catch sight of in the interval, however, was Kendall Burgoyne, not with Joyce, but looking heavily uxorious with his arm round a very lipsticked fortyish lady with big hair. And big boobs. A brunette, if that was relevant, in fact the hair looked like something straight out of The Nanny: that look had been out for years! He was so blatant, and the venue was so very public—in fact they were clearly with friends, and two other couples came up and spoke to them while Sloane was watching them instead of trying to join in the scrum round the bar—that it was ruddy obvious it must be official. So Big-Hair Lady had forced him to dump Joyce where, she, Sloane, hadn’t even got near it? So much for torturing herself over bloody Kendall’s hurt feelings!

    She couldn’t have said why, exactly, but next morning she rang Ingrid up and asked her if she could find out how Hardy was getting on.

    “Why?” gasped her sister.

    “Don’t get excited. I’d just like to know he’s okay. Um, I mean, he’s an attractive guy and he can pretty much pick and choose—but, um, could you?” she ended weakly.

    “I can ask Ward, but ya know what men are. If the joker’s not actually sobbing his heart out on his office carpet he’ll say he’s okay and what’s the fuss about?”

    “Mm.”

    “Sloane, you’re not having second thoughts about dumping him, are you?” said Ingrid cautiously.

    “No, of course not. But, um, I do feel a bit guilty about it. I mean, I did treat him pretty badly.”

    “Not if he never said could it be exclusive.”

    Sloane sighed. “Look, life’s not that cut-and-dried, haven’t you learnt that yet?”

    Firmly Ingrid replied: “You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about if you didn’t both agree it was gonna be exclusive. But I can ask Ward to take a dekko at him, sure. In fact, tell ya what: I’ll pop into the building and do it myself!”

    Ooh, help! Trying not to visualise Mrs Ward Reardon swanning into the lawyers’ section and invading Hardy’s office, not to say, not to picture all the legal staff drawing the obvious conclusion and the subsequent flurry, no, hurricane of gossip that would immediately flood the building, Sloane replied very weakly indeed: “Could you really? Thanks awfully. It’d be a real load off my mind.”

    Ingrid hung up looking thoughtful. “I could always lie,” she murmured. “Eh? Oh—sorry, Maria!” she said with a laugh. “Look, it’s a lovely day: I gotta go downtown and pop into the building, but what say you come too and we’ll take James and have a bit of a picnic!”

    “Me, Mrs Reardon?” she gasped.

    “Yeah, ’course; and call me Ingrid, I keep telling you, you don’t have to call me Mrs Reardon, that’s mad!”

    Maria beamed, but explained that Mr Reardon’s sister had said—

    “Ignore her, she can come the fine lady in her own home if she wants to, but we’re not living in the Middle Ages!”

    Whether Maria actually got all of this speech was problematic, but she got the gist and, beaming again, agreed: “Righto, Ingrid! I get my handbag, okay?”

    “Yeah, and ya better go to the bog, come to think of it, dunno what they might be like at the Botanic Garden.”

    Obediently the beaming Maria went.

    So, complete with Baby James and Maria, Ingrid duly penetrated to the Legal Division of KRP. Since they were only headed to the Botanic Garden she was in jeans and a tee-shirt, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t instantly recognised. Even though it wasn’t by any means an Australian custom, several young gentlemen staggered to their feet. It wasn’t, however, one of them who actually got up the nerve to speak, it was a young woman. Also an Australian custom, as Ingrid silently recognised.

    “Good morning, Mrs Reardon. Can I help you?”

    “Yeah; thanks.” They had a big open-plan office with several small, glass-walled ones opening off it at the back. Ingrid was pretty sure Hardy had had one of those, but he certainly wasn’t visible at the moment. In fact the one she thought might’ve been his was occupied by a young man with flaming ginger hair.

    Not letting the fact that she didn’t know this young woman deter her, she said sunnily: “I was looking for Hardy Saunders, actually.”

    “Um, he’s not here, I’m afraid, Mrs Reardon!” she gulped.

    “Shit, call me Ingrid, this isn’t the Middle Ages!” replied Ingrid cheerfully. “Has he gone to lunch already?”

    “No. He’s working in the Perth Office, now.”

    “Aw, right,” said Ingrid, somewhat disconcerted. “Blow. See, he was having a thing with my sister Sloane a bit back and she dumped him, and she’s been having guilt feelings about it, so we were just wondering if he’s okay.”

    The young woman licked her lips. “Well, um, he did seem a bit down before he went... Only we haven’t heard from him, really.”

    Suddenly one of the young men volunteered: “Yes! He sent me an email! See,” he explained eagerly, coming over to them, “I don’t really know him that well—well, I mean, he’s middle management, only we sometimes used to go rock climbing together and see, my sister’s living in Perth and I said why didn’t he ask her about the facilities over there, ’cos see, Jack, that’s her husband, he’s keen on it, too! And he sent me an email!”

    “Jason,” said the young woman heavily, “an email saying ‘Great rock climbing here’ or even ‘Rotten rock climbing here’ isn’t gonna prove—”

    “No! I mean, he did say— Only, thing is, my sister sent me a photo, too! Come and see!” he urged.

    Forthwith Ingrid, Maria, and most of his fellow-workers hurried eagerly over to his desk.

    Yeah, there was the email, all right. It said pretty much what the young woman had said. So much so, in fact, that she noted drily: “Really illuminating, Jason.”

    “Yeah—no; hang on!” Some fumbling ensued, but he did finally retrieve the photo. It showed a rather smudged, grinning Hardy in what must be rock-climbing gear, with the arm that wasn’t holding the helmet round a skinny girl in a tight white tee and tracksuit pants. She was grinning, too. Okay, Jason, it was your sister’s friend Caitlin. Yeah, the flash had worked good, you could see the rock-climbing wall behind them. Oh, really good gym, eh?

    “That looks all right, eh?” said Ingrid in relief. “Thanks, Jason.”

    “No worries!” he gasped.

    And with that, bidding them all a friendly: “See ya!” Ingrid departed.

    That evening Ward asked in a puzzled way if she had really been in the building today, or if it was only a mad rumour?

    “I just nipped in to see the legal eagles,” replied Ingrid cheerfully.

    “Why?” he croaked, his jaw dropping.

    “Looking for that Hardy bloke that Sloane had a thing with.”

    “Why, for God’s sake?”

    “She wanted to make sure he was okay, of course,” replied Ingrid calmly.

    “Uh—think he’s over in WA,” he recalled hazily.

    “Yeah, they told me that. Seems to be okay: one of them’s got a pic of him and his new girlfriend.”

    Ward found he was incapable of speech. He tottered over to the sideboard and poured himself a Scotch. Once he’d got it down him he managed to say: “Look, is Sloane all right?”

    “Yeah, seemed quite perky the other day,” replied Ingrid cheerfully.

    “Then why is she worrying about— Shit, was she thinking of taking up with him again?”

    “No, ya nana. She just wanted to be sure he was okay,” replied Ingrid cheerfully.

    That was apparently as good as it was gonna get. Ward waited until she’d gone into the kitchen saying something about salmon: then he shot into the bedroom and rang Dick.

    Dick listened to his plaint with a twinkle in his eye. “I know you’ve only got one daughter; and you’ve only got the one sister, eh?” he said as his son-in-law ran down.

    “Eh? Yeah. So what?”

    “So they stick together like glue, mate! But I’d say it’s exactly what she said: Ingrid’s always had a literal mind.”

    “So Sloane is okay, is she?” he croaked.

    “Pretty good, yeah. In fact she’s here right now, volunteered to cook salmon steaks for our tea. God knows what they’ll turn out like, but it’s a good sign, eh? I wouldn’t worry, Ward! See ya!” said Dick breezily, hanging up.

    Dazedly Ward tottered out to the kitchen. Ingrid wasn’t doing salmon! So why had she mentioned it?

    “Didn’t you say something about salmon?” he croaked.

    “Eh? Nah. –Aw: might of said I told Sloane how to do salmon steaks, yeah.”

    “Oh—right. She’s doing them now, apparently,” he said limply. “Just spoke to Dick on the phone.”

    His ex would have pounced on this remark, got every last detail of the conversation out of him, and dissected it minutely. To his discredit, natch. The literal-minded Ingrid, however, just said placidly: “Aw, good, she must of got some, then. She said she might.”

    “Yeah!” said Ward with a mad laugh. “Boy, am I glad you’re you, darl’!” He put his arms round her from behind and hugged her fiercely.

    “So’m I,” agreed Ingrid placidly.

    “What are you doing, then, if it isn’t salmon?”

    She plunged into it. Something she’d got off Maria— Jesus! Central American? Guaranteed to be a gut-burner! “Um, yeah. Great. Nice change, eh?” he croaked.

    “Yeah. And if it doesn’t turn out, there’s plenty of bread, we could just have cheese toasties,” said Ingrid with the utmost placidity.

    Right! Nice change, was right! Grinning, Ward went over to the fridge and got out a bottle of bubbly. “I was saving this for a special occasion, but I’ve decided this is it,” he explained.

    “Eh?”

    “Celebrating the fact that you and your sisters may all be as mad as snakes, but even if you tried for a million years you could never be anything like me bloody ex!” As there were no champagne glasses within handy reach he grabbed a couple of water glasses, and poured. “Cheers!”

    “Cheers!” agreed Ingrid, happily drinking champagne out of a very downmarket glass tumbler from Kmart without pointing out that this was a waste of expensive champagne, this wasn’t a special occasion at all, and that one did not drink champagne out of cheap glasses.

    So there ya were!

    The job with the technical manuals had come to an end. Gail eyed Sloane drily. “You’re too efficient, that’s what. We expected this job to last into the New Year.”

    “So give me a bonus, Gail.”

    “Hah, hah.” Gail looked up the jobs database. “Fancy interstate, for a change? It’s a job with the same software, passed on by Bill Hardacre, their trainer’s off on maternity leave—the permanent one, I mean—and the temp they found all on their ownsome has up and left them, reasons unspecified—”

    “Their gung-ho approach, probably.”

    “Yeah, well, all the IT firms are like that, but you’re probably not wrong. Well, um, reading between the lines they might’ve poached—well, semi-poached—this job off the Victoria lot. They’re each licensed dealers, the software’s owned by a Yank company. There is supposed to be an agreement between them over territory, but the Vics abandoned SA some time back. Dunno about the NT, think the Sydney lot might have that legitimately. –It’s installing the basic version of the software in a small library and training the librarians to use it. Only basic training: search and input. They’ve bought the standard library package—uh, I think in its most basic form, none of the bells and whistles, but you know what they are, it wasn’t clear.”

    “I thought you said it wasn’t a package?”

    “Eh? Yeah—no, the U.S. owners haven’t got a package, Bill Hardacre’s dreamed this up. Same software as ours, they’ve used it to design a library database, simple catalogue kind of thing, that they’re flogging off to their Aussie customers. Um, well, I spoke to that nice new woman consultant they’ve got now, she reckons Bill’s full-blown version has got modules for God knows what. Loans system with barcode readers or something. I did speak to him as well, but it was the usual breezy offhand thing mixed with the usual geek-speak. But she did warn me that last time they sold an unsuspecting library their basic library package he sent the wrong training manuals to the woman in SA that they got to do the training for them.”

    “Gail,” said Sloane heavily, “is this job in SA?”

    “Yeah.”

    She took a deep breath. “Where in SA?”

    Nearby Bay. Fancy that.

    “Look, it’s miles from that bloke’s place, Sloane!” said Gail desperately.

    “I’m not even gonna ask how you know that, Gail,” replied her erstwhile business partner between her teeth.

    Gail glared. “I can read a map!”

    Sloane didn’t reply and after a bit it apparently dawned on Gail that that was the wrong tack entirely. “Look, I’m sorry, Sloane, but it is right out on the coast, and they’ll pay really well, and, um, well, I wouldn’t mind a few more jobs like your tech manuals one, and—”

    “And you don’t wanna get in bad with Bill Hardacre—no, all right. Look, I’ve never trained anyone in the software: I can only do basic inputting and searching myself!”

    “That’s all they need,” replied Gail firmly. “And if the manuals they supply for training in their in-house designed library system are anything like the one the woman consultant showed me behind Bill’s back, the end clients won’t want a bar of them, they’ll be flaming impenetrable! Well, learn the language they’re using and they’re very helpful, yeah, but if you’ve got that far you don’t need a ruddy manual!”

    “Thanks.”

    Gail bit her lip. “No, what I mean is, if we go over the basic procedures together we can knock out a nice simple little training session for you to use. We’ll try it out on ruddy Jase, I’ve discovered the bugger’s database-shy. And most librarians are pretty computer-literate, these days: I’m sure they won’t be as bad as... him,” she finished weakly, looking at Sloane’s face. “What?”

    “The main purpose of the Nearby Bay Library is to supply shelter and some sort of distraction to all the little Aboriginal kids for miles around, and bogs and National Geographics to all the local retirees. From Nearby Bay and Bonny Bay,” she said heavily. “Geddit?”

    Weakly Gail conceded: “Yeah. Um, well, I couldn’t get any sense out of Bill, but Bev, the woman consultant, reckons that they want to run a combined system for the two bays.”

    Sloane’s jaw dropped. “Gail, that’d be a network, I couldn’t possibly!”

    “Uh—no, don’t think it is. Well, it’s the same council area, but I got the impression the library’s only gonna have a stand-alone computer. They want to put the Bonny Bay branch’s books on it as well as theirs, I think is the idea.”

    Bonny Bay was even smaller and obscurer than Nearby Bay. Sloane had been there, but she’d certainly never seen a library there. “Um, well, if it’s one computer I could probably cope, but heck, Tim was saying that most places have IT gurus that have to give you administrator access before you can load anything to the system, Gail: I mean, their IT blokes are right on site but they still had to wait a month before they could get their software on!”

    Gail had met Tim, as she’d handled the tech manuals job on behalf of RightSmart herself. He’d struck her as the sort of wimp that would let the IT guys trample all over him. On the other hand, she’d heard enough bitter complaints from Fee about the bank’s IT lot— Yeah. And every temp they’d ever placed in a firm with an IT section had had similar reports.

    “Well, hang on, I’ll ring Bev, and if she can’t clarify the position I’ll ring the end client.”

    Resignedly Sloane waited. Gee, Bev couldn’t clarify it, fancy that. Gail rang Nearby Bay.

    “Wants to talk to you,” she reported, holding out the receiver.

    Sloane gave her a bitter look, but RightSmart etiquette prevailed and she didn’t hiss that she hadn’t even accepted the blimming job, she just took the receiver and spoke politely to the librarian at Nearby Bay. Jenny Henderson. They had met, she reminded Sloane. And of course she knew Kym! They quite often got him books on boatbuilding through the interlibrary loans system!

    “Well?” said Gail as she hung up.

    “Um, yeah. A stand-alone computer. The council’s too mean to spring for more.”

    “Good. You’ll handle it, no sweat!”

    “Maybe. How much does it pay?” asked Sloane resignedly.

    Cripes, the Sydney suppliers were willing to spring for the airfares! And accommodation would be provided, Gail reported on a smug note.

    “You mean it’ll be Jenny Henderson’s place overnight,” said Sloane drily.

    “I thought she sounded very nice,” replied the CEO of RightSmart defensively.

    “Yeah. She is. Very nice. Late thirties, spinster, lives with her goggly-eyed spaniel, one of those little ones, and a cockatiel that can whistle the first line of God Save the Queen.”

    “That’s apocryphal,” replied Gail on a weak note.

    “No, she inherited it from her mum, who was a red-hot Royalist,” she said heavily. “That’s what Nearby Bay and all these little country towns are like.”

    “Come off it,” replied Gail on a weak note.

    “Gail,” said Sloane heavily, “Kym and Melodie have both heard the blimmin’ cockatiel! She thought it was the smartest thing since sliced bread, if ya must know, but Dad took her down to the pet shop in the Precinct and their one that they can’t sell was doing its usual ruddy shrieking, so she gave up the idea of getting one.”

    Gail gulped, and essayed a smile that didn’t come off. “Right, goddit.”

    “Jenny grew up in Nearby Bay. She went to uni in Adelaide and I think that’s where she did her library course, as well. And then she came back home,” clarified Sloane dully.

    “All right, you don’t have to take the job. It was just an idea,” she said glumly.

    “What? No, I didn’t mean that. I’ll do it, if you’re desperate for someone. And at least it'll be something new to get my teeth into.”

    Cheering up immensely—to the point of maddening, actually—Gail agreed: “Right! ’Course it will! Okay, let’s see...” The scheduler apparently reported that tomorrow at crack of dawn would be the ideal time for her, Sloane and Jase to get together to start looking at the software—and Sloane could load it onto his computer, it would be great practice!

    It was fairly obvious that Gail had been holding off on loading Jase’s database software—and quite probably saving up this job, too—until she, Sloane was free! Okay, so be it: she wasn’t gonna say anything, but she’d ruddy well use the opportunity to learn as much as she possibly could! And could she borrow Gail’s copy of the user manual? The official one, that the U.S. suppliers sent with the softw— Yes, she could. Fancy that.

    “What’s this?” said Dick, picking up the manual that she’d incautiously left on her dining table. “Never heard of it,” he noted by the way. “American. DOS-based, is it?”

    “Just put it down, Dad,” said Sloane heavily.

    “No, I’m interested! –Quite new,” he discovered, finding the manual’s copyright date.

    “What? No! That’s the Windows version, Dad! They had a DOS version for years!”

    “See that,” he grunted, turning to the appendices. “Hm. In other words, stuck a flamin’ pretty user interface on it for the mugs, eh?”

    “Y— Look, just leave it, Dad!”

    “Looks all right,” Dick decided, ignoring her. “Dunno why they can’t use standard terminology, though. Why the fuck are they talking about textbases when they mean databases?”

    “Its speciality is handling loads of text,” said Sloane heavily.

    “Right. Sorts strings longer than 250 characters, does it?” replied the electronics engineer drily.

    “I’ve no idea!”

    “Mmm... simplistic,” he decided with a sniff.

    “Dad, it’s meant for people who want to build their own databases, it’s not meant for ruddy IT gurus!”

    “Yeah...” he said vaguely. “Index looks quite good,” he reported in surprise. “Ah! Thought so! Why the fuck aren’t they using SQL?” he demanded in aggrieved tones.

    “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

    Dick sat down on Sloane’s sofa. “Structured query language, ya ning-nong. Standardised language used for interrogating databases. They don’t mention it, see? Must of invented their own. Bats.”

    “Yeah, right. You’ve never been an end-user. It’s really easy software to use, very user-friendly, and you can customise the screens to look the way you want.”

    Dick flipped through the pages noisily. “WYSIWYG, is it? –Right. –Hang on, missed that one: bad mark, Index!” He got out his trusty pen and wrote it in before his daughter could scream: “Don’t do that, that Gail’s manual!”

    “That Gail’s manual,” she said limply.

    “Eh? Ya mean she lent it to ya? Ya don’t mean she’s gonna let you touch her sacred database structures, do ya?” he croaked.

    Sloane scowled. “No. She’s got a job for me: just loading it and some basic training, over in—”

    When Dick was over the spluttering fit she finished defiantly: “Over in Nearby Bay!”

    Dick looked at her numbly. “Eh?” he croaked eventually.

    “They’ve got a new computer at the library. They want to put all their stuff and Bonny Bay’s on it.”

    Dick’s jaw was pretty saggy already, but at this it went even saggier. “Bonny Bay?”

    Sloan shrugged. “That’s what they said. I spoke to the librarian, Jenny Henderson, in person.”

    “That moo! –’Ve you ever seen Bonny Bay’s library?” he croaked.

    “No, but I’ve only been there a couple of ti—”

    “It is in the old Institute building, I’ll grant ya that. Room the size of a cupboard.” He looked round her elementary sitting-dining room, separated from the kitchenette only by a breakfast bar. “’Bout this size, actually.”

    “I dare say. They still don’t want to lose the books, though.”

    “This’ll be some nutty idea of the council’s,” Dick spotted unerringly. “That tit Clem Watkins, probably. Bean-counting. –Tattered Wilbur Smith counting!” He went into a spluttering fit. “Kym and Andy read ’em,” he confided, wiping his eyes. “See, they’d got through the Nearby Bay lot, so one of them library moos told them to get on over to Bonny Bay—that’s right, think she did say it was all the same system, yeah, ’cos I asked Andy if they were entitled and he said they had been planning to jimmy the windows at dead of night and nick them, but actually, she said they could use their cards.” Further splutters.

    “There you are, then,” replied Sloane flatly.

    Dick wiped his eyes. “Eh? Yeah—s’pose you are, yeah. Cripes, progress comes to Nearby Bay and Bonny Bay! –Taking of progress, any progress with that coffee?”

    Sloane felt the electric jug gingerly. “No.” She peered into its innards. “No.”

    “Is it switched on at the wall?”

    “Yes,” she sighed.

    Dick bounced up and investigated. “Dead as mutton. Be the element,” was the verdict.

    “Don’t bother to offer to fix it, we all know what happened last time you reckoned you’d fixed Mum’s. I’ll buy a new one.”

    “All right, be like that! –Where’s that percolator of yours?”

    “I threw it out. Anyway, there isn’t any real coffee.”

    Dick took a deep breath. “Just how broke are you?”

    “I’m not broke, I just got sick of that percolator, its coffee was awful.”

    “Right. Well, if you’ve got a saucepan we could boil the water up in that and pour it all over the bench, but let’s go out instead.”

    “What, down your mall?” replied Sloane without excitement. “There’s nowhere round here, Dad,” she reminded him.

    “The Precinct’ll do, yeah. We can look at paint samples while we’re at it.”

    “Paint samples what for?”

    “The flamin’ spare room, that’s what! Your mother’s decided it’s gotta be done up for Hugo Kent what could buy the whole of Sydney!”

    Sloane swallowed hard. “Oh. Well, people do... Has she got any idea of colour schemes?”

    “Nope.” He watched drily as his daughter gulped. “And I’ve only got one idea, to wit, not pink.”

    “Even Kitten wouldn’t expect that. Mum’s quite fond of pale blue.”

    “Are people painting their spare rooms pale blue these days?” asked Dick simply.

    “No, I think it’s all null off-white or null oatmeal, isn’t it?”

    “In that case,” Dick decided cheerfully, getting his keys out, “we’ll ask Soapy Stevens down the Precinct and buy what everyone else is buying.”

    “That or some muck he hasn’t been able to offload for the last ten years, yes.”

    Placidly Dick agreed: “Uh-huh.”

    They were in the car, nearly at the mall, in spite of the cretinous Saturday traffic that was all heading there as well, when it struck him. “Uh—Sloane, now don’t laugh, but was ole Soapy Stevens ever one of Kitten’s?”

    “I dunno, Dad, but it doesn’t matter, they all fall over themselves to do anything for her.”

    “Actually, you’re not wrong, there,” he conceded in relief. “Bumped into Bob Carewe just the other day: he was asking after her. –Carewe’s Luggage & Accessories,” he reminded her. “That load of free luggage Kitten took overseas with her come from him. Then I hadda pop in the chemist’s—nothing serious, your mother twisted her wrist on a jar of those flamin’ sour dills she likes—I got her a certified genuine jar opener from the arthritis people, hadda drive all round Sydney to find the buggers, but I done it, and now she doesn’t bother to use it! Anyway, she refused to hear of liniment or anything like it, so naturally I went down to Ron the Scone’s to get her some. Thrilled to hear Kitten and Hugo and Bub are coming out.” He eyed her blandly.

    “I'm not surprised,” Sloane admitted. “Um, hadn’t you better stop calling her Bub, Dad? I mean, she isn’t a baby, any more.”

    “What ya mean is, the great Hugo Kent won’t approve.”

    She sighed. “No, I don’t, actually: I was thinking of Bub Andrews: you know, he was in Derek’s class at school. If the nickname takes they’re stuck with it all their lives.”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, Bub Andrews certainly is, the old grandma come good after all and he’s bought up Duggan Toyota and renamed it Bub Andrews Toyota. –Don’t say it: and he never even played for the Sydney Swans!”

    “Presumably a legacy from your old grandma works just as well,” said Sloane drily. “Well, there you are, then.”

    “Yeah. Okay, then: Rose Anne,” said Dick heavily. “’Tis a pretty name.”

    Oops, first person they saw drinking coffee in Suzy’s Lunchbox was Ian Gruber! Presumably suburban solicitors weren’t all that busy on Saturday mornings. He looked really pleased to see them and waved eagerly. Sloane hung back and let Dad take over, never mind how far he was gonna shove his great foot down his throat.

    Eagerly Mr Gruber said he’d heard that Kitten and her fiancé and the baby were coming out soon! Eagerly he asked how she was? And, urging Dick eagerly to give them his very best, he mercifully pushed off to his eleven o’clock appointment.

    Sloane sank down numbly at his table. “I think I’d better have two cappuccinos, Dad,” she croaked.

    “Shit, ya said yaself that they all fall over themselves to do anything for her, ya didn’t think he was gonna have a dummy-spit, didja?”

    “N— Dad,” she hissed, “she deliberately took him away from Melodie and then dumped him!”

    “Don’t think that’s the bit they remember, love,” he replied drily.

    Regrettably, Sloane went into a terrific spluttering, snorting, shaking fit in the middle of the very nice Suzy’s Lunchbox.

    Grinning, Dick went off to the counter. She was still smiling when he got back with three cappuccinos and an assortment of fattening cakes and muffins. Plus a nice hot sausage roll for him: why not? Since they’d been sitting there all nice and hot in their little heated hutch. Didn’t even have to point out to her that the alternative had been a nice hot Aussie pie, neither—boy, that was a first!

    In fact he was so encouraged that he said casually: “Might pop over to Nearby Bay meself.”

    Sloane gaped at him over her first cappuccino. “Dad, you can’t pop—”

    “You all right? Not a tooth?” he said, as she’d broken off in mid-stream.

    “No,” she said weakly. “Just—just reminded me of something, that’s all.”

    Trying not to wonder exactly of what, Dick replied quickly: “Well, fly over to Adelaide, might be able to hitch a ride with Murray Keating if he’s got a flight that day, or failing that, hire a four-wheel drive.”

    “Look, Dad,” she said cautiously, “it’s my job, you know.”

    “Yeah, sure! Not gonna muscle in on your territory! No, well, haven’t seen Kym for a bit.”

    “What about your end-of-year marking?”

    “Didn’t you say you weren’t leaving till the beginning of December? We’ll have finished by then!”

    All right, the uni terms got shorter and shorter every year, but if he reckoned they’d have finished, so be it. “When are you expecting Kitten and Hugo?” she demanded grimly.

    Not till the week before Christmas was the answer, so that was that, wasn’t it? Dick reckoned he’d be back in loads of time to meet them. This probably meant step off the Adelaide plane two minutes before their overseas flight was due, only to find it had had a following wind and landed an hour since, but— Yeah.

    “Look, Dad, it’s not that I don’t want your company, but won’t there be arrangements for the wedding to think about? Or had you overlooked that small point?”

    “Nah, Kitten’s on top of that. Hired a wedding planner.”

    Sloane’s jaw dropped. “Eh?”

    “That is what they call them!” said Dick smugly.

    “Y— I know that’s what they— Here? In Sydney? A wedding planner?” she croaked.

    “Yeah. Well, for all I know it could be a Pommy one that she’s flying out specially. Started talking about real lace for the dress, so I switched off.”

    “Clouds of white lace when she’s had his kid?”

    “People do, ya know, this isn’t the 19th— No, sorry. The dread words ‘pale pink’ were mentioned, actually. Wouldja have lace on pale pink?” he ventured.

    “Uh—” Their eyes met. “I—don’t—know!” shrieked Sloane, going off in a second fit.

    After that she seemed to see it all as settled, so Dick didn’t chance his arm by reverting to the topic.

    ’Course, barely had they set foot in Soapy Stevens’s place than Danno Hendricksen’s missus was all over them. –In there buying what it was probably better not to ask, poor ole Danno, she’d had him give the kitchen the dreaded makeover twice in the last five years, to Dick’s certain knowledge. Heard that Kitten and her fiancé were coming out, and when was the wedding? Lovely! January was always a lovely month for weddings—but you did have to book well in adv— Oh, a friend’s garden? Lovely! A garden wedding was always nice—tasteful, y’know? She’d told Daniel that at the time—only living human being that called the poor ole bastard Daniel—and their Melanie’s had been— Blah, blah, blah.

    “Don’t ask,” said Dick limply when she’d pushed off at last, “whether Melanie Hendricksen that was actually had a garden wedding, because there was so much garbage in there that I couldn’t tell ya if me life depended on it! And why the Hell did she wanna know if you and your sisters are gonna do bridesmaids and matron of honour?”

    “Come off it, Dick!” put in Soapy Stevens, on the broad grin. “It was a garden wedding, actually, if ya can call hiring some ruddy bridal reception place a garden. We went, couldn’t get out of it, she’s Val’s second cousin. Hadda wait an hour and fordy minutes by me watch while they took the ruddy photos, wouldja believe? Hanging round in the so-called garden drinking that Buck’s fizz muck wondering where the Hell the wedding breakfast was,” he clarified. “Ya better gave me the full gen on the bridesmaids, Sloane,” he advised her with a wink, “’cos if ya don’t, Val’ll make me life Hell!”

    “Doesn’t need to, does she? ’Er cousin’ll be on the blower before the cat can lick ’er arse,” drawled Dick.

    “Nah—boy, you don’t know how lucky you are, with your Karen! Nah, that’s not the way it works, mate. See, she waits till Val breaks down and asks her, then she puts the knife in! But if Val knows first what colour the frocks are gonna be—” He looked at Sloane hopefully.

    “Um, it’s like I said, Mr Stevens,” she said limply: “I haven’t heard. Um, we think Kitten’s gonna wear pale pink.”

    “That’ll do!” he crowed, leaping on the shop’s phone.

    “Actually, I do,” said Dick thoughtfully when they were finally outside in the mild sunshine filtering through the Precinct’s overhead slits of architect-designed windows that the owners were now considering blocking off entirely, because for large parts of the Sydney summer they sent the air-con costs up astronomically.

    “What?”

    “I do know how lucky I am, being married to Karen,” said Dick mildly.

    Sloane bit her lip. “Mm. Good.”

    Oh, shit, she wasn’t gonna bawl, was she? “Come on,” he said quickly, “let’s nip into Ron the Scone’s and get her a piece of unnecessary bathroom fluff that she’ll forget to use!”

    Sloane smiled weakly at him. “Well, something nice: okay, good idea, Dad.”

    “Ron’ll be glad to know about the pink dress, too,” he noted.

    “I hope you don’t think that’s a joke.”

    Think it was a joke? Of course he didn’t: this was Australian suburbia!

    Outside the chemist’s he hesitated. Their supermarket trolley was now full of paint, rollers and trays for the said rollers. A fair few dollars’ worth. Worth nicking, in fact. But Ron the Scone’s dump was always crowded with display stands and piles of this, that and the other—tinned baby formula, for instance, Karen’s anathema: something to do with third-world countries and Nescaff, was it? Plus and special displays of the chain’s special offer this month, natch. With an illustrated board—right. That sort of display. Very easily knockable-over.

    He peered inside cautiously. Not full, for once. True, it wasn’t the flu season. And presumably it wasn’t the school nits season: any prominently displayed ads for nit-killers complete with lovely pic of a blonde Aryan suburban mummy with a blonde Aryan suburban kiddie whose hair she might be washing, with a great stretch of the imagination? No, so it couldn’t be. However, it was presumably still the season for pregnancies and the results thereof, because there were two young mums with pushers in there and one very pregnant mum-to-be that Ron was of this instant getting sat down on a chair, good on ’im.

    “Well, come on,” said Sloane in surprise.

    “Nuh—um, will this stuff be safe out here?”

    “Pale blue? It’ll be safe for the next ten years, by my reckoning.”

    “Nuh—uh—blue nurseries!” hissed Dick, eying the pregnant one.

    “Balls. You’re paranoid, Dad. Come on!”

    Resignedly Dick abandoned his trolley and came on. It’d either be nicked or not.

    In due course they exited from Ron the Scone’s with a gift-wrapped tin of English bath powder for Karen—they’d only just got them in for Christmas, Ron had rushed out to the back regions for it when Dick’s quest was revealed—and a large shopping carrier of stuff that Sloane had realised she needed, surprise, surprise.

    Even more surprising, no-one had nicked Dick’s paint!

   “If you came home with me, we could get started on that spare room,” he ventured.

    This was true. And what was more, she could make sure that Mum actually unwrapped that powder and put it in the bathroom ready to use!

    “For me?” said Karen in astonishment as Dick proudly presented her with the parcel, to boot awarding her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Why?”

    “Why’s a crooked letter and Zed’s no better! Nah, just because I love ya, ya nit.”

    “Oh. Well, thanks, dear,” she said limply, unwrapping it.

    “Smell it!” he urged.

    Limply Karen sniffed at it. “This is nice!” she said in astonishment.

    “See? Knew you’d like it!” he returned proudly. “Come on, you can give us a nice kiss.”

    “Here, Mum,” said Sloane in a choked voice, as Karen emerged, smiling, from Dick’s enthusiastic embrace. “I’ll put it—” She grabbed the powder and rushed out.

    Karen gaped at Dick. “What the Hell?”

    He winked. “Softening ’er up, see? Well, it was just lucky, actually. Soapy Stevens—well, it’s a long story—but anyway, he said I don’t know how lucky I am, being married to you, and I said to Sloane, afterwards, that I do know: thought she was gonna bawl on the spot!” he explained proudly. “So I got you the nice powder on the strength of it.”

    “Mm, lemon verbena,” said Karen weakly. “But what do you mean, softening her up?”

    Dick grinned. “Gail’s landed her a job over in Nearby Bay. Thought it couldn’t do ’er any harm, ’specially after the dose of suburbia what we got down the ruddy Precinct, if she started thinking about what it might be like to be in a decent marriage! See?”

    Karen passed her hand over her forehead. “I suppose I see... Look,” she hissed, “if you mean Cal W., for God’s sake don’t bring up his name!”

    He winked. “Not that mad!”

    Not quite, no. But he was going ruddy soft in his old age! No: had gone. And what on earth was all this about a job in Nearby— No, well, sufficient unto the day.

Next chapter:

https://thelallapindarevenge.blogspot.com/2022/11/progress-comes-to-nearby-bay.html