Gracious Living

7

Gracious Living

    Kendall Burgoyne got home closer to seven o’clock than six-thirty—late—to a quiet house filled with the delicious mixed scents of baked chocolate cake and orange sauce. As he’d expected chaos and an hysterical wife, which was certainly how he’d left the place at eight-thirty that morning, he was more than somewhat surprised. God: had the bitch cancelled the do without telling him? He was about to go and investigate when a small, neat figure in a grey uniform with a white cap and apron came through the swing door which Joyce had insisted on installing at the back of the hall to shut off the kitchen regions.

    “Good evening, sir,” she said politely.

    “Uh—good evening,” said Kendall numbly, goggling at her. Chinese. Pretty as a picture. “Um, are you from, um, Whatsisname Gourmet?”

    “No, I gather they let Mrs Burgoyne down badly. I’m from RightSmart: we’ve taken the job over.”

    “I see— What?” he said, turning puce.

    Jay was aware that Sloane had given him a RightSmart card. She looked at him blandly. “RightSmart. We specialise in supplying temporary domestic and office staff at a moment’s notice.”

    “Yeah,” said Kendall numbly. “Uh—good. Everything under control, then, is it?”

    “Certainly, sir. Would you like to inspect the dining-room?

    “Uh—righto,” he said numbly. “Um, what about the drawing-room?” he added cautiously. When last seen, about ten-thirty last night, it had sported one broken china ornament that Joyce had hurled at his head, several cushions on the floor, that Joyce had hurled at his head, and the pieces of a thousand-piece jigsaw that Kendall had been three-quarters of the way through, plus the card table he’d been doing it on. On its side.

    “Our Miss Andersen has tidied the drawing-room, sir. Madam didn’t order flowers for that room, I’m afraid.”

    “Madam wouldn’t have, no. All right: I’ll take a look,” he said heavily.

    He went through to the room that Joyce insisted on calling the drawing-room. Like the rest of the house, it was decorated along traditional lines. It was wallpapered: an oriental-looking design of pheasants and peonies on a cream ground, which had set Kendall back so many dollars per metre that he winced whenever he looked at it. Hand-blocked, the gold bits purporting to be actual gold leaf. It was a large room and the large modern but conventional sofas and chairs were a mixture: pale green satin-look fabric or buttoned dark green leather. The lampshades were pale peach silk, picking up one of the shades in the wallpaper, and matching the colour of the brocade on the one Victorian lady’s chair that was a feature of the room. The floor was parquet, but almost entirely covered by a sculptured Chinese rug in green with peach and terracotta medallions that had also cost Kendall so much that he winced whenever he looked at it. The curtains were a plain gold silk as to their fabric but very elaborately puffed, draped and looped as to their style: so much so that the windows behind them had had to be hung with white net to form your actual curtains, and behind that again, because of the flashing lights from cars rounding the corner below the garden, which their wall didn’t manage to block, white Holland blinds.

    The blinds were drawn, the room was quiet and neat, with the big chandelier not lighted and the lamps making soft, warm pools of light. A trolley laden with bottles and glasses was set near one group of chairs and sofas, and two trays of tiny nibbles were on the coffee table. Kendall sagged with relief. After a moment he gathered his forces sufficiently to totter through to the dining-room.

    A slim figure in a grey dress was standing over by the French windows: for a moment his heart jumped. Then she turned, and he realised of course it wasn’t: this woman was a lot older, and plain, with heavy dark curls low on the forehead.

    “Good evening; I’m Kendall Burgoyne,” he said. “This looks very nice, Miss—uh—”

    ”Miss Andersen,” she said in a Scandinavian sing-song. “Thank you, Mr Bur-goyne. RightSmart specialises in taking over y’in domestic e-mer-yen-cies.”

    “Um—good. Um—” He cleared his throat. “How did my wife get onto you, may I ask?”

    Sloane eyed him sardonically. Was the rat afraid Joyce had found her card in his pocket? She said calmly: “One of the catering firms that Madam rang when her caterers let her down has conn-tacted us, ja-a? We often work for them.”

    “Oh,” said Kendall, visibly sagging. “I see!”

    “Is y’everyt’ing sottisfactory, sir?” asked Sloane.

    “Everything looks wonderful,” he admitted.

    “I y’am glodd. Would you like these curtains to be drawn, sir?“

    “Yeah. Thanks. –At least the bloody things do draw,” he muttered. Sloane turned to draw the rose and silver brocade curtains, smiling a little. These windows were also heavily swagged but in this room the decorator had permitted Joyce to have actual curtains underneath the swagging.

    Kendall switched the main lights on. “Yeah: it looks great. Uh, we told everyone seven-thirty for eight, did my wife say?”

    “Yes, sir. Our cook has prepared a few canapés: I y’am hoping thott is in y’order?”

    “Yes, I saw them in the other r— Oh! You mean Joyce didn’t order any?”

    “No, sir.”

    Kendall took a deep breath. “It’s very much in order: thanks very much, Miss—uh—Andersen.” God, she was plain as a pikestaff, poor woman. He avoided looking her in the eye, smiled kindly, nodded, and went out.

    Miss Andersen made a horrible face at his retreating back.

    … “Where the HELL have you been?” shouted Joyce.

    “It’s not that la—”

    “It’ s YOUR bloody party, why the FUCK can’t you get home on time for once in your life?” she screeched, varying the language but not the tone.

    “I got held up at work, and if the firm lands this job there’s a hefty bonus and a promotion in it for me, you stupid cow, how many times do I have to tell you? And if you go on flinging money around like you have been doing, we’ll NEED it!”

    Joyce merely glared and said: “Get dressed. I’m not going down there without you.”

    Kendall went over to the door of the ensuite, but paused. “And why didn’t you ask for canapés or something with the drinks?”

    “Because YOU never consulted me about it AT ALL!” she shouted.

    “Yeah. Well, you can thank your lucky stars these RightSmart people are on the job: they’ve done some anyway.”

    “It was me that had to FIND them!” she shouted.

    “Bullshit, that female with the face like the back of a bus has just told me it was the catering firm you rang that found them. –And just bear in mind,” he said, pointing a finger at her: “that if anything goes wrong tonight, it’ll be your bloody fault! The least you could do is make an effort when I ask you to entertain some important business contacts! What do you think pays for all the junk you fill my house with and the overpriced, shoddy dreck you drape yourself in?”

    “There’s nothing wrong with my TASTE!” screamed Joyce.

    Kendall went into the ensuite, slamming the door behind him.

    Joyce would have hurled a pot of face cream at the door, in spite of the exorbitant cost of the said face cream, but it would have made a mess on the carpet. Not that he couldn’t afford to buy any number of new carpets, the mean sod. She fidgeted and scowled for a while, but eventually did go downstairs without him.

    The pretty little maid hurried to open the drawing-room door for her. If he wasn’t as mean as sin they could have one permanently, and live decently! Not such a pretty one, though, on second thoughts.

    “Send Miss Andersen in here, would you?”

    “Certainly, Mrs Burgoyne,” agreed Melodie.

    Miss Andersen came in a moment later. Kendall was right: the woman did have a face like the back of a bus. Well, so much the better. “Um—I gather you did these canapés on your own initiative.”

    “Yes, Mrs Bur-goyne.” Sloane waited for Joyce to tell her that RightSmart needn’t bill her for them, then.

    “Well, good. Thank you. Um, I said four courses, didn’t I?”

    Sloane had been waiting for, though not necessarily expecting this, all evening. “Yes, Mrs Bur-goyne. Our chef,” she said, instantly promoting Kitten, “has prepared vichyssoise, vol-au-vents Nantua,”—according to Kitten they weren’t, precisely: Nantua had to have crayfish, but too bad, she wouldn’t know, “canard à l’orange with vegetables of the season and y’individual portions of gâteau Diplomate.” –Its chocolate and strawberry, according to Kitten, made it close enough.

    “Good,” said Joyce numbly.

    Gleefully Sloane perceived she’d understood about ten percent of that. “Will that be y’all, madam?” she said politely.

    “Yes. Um, no, get me a gin, would you?” she said with a sigh, sitting down,

    “Cer-tayn-ly, madam.” Sloane put gin and ice into a tumbler. “Tonic, Mrs Bur-goyne?”

    “Yes. But don’t drown it.”

    Sloane handed her a terrifically strong gin and tonic. Joyce downed a belt of it. “Thanks. Tell the chef thanks for the canapés, would you?”

    “The chef has gone, she has another y’engage-ment for this evening, but I will tell the sous-chef, t’onk you, madam.”

    “How many of you are there?” said Joyce, frowning.

    Sloane opened her mouth to tell her, but she waved her away irritably with: “It doesn’t matter. My husband will no doubt claim the whole thing as business expenses anyway. You’d better get back to it, then.”

    “Cer-tayn-ly, Mrs Bur-goyne.” Sloane bowed very slightly, and went out,

    “By God!” she said fiercely in the kitchen.

    Jay gave her a warning look.

    “She’s a right one, is she, Sloane?” said Wendy sympathetically.

    Sloane sighed. “And a half, yeah. How’s it going, Wendy?’

    Wendy reported pleasedly it was good. She’d done Katryn’s trick of putting the soup bowls in the freezer.

    “Good. Oh—Madam’s pleased with the canapés, after all.”

    “Oh, good! Katryn will be pleased! I could do some more, if you like!”

    “No, thanks, Wendy, two trays of stuff the cow never bothered to order’s their lot!“ said Sloane with a laugh.

    “What’s she wearing?” asked Wendy avidly. She began to grate chocolate into up-market long silvers.

    Sloane grinned. “It’s a shocker. Black and red, swears at every single thing in the drawing-room, and I’m happy to tell you it’ll look even worse in that pink dining-room!”

    “Red?” gasped Jay, momentarily ceasing to break up a very small bunch of watercress into twenty-four charming sprays. “With her hair?”

    “Yeah. Well, the tulle underskirt is red, and the curlicues on the bodice are red and gold. l saw something like it in a Vogue: probably that’s where she got the idea from. Strapless. And the skirt’s very full, I think it’s supposed to be sort of Fifties-look: princess-length, y’know? Looks good with those pea-stick legs of hers underneath it.”

    Wendy and Jay collapsed in happy sniggers.

    “Good evening. Please come in,” said Melodie limply to Hugo Kent in a dinner suit and her sister in a pale blue baby-doll thing that she, Melodie, wouldn’t have worn at the age of sixteen. In it, Kitten looked about that age. Chiffon. It had double shoe-string straps tied in bows on the shoulders, naturally a low-cut bodice, little more than cups holding them up, and a high waist from which the chiffon swirled out to well above the knees. The hem was decorated with thick ruffling which made it stand out, or maybe there were two layers, both ruffled, but who cared, it was sickening, and so was the smirk on Kitten’s face and so was the smirk on Hugo Kent’s. And Melodie could only hope the bloody duck choked him.

    She showed them into the drawing-room and tottered out to the kitchen. “Pale blue baby-doll, you oughta see her,” she groaned, collapsing onto a chair.

    “What, Kitten? I haven’t seen anything like that in the shops,” replied Jay.

    “I dunno where she got it, but she’s in it,” she groaned.

    “Is this your sister, Melodie?” asked Wendy brightly. –As Wendy had met Melodie before, they had told her that “May” was a name she worked under. Wendy had accepted this unquestioningly. She knew that Melodie’s sister was expected tonight, Melodie had been unable to refrain from confiding that much in her during the period while they were waiting for Jay to arrive and Sloane was driving Kitten home to Rose Bay. –Not far, of course, but she had to pull in and wait while Kitten scrambled into her own clothes and creamed her face.

    “Yeah,” she groaned. “Talk about the cat that got at the cream!”

    “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” said Jay cautiously.

    “Yes, but it’s still sickening!” she said vigorously,

    Giggling, Jay nodded. “How many are here, now?”

    Melodie got up again, sighing. “Nine couples plus our gracious host and hostess. Two lots to go. I better get back to the hall or Madam’ll be on my tail.” She went.

    “I’d love to see her sister,” said Wendy wistfully,

    With an effort Jay refrained from telling her she’d spent the afternoon in her company. “Mm, but Sloane wouldn’t like you to go and peek, I’m afraid. It doesn’t look good.”

    “No.” agreed Wendy. “–Look, I’ve done the prawns. Don’t they look cute?”

    Jay agreed, warned her not to put the vol-au-vents back into the oven until she said, and looked at her watch for the umpteenth time. The whole do was running late, which was just about what you’d expect.

    Melodie came in again with a peculiar look on her face. “Where’s Sloane?”

    “Madam has decreed she can serve drinks in the drawing-room. What’s up?” said Jay.

    Melodie bit her lip and looked at her plaintively.

    “What is it?” said Jay grimly.

    “The last lot have come and—and they’re the Pointers, Jay!” she gulped.

    “What?”

    Melodie nodded hard. “Michael Pointer; isn’t he the one that ruined your grandfather? And son.”

    “Say that again,” said Jay, sitting down slowly.

    “I said, what name shall I say, and he said—the old man—he said ‘Michael Pointer and son.’ And the young one, he said: ‘Thanks, Father.’ And then he said: ‘I’m Graeme Pointer.’”

    Jay’s nostrils dilated. She said nothing for a moment.

    “The son’s about thirty, I suppose,” faltered Melodie. “And Michael Pointer, he’s quite old, that’d be right, wouldn’t it?”

    “We’ve been out here for twenty-six years. I think he was in his thirties back then.”

    Melodie nodded, biting her lip.

    “What are they doing here?” croaked Jay.

    “Um—I dunno. But Hugo Crap’s here, too, and Ward Reardon, and Mr Thingo, the English one that was with them at Lallapinda: they must be doing business with Mr Burgoyne’s firm, don’t you reckon?”

    “Yes.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Jay, do you want to serve instead of me?” faltered Melodie.

    “No-o... Not instead of you,” she decided. “But I’ll help. –It’s all right, Wendy, I won’t desert you,” she said as Wendy made a startled noise. “I’ll be in and out. –Did you say they were by themselves?” she said fiercely to Melodie.

    “What? Oh: yes. Um, well, maybe they left their wives at home in England. That explains why there’s those two ladies that came by themselves.”

    “Mm.” Jay went over to the little mirror by the phone and checked her cap and hair.

    Melodie looked at her uneasily. “I’ll go and tell Sloane everyone’s here and we can start serving. And—and she’ll, um, decide what else to do.”

    “Keep our eyes and ears open, that’s all we can do,” said Jay grimly.

    Melodie nodded, and scurried out.

    “Jay?”

    Jay jumped. “What? –Sorry, Wendy.”

    “I said, shall I put the prawn vol-au-vents in now?”

    “Oh! Yeah, good one, Wendy. Do that.” She gave a forced smile and added: “Just be careful not to burn their tails!”

    Giggling, Wendy agreed she’d be careful.

    Jay stared numbly in front of her.

    Most of them thought the vichyssoise was watercress, presumably because of the elegant watercress sprig topping a swirl of cream that garnished it, but too bad, let them. Kitten had been right: most of the ladies weren’t eating much of it, but the fat old man with the face like an ill-natured cane toad who was Kendall Burgoyne’s boss lapped his up and asked for a second helping. His wife said: “Maurie, do you think you ought to? Think of your cholesterol count;” but Maurice Fine ignored her.

    Fine’s were a household name in Australia. They had started off back in 1923 as a big Sydney department store. It had rapidly set up branches in all the major centres during the Thirties and by the Fifties had branches in all the secondary towns as well and had begun to diversify into the grocery wholesale trade. Then, when supermarkets started to take off in the Sixties, Fine’s had opened three chains, based in three different states and covering four. They had flourished tremendously during the Seventies and entered the expansionist Eighties in an excellent position to expand beyond their capacity, overrun their credit, drop millions into the black hole of “offshore” investment, pour money into dead-weight capital assets that they’d never be able to sell at anything but a loss for at least the next fifty years, and go spectacularly broke. Like the rest of them.

    Unlike the rest of them, Fine’s hadn’t gone broke. Maurice Fine had invested wisely during the Eighties, watched while the markets ran mad, and bided his time. After the crash and during the further years of corporate débâcles that followed, he’d bought up some of those big capital assets for a song when their over-mortgaged, under-financed owners discovered they couldn’t afford to carry them on their books any longer, and taken over several go-for-broke, gone-broke companies, stripped them of their assets and restructured those few of their operations that were practicable. Fine Holdings was now into interstate transportation, heavy engineering construction, insurance broking, and retailing of several sorts, and still owned the largest grocery wholesaler and three of the leading supermarket chains across the country.

    Kendall Burgoyne was with FH, the holding company, having started out with an accountancy degree, a management diploma, and notions above his station which old Maurice Fine had rapidly settled by putting him in as manager of a branch supermarket for three years. To learn business sense: all of Fine’s branches had to turn a profit. Kendall’s branch had only broken even the first year, and that was entirely due to Fine’s national policy and not to his management, as had been pointed out to him. But the profit was up the second year and the third year it was the second most profitable outlet in the entire country, and he had been allowed to join Head Office. He had prospered there, and had been encouraged to do a further degree in economics, though what time he had off to go to lectures he had to make up. He had risen to be one of the Senior Investment Managers of Fine Holdings. After chatting with Ward Reardon at Muwullupirri several ideas of mutual benefit had occurred to Kendall and, instead of coming home when Joyce had, he had followed the KRP party to Western Australia. Hugo Kent had now been back in Sydney for a while, as Kitten’s sisters were, of course, aware; but Kendall had stayed on for talks with Ward and some of the Perth KRP people, who were understandably keen to see KRP’s Asia-Pacific headquarters transferred to Perth rather than Sydney. Naturally Kendall had been in close touch with Maurice Fine at FH all this time.

    Tonight’s party had been arranged expressly to facilitate top-level relations between KRP and FH on Kendall’s return to the east coast. He had, in fact, been back in Sydney for only three days.

    Expressionlessly Sloane set another plate of soup in front of Mr Fine. The old man belonged to a generation of middle-class Australians who had been brought up with nice manners: Mrs Wainwright of Muwullupirri would undoubtedly approve of him. “Thank you,” he said politely.

    Kitten was sitting between him and Hugo. “It is rather nice, isn’t it?” she said brightly.

    “Darling, it’s full of cream!” warned Hugo with a laugh in his voice.

    “Ooh, help, is it really?” she squeaked in dismay.

    Studiously Sloane avoided Melodie’s eye.

    On the other side of the table the lady next to young Mr Pointer agreed ruefully: “Far too much cream, I’m afraid,” and set her spoon down.

    “But it’s wonderful,” said Graeme Pointer with a little smile. “Classic vichyssoise!”

    “I always wonder where the watercress came from,” she said in a discontented voice.

    “Er—yes,” Graeme replied limply.

    “Well,” Sloane admitted to Wendy, setting down a pile of soup plates: “the ones that recognised it knew it was marvellous.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Melodie drily. “At least three. Not counting You-Know-Who.”

    “The Pointers?” asked Jay in a hard voice.

    “Um—yes,” Melodie admitted uneasily. “Old Mr Pointer was one of the ones that had a second helping. Him and the old man that looks like a cane toad both did.”

    “Does that prove he knew what it was?” said Sloane, smiling.

    “No, but he did. And Graeme Pointer, he said to the lady next to him that it was classic vichyssoise but she didn’t know what he meant, she thought it was watercress, and he was too polite to say she was wrong.”

    Jay snorted.

    “Come on,” said Sloane resignedly. “Next course.”

    The vol-au-vents were presented on oval entrée plates, which were the sort of thing that the sort of place that hired out crockery by the umpteen dozen thought entrée plates were. With the prescribed decoration. –Wendy had earlier inspected Kitten’s carrot-curling implement and decided to buy herself one. Kitten had described in minute detail where the shop was. It looked Italian, y’know? Full of coffee machines. You went down George Street... Very possibly no-one but a dedicated fellow cook could have followed these directions but Wendy was confident she knew exactly the place Kitten meant.

    “They’re vol-au-vents Nantua, sir,” murmured Sloane to old Mr Fine’s enquiry. She was doing that side of the table: she didn’t trust Melodie to keep her cool with Kitten and Hugo Kent; or with Mrs Burgoyne, come to that. Jay was considerately doing the host’s end, so that Sloane wouldn’t have to brush against Kendall’s elbow. The service was going remarkably smoothly.

    Mr Fine smiled. “Dare say that means something to these young people, but I was brought up on roast lamb and veggies. Now, what’s in them? Just prawns?”

    “A mixture of seafood, sir. Prawns, scallops and white fish.” –God knew what white fish Kitten had used. Something cheap and fresh.

    “May I ask, is it a fish velouté?” asked Hugo Kent across Kitten.

    A whatsit? How the bloody Hell would Sloane know? Was the bloody man doing it on purpose?

    Joyce was at Hugo’s other elbow, at the top of the table. “These people are just filling in: my usual caterers let me down,” she said on an uneasy note.

   “The pink sauce, y’it has got the co-ral of the scal-lops in y’it, sir,” said Sloane in a horrible sing-song and a very polite tone. Sometimes answering a question with something they hadn’t asked you at all shut them up. Sometimes.

    “I think the filling’s just a simple white wine sauce, Hugo,” said Kitten.

    Yeah, it could well be, too! On the whole Sloane didn’t know whether she felt more inclined to fall on her sister’s neck or wring it. “Exactly, madam,” she murmured, moving away, avoiding everyone’s eye.

    “This is really delicious!” said Graeme Pointer, smiling.

    The lady next to him replied: “It is quite nice, l suppose. Duck’s supposed to be very fatty, though, isn’t it?”

    At this old Mrs Fine, clearly unable to contain herself, said across the table: “But this isn’t fatty at all, dear: it’s beautifully done! The fat’s just under the skin, you see. and they’ve taken it all off. –Maurie, it’s nice, isn’t it, dear?”

    “Mm,” agreed the old man with his mouth full, nodding,

    Hugo said across Kitten and old Maurice, smiling: “Do you think you could do it, Enid?”

    Enid Fine replied pleasedly: “Well, it doesn’t look hard, does it? Just red wine and orange juice, I’d say.”

    Conversation having become general, and Mrs Burgoyne, on his right, having become absorbed in conversation with Ward Reardon, on her right, Hugo was able to murmur in his companion’s ear: “I hope you don’t think this is classic canard à l’orange, sweetheart. It’s far too sweet, for a start. And it shouldn’t have red wine in it.”

    “No,” said Kitten placidly: “I think it’s what Australians expect it to be.”

    Hugo smiled and patted her hand. “Mm.”

    Behind them, Sloane took a deep breath.

    … “I’m very sorry, sir, there was just enough duck to go round,” said Melodie in dismay as old Mr Pointer asked if there was any possibility of a little more duck.

    Graeme said across the ripe-looking fortyish Sydney lady who had been provided for Michael Pointer’s pleasure and whom Father was audibly finding it impossible to talk to: “In any case, you need to watch your weight, Father.”

    Michael Pointer had the sort of tall, spare figure that merely becomes gaunt in later life. He smiled a little but said to Melodie: “Then it’s just as well, isn’t it? May I trouble you for a little more of this excellent red wine, then?”

    Melodie went round the table to fetch a bottle but Jay took it off her, looking grim. Melodie remained at Sloane’s side, watching nervously.

    “You wanted some red, sir?” said Jay smoothly, showing him the bottle.

    Michael Pointer looked at her with interest but didn’t pass any personal remark. “Thank you.” He allowed his glass to be filled.

    Jay moved smoothly to his son’s side. “A little more wine, sir?”

    Graeme Pointer also looked at her with interest. The young lady provided for his pleasure was as dumb as they come and thought the world ended at Sydney. And rather coarse-looking: flashy. However, both little waitresses on his side of the table were very pretty and that had cheered the meal up somewhat. Though with Father’s eye on him he wouldn’t have struck up a conversation with either of them, even though, as several of the Australians had spoken to them, one woman even asking the Chinese girl in a kindly tone where she was born, he was aware it wouldn’t have been considered beyond the pale to do so. The little Chinese girl was, he thought, prettier than the other one: he smiled at her.

    Graeme had been born in Hong Kong when it was still a British colony and had spent his formative years there before being sent “Home” to a good school. His mother had not been interested in children and her two had seen very little of her. The boy had been breast-fed by a pretty Chinese girl who had a baby of the same age: she had then become the Pointer children’s Amah and a fixture in their little world. Graeme had grown up in the company of little Joey Chen and little May Chen, who was around the same age as his sister Ellen. When he was seventeen and was home for his school holidays he had had a torrid affaire with May, who at the time had been barely sixteen. His father had found out, told him tolerantly he was a fool, and given him a pithy lecture on VD, precautions, and the general idiocy of getting girls up the spout when there was no need to. Graeme had gone back to school comfortably convinced that Father understood and was a terrifically good fellow. He had written frequently to May and she had replied, but at long intervals, explaining that her mother didn’t want her to. He had been intending to come home that Christmas but the Pointer cousins in France invited him there.

    When the next long vacation, Graeme’s last at the school, rolled round, his father sent him out to Australia to stay with the Reardons. It was too exciting an opportunity to miss, and he had a wonderful time. And he’d see May soon. But when he came home to Hong Kong the following Christmas, May Chen, Joey Chen and the entire family had disappeared. Including Amah, who had given him the only mothering he had ever known. Michael said placidly that as far as he knew Amah had taken the family back to the village in China where they’d come from in the first place. He was sorry: he knew how much she meant to Graeme and Ellen, but he had tried to get news of them, and hadn’t succeeded. Later a red-eyed Ellen had confided to Graeme that it was all lies and Daddy had sent them away himself, but by that time Graeme had more or less guessed that. He had never trusted his father in anything, big or small, since. Whether Michael Pointer was aware of this was impossible to tell.

    Since then Graeme Pointer had not had any more affaires, however ephemeral, with pretty little Chinese girls. Michael had taken very good care for several years that none should cross his path. Graeme had gone to university at Home, and then joined the London office, where the Pointer London connections had provided strings of pretty English girls for his delectation. He had duly married one.

    The affaire with May Chen had been half his lifetime ago and he had almost forgotten it. Had he ever given the matter a passing thought, which he didn’t, he would have found it hard to credit that he could ever have been the silly young fellow who was head-over-heels about pretty little unsuitable May. He had an English wife from a suitable English family and was as happy, he supposed, as most people were. They had a pleasant house in Surbiton, a cottage in the country, a dog, and two girls aged five and six. They had been married for just over six years. Sybilla had declared that two was enough: they had replaced themselves. Graeme was uneasily aware that Father wanted, nay expected, a male heir. However, he supposed there was plenty of time for that, yet: he’d talk her round. The nagging about his getting a vasectomy was starting to get a bit much, though. And during the course of one matrimonial row she had threatened to have her tubes done. But no relationship was perfect, and of course she hadn’t really meant it. Now that she was working part-time at the advertising agency, which was what she claimed she’d been wanting to do ever since Kate was on the way, she’d soon be back on an even keel. Graeme had not been perfectly faithful to Sybilla during the last few years but these had only been one-night things with female executives encountered when he was away on trips for the firm. And there had only been four of them altogether. And besides, he and Sybilla had agreed that at thirty-four they were both past the stage of stupid romantic infatuations: there was no danger of that.

    He was, of course, completely unaware that his formative years had predisposed him to consider Chinese women as the image of all that was female and desirable. As the Burgoynes’ pretty little maid bent down with the wine he looked at her neat breasts in the rather frightful grey uniform with pleasure: she evidently wasn’t wearing a bra: though they were clearly lovely firm, neat ones, they’d dropped slightly as she bent. Graeme smiled again at the pretty little Chinese girl and thanked her, somewhat smugly aware that her proximity was giving him an erection. So much for Sybilla saying he couldn’t get it up to order or at any other time, the mean cow!

    Jay noted the quality of his smile and the way his face had lit up and the general impression of warmth that emanated from him and concluded that he fancied her. Good. That was a start. She smiled into his eyes, and stepped back.

    “Ooh!” gasped Wendy as a burly, silver-haired man in evening dress came into the kitchen.

    “Don’t panic,” said Kendall mildly, smiling. “I just wanted to say thanks for the dinner.”

    Very flushed, Wendy gasped that it hadn’t really been her, it had been Katryn, but she’d had to go.

    Kendall smiled and nodded, not really listening, and said to Miss Andersen that he thought they might have champagne with the dessert: jolly things up, eh? She nodded and turned to the freezer. Kitten’s pudding plates having completely filled the fridge, Sloane had popped most of Kendall Burgoyne’s bottles of fizz in the chest freezer with the lid up until they saw whether he wanted them served. Just as well.

    “Two dozen bodies: I suppose most of them’ll drink it!” he said cheerfully, coming up to her side.

    “Yes. Wendy, please to take the desserts out of the fridge, now,” she said in a sing-song.

    Kendall was hauling bottles out of his wife’s freezer. “Not much in here, is there?” he said numbly.

    “No: perhaps Mrs Bur-goyne intends to stock up soon,” said Sloane neutrally.

    “Uh—yeah. Jesus,” he muttered. “What happened to that salmon I— Forget it. Um, could you put a couple more in an ice-bucket, thanks?”

    “Cer-tayn-ly, Mr Bur-goyne.”

    He thanked her again and went out.

    “Will it jolly them up, do you think?” ventured Wendy.

    Sloane looked at her drily. “Nothing ’ud jolly this lot up, Wendy.”

    Wendy dissolved in sniggers, nodding madly.

    “Well,” said Sloane with a sigh: “you’ve done a great job, Wendy. Thanks very much. I’ll ring for a taxi for you. It’ll be cab-charge: you know how that works, don’t you?”

    Wendy didn’t, though to Sloane’s certain knowledge she had done late dinners before where the firm had sent her home in a taxi. Oh, well. She explained. Wendy thought she saw. She bustled round putting plates in the dishwasher while Sloane rang for a taxi and the girls carted plates of ordinary chocolate cake disguised as yuppie dessert through to the dining-room.

    … Joyce Burgoyne laid down her cake fork. “Delicious.”

    “T’onk you, Mrs Bur-goyne,” said Sloane politely. It was obvious she wasn’t going to eat any more of it, but then, who could blame her, it was approximately a million calories per forkful.

    “Chocolate gives me spots,” said Kitten with a regretful sigh, on Hugo’s other side.

    Hugo was eating his with enjoyment. “Just leave it, then, sweetheart,” he murmured.

    “I’ll eat the strawberry,” decided Kitten.

    “Mm.” He watched, smiling, as Kitten artlessly picked up the strawberry by its stalk and popped it into the rosebud mouth...

    Fortunately the Pointers were not directly opposite and Michael was thus enabled to lean over the fortyish lady and murmur to his son without Hugo’s overhearing him: “That was one of the juiciest performances I’ve seen for a long time.”

    Graeme grinned and nodded.

    “Where on earth did he find her?” asked the fortyish lady in a discontented voice.

    Michael shrugged. “God knows. But I wouldn’t object if he revealed his source to me.”

    The fortyish lady went very red and tried to laugh in a sophisticated manner.

    Melodie hurried up to Sloane’s side, giving her an anguished look.

    “Slip out, if you need to,” murmured Sloane.

    Melodie shook her head and gave her another anguished look. Sloane jerked her head at the door. They slid out silently.

    “Ssh!” she warned in the hall, as Melodie grabbed her arm.

    “Sloane, he said he was in WA last week!” she hissed.

    “Who?”

    “Him! Kendall Burgoyne!”

    “Ssh! What do you mean? Are you sure you’re not getting mixed up? I know Ward Reardon’s only just got back—”

    “No!” Melodie shook her head hard. “Honest! He rung up Joyce from WA and asked her to lay on this lot, and that was a week ago!”

    “I see...”

    Melodie looked up at her hopefully.

    “Come on,” said Sloane calmly.

    Numbly Melodie followed her back to the dining-room.

    “Would you care for coffee y’and liqueurs to be served y’in the drawing-room, per-haps, Mrs Bur-goyne?” murmured Sloane.

    Joyce had had rather a lot of the champagne. Perhaps unaware that it had as many calories as chocolate cake. “Heavens, I don’t know!” she said with a flustered laugh. “What do you think, Miss Andersen?”

    Sloane thought that in the first place, the sooner they got this lot out of the dining-room the sooner they could start tidying up; and that in the second place the men would undoubtedly want to get together and talk business, which they couldn’t do round the table, and if the silly woman couldn’t see that, what in God’s name had he married her for? “I think y’it would be com-fort-able, Mrs Bur-goyne.”

    Joyce nodded, and got up rather drunkenly. “Come on, everyone!” she cried brightly, tapping her glass with her fork. Unnecessarily: their hostess's rising at the end of the table had tended to draw all eyes in that direction. “Shall we go into the drawing-room for coffee?”

    Very naturally no-one objected to such a suggestion from their hostess and they all trailed off to the drawing-room.

    Kendall was last out: he paused. Miss Andersen was holding the door. “Thanks. I was gonna suggest that. We’ll be able to chat more easily.”

    “Yes. That is the sort of thing,” said Sloane, suddenly inspired, “that our Miss Manning y'advises RightSmart personnel to watch out for."

    Kendall went very red. “Yeah. Uh—that’d be Sloane Manning, would it?”

    “That is cor-rect, sir,” said Sloane unemotionally.

    He cleared his throat. “Mm. So—uh—she’s one of the bosses, then?"

    “That is cor-rect, sir.”

    Kendall nodded and went out, reflecting that the female’s face would probably crack if she smiled.

    Sloane shut the door, staggered over to the sideboard, and finished off two inches of champagne straight out of the bottle.

    … “What are you doing here?” she gasped, back in the kitchen.

    Ingrid replied calmly: “Don’t get excited, I came round the back.”

    “Ingrid, what if Joyce walks in on us?” hissed Sloane.

    “Pooh, she hasn’t even poked her nose in here!” cried Melodie.

    “Ssh. No, well, that’s true. Anyway, what are you doing here?”

    Ingrid opened her capacious bag. “Came to see how you were getting on and to check the disguise. It’s going shiny: thought it would. Come here.” She produced tissues, eye-shadow, yellowish foundation and whitish powder and gave Sloane’s face a thorough going-over.

    “There! It’s the powder that really does it, isn’t it? Ageing,” she noted pleasedly.

    “Thanks,” said Sloane limply. “Is the coffee ready, Jay?”

    “Ye-es... Kitten said they won’t know if it’s too weak."

    “Um—Hugo Crap will, and I suppose those Pommy Pointers might,” said Sloane limply, “but I doubt if the rest of them will.”

    “Let them choke on it!” replied Jay viciously.

    “Yeah. Are you all right?” asked Sloane cautiously.

    “Yes.” Jay began carefully filling the small white coffee cups that Sloane had ordered with the dinner set. Just as well: Joyce Burgoyne, as Melodie's exhaustive search of her cupboards and sideboards had revealed, possessed one set of half a dozen bright yellow ones, somewhat larger than demitasse, kept in the kitchen, one glorious dark blue porcelain demitasse set, reported by Melodie to be Carlton Ware, kept in a glass-fronted cabinet in the drawing-room, and one plain white modern porcelain demitasse set with gold rims, kept in the dining-room sideboard.

    “Did you say Pointers?” said Ingrid uncertainly.

    “Yeah: them. We’ll tell you later,” said Melodie quickly.

    “Yes. –Stay there,” ordered Sloane, picking up a tray of coffee cups. “I’ve had an idea."

    “Righto,” Ingrid agreed amiably.

    “Ooh! Lovely! What is it?” squeaked Kitten.

    Smirking, Hugo Crap replied: “Benedictine. I thought you might like it. It’s not to everyone’s taste, of course.”

    Melodie, serving a couple of older ladies just behind the pair, resisted an impulse to roll her eyes madly. Kitten was acquainted with every form of alcoholic drink known to humanity.

    ... “She’s doing the ‘Poor little me doesn’t know a thing about grown-up drinkies’ bit,” she reported through her teeth to her twin.

    “Good on ’er.” Ingrid looked insouciantly in Joyce Burgoyne’s fridge. “Help.”

    “Um—she only did enough to go round.”

    “That’s her,” conceded Kitten’s other sister.

    “Ingrid, what if he guesses?” hissed Melodie in agony.

    Ingrid inspected a champagne bottle. “Eh? Oh: Hugo Crap?” She drank the last inch from the bottle. “He won’t,” she said confidently, setting it back. “Aren’t there even any savouries left?”

    “No, they vanished like dew in the morning, Kitten’s always do.”

    Ingrid sighed. “Mm. Has the woman got any biscuits in the house?”

    “Nope.”

    “Blow. Well, can I have a sandwich? I’m starving!”

    “There is some bread, but I’d say it’s only enough for Kendall’s breakfast tomorrow,” said Melodie judiciously.

    “Shit. What sort of housekeeper is she?” she said numbly.

    “Rotten,” replied Melodie succinctly. “Take a look in the freezer.”

    Ingrid raised the gigantic lid of the gigantic freezer. She looked. She gulped. “What did he marry her for?” she croaked.

    “We’ve been wondering that!” said Melodie, with a loud giggle.

    Ingrid smiled slowly. “Mm. What’s Sloane got up her sleeve?”

    “Dunno.”

    “Well, what are they talking about in there?”

    Melodie looked vague. “Um, business. Sort of. Well, Ward is.” She looked at her uncomfortably.

    “And?” replied Ingrid unemotionally.

    “Um, him and Mr Burgoyne and the old man that’s his boss.”

    “Jesus, is Maurice Fine here, Melodie?” she gasped.

    “I think that’s his name,” she said uncertainly. “Why?”

    “Why! He owns half Australia, that’s why!” she said with feeling.

    “He’s awfully old. And married. His wife’s old, too.”

    “Not that, clot,” she sighed. “What are they talking about?”

    “Um—well, business,” said Melodie weakly. “Why?”

    “Because I’ve got ten thou’ in the NAB, waiting for a likely-looking opportunity! Did you hear any details?”

    Melodie looked vague. “I didn’t understand...”

    “Useless!” spat her twin.

    Melodie crimsoned. “Just because I’m not a Scrooge like you!”

    “Listen, dick-head, we could clean up on the stock exchange if we knew what they’re plotting in there!”

    “Oh. Um—I’ll tell Sloane.” Melodie hurried out.

    Ingrid sighed loudly, and sat down heavily.

    The pretty Chinese girl was in the hall when Graeme came out to go to the lavatory. He smiled, and asked her the way. Not realizing that to Australian ears of whatever complexion the word “lavatory” was definitely not nice.

    Jay smiled meekly, concealing her astonishment that a Pom that had been to a fancy private school (on Grandfather Wong’s hard-earned) didn’t know better than that; or didn’t they care how rude they were when they came out here? She explained that it was upstairs, you couldn’t miss it: at the end of the passage. Thanking her nicely, Graeme went upstairs. Behind his retreating back Jay pulled a face.

    When he came downstairs again, she was just going into the dining-room. Graeme hesitated. Then he followed her. He couldn’t have said why. True, he was awfully bored with the evening, stuck in a room full of loud-voiced Australians with whom he had nothing in common; and true, there were no pretty girls in the party; and also true, with Father listening to his every word he felt he became inept and tongue-tied and incapable of communicating anything sensible. But as he was definitely not the sort of person who—well, fraternized with the help, was how Sybilla would probably have put it—and as he was also very definitely not the sort of man who got drunk at parties and forced himself on the waitresses, and as he wasn’t drunk at all—the red had been acceptable, if a little coarse, but the champagne had been less than average, and he disliked port and liqueurs and didn’t trust Burgoyne’s brandy—he couldn’t, later, imagine why he’d done it. But he did.

    “Clearing up?” he said with a smile as she jumped and squeaked as he came in.

    “Just a last check-up, really. Um—can I help you?” she added with a shy smile.

    Graeme licked his lips. “Uh—well, actually, I came in here to escape!” he said with a silly laugh.

    “Is it that bad?” replied Jay, twinkling at him.

    “Worse!” he admitted, frankly grinning. “Well, you know how it is: my father’s here, and the top nobs from KRP—that’s the company I’m with,” he explained: Mr Wong’s granddaughter nodded obediently—“and I think Father wangled the trip for me on the excuse that ‘the boy has to learn about the duties that’ll be his some day’, or some such thing; but frankly, it’s not me!”

    “I see. But you’re not really a boy, are you?” she said shyly.

    Graeme flushed. “No. I suppose Father’s treated me like one for the last thirty-four years, so he can’t stop. The thing is,” he confided, coming a little closer: “I’m a damn good cost-accountant, but I know my limitations, and that’s all I want to be: head of that section’s the height of my ambitions, and I know I could do the job. But—um—”

    “Yes?” she said softly.

    Chewing his lip, Graeme confessed: “I’m a Pointer. KRP: Kent, Reardon, Pointer: you see? Father expects me to take over where he leaves off: senior director, all that jazz.”

    Jay nodded solemnly. “I see. It’s very hard to withstand family pressures, isn’t it?”

    “Absolutely!” said Graeme gratefully.

    “Yes. My family sent me to Hong Kong to marry a boy I’d never met, when I was sixteen,” confided the young woman who’d thought so little of the matter that she’d never mentioned it to her live-in boyfriend of two years’ standing.

    “Christ, how ghastly!” said Graeme in horror. “Sixteen?”

    “Mm. I—I didn’t know anything,” said Jay on an awkward note, looking away from him and hanging her head a little. “And—and it never occurred to me to disobey my family, at that age.”

    “No,” said Graeme, swallowing hard. He came even closer and said in Cantonese in a very low voice: “Are you from Hong Kong?”

    Jay spoke two Cantonese dialects and Mandarin extremely fluently. She considered rapidly whether it would be in her best interests to let on about this. Then she put her hands together at her waist, gave the tiniest bow, and said to Graeme Pointer in the Cantonese dialect he’d used: “I was born in Australia but my family is from Hong Kong.”

    Graeme’s eyes filled abruptly with tears: his mind had suddenly been swamped with the memory, not merely of his darling little May, but of the house where he’d grown up, his childhood and Amah. “I’ve almost forgotten my Cantonese,” he said with difficulty, getting the tense wrong. “What’s your name?”

    “Wong Jie,” said Jay with another tiny bow.

    There was a little silence.

    Jay looked up at him and smiled. “I’m called Jay, here,” she said in English.

    “I’m Graeme,” he said huskily.

    Jay smiled into his eyes.

    Suddenly Graeme said in Cantonese: “Amah always called me ‘Eldest Son’.”

    “Of course.”

    “Yes,” he said, biting his lip. His eyes were full of tears again. He looked away from her and said in English: “She and her family went back to China... Years ago. I was in my last year at school.”

    Jay didn’t really register this detail: inwardly she was cheering: he had been brought up by a Chinese nanny! Boy, just let her get him round to Grandmother’s house, with the hint of incense and the smell of good Chinese food that always hung in the air—!

    After a moment Graeme said uncertainly: “So—so did you and your husband come back to Australia, Jay?”

    “No: I left him,” said Jay quickly.

    “I see,” he said in some admiration. “And what did your family think of that?”

    “Grandfather was furious. But Dad didn’t much mind: he didn’t really want me to marry Wu, he just went along with Grandfather. But then Wu’s father went broke, so Grandfather decided I had a head on my shoulders after all!” she finished with a giggle.

    Graeme was entranced. He thought she was the most feminine little thing he’d ever set eyes on. Jay could see this. Whether she was simply a giggler by nature or, as the Manning girls had surmised, as a result of cultural conditioning, she herself didn’t know: but she knew she was a giggler. And she knew that most men adored it and went all silly and encouraged her to get even gigglier when she giggled. It was obvious Graeme Pointer was one of them. So she nodded her head and giggled some more.

    “Sucks to Grandfather, eh?” said Graeme, grinning.

    “Yes!” squeaked Jay, giggling more than ever. “Now I’m a favourite dutiful granddaughter again!”

    “Naturally!” He was dying to ask if she’d replaced the husband with a boyfriend, but didn’t quite dare. “Um—so you know Sydney very well, then?”

    “Yes, we’ve always lived in Sydney. Is this your first visit?”

    Graeme shook his head. “I’ve been out here once before, when I was just a boy, but I didn’t see much of the city. It seems very big and sprawling—confusing. I got hopelessly lost the other day when I went for a walk.”

    “Not really? But aren’t the European cities bigger?”

    “Mm. And I admit that when I was a kid I could find my way around Hong Kong blindfold, and it’s confusing, if you like.”

    “Yes: I got hopelessly lost there lots of times!” said Jay, giggling again.

    Graeme laughed happily. “But you speak the language!”

    “Yes, and you speak English!” squeaked Jay, giggling helplessly. They laughed together for some time.

    After that he explained that he’d been looking for looking for Elizabeth Bay House when he got lost, and Jay asked where he’d started from, and exclaimed when he told her, because no-one could possibly get lost starting from there! In no time at all he was asking her humbly if she could possibly show him a bit of Sydney and Jay, without even a mental glance in the direction of the fact that the agency was expecting their Chinese reader to be on duty tomorrow, was assuring him that as it happened, she was free tomorrow, if he—

    Graeme was free. Privately he determined that if necessary he’d tell Father he had a splitting headache and refuse to accompany him, if KRP had set up some damned meeting he was supposed to attend. They didn’t need him, he was never asked for his input, and certainly no input was expected from him, and he was fed up with being a looker-on. And also fed up with the way that the Australian execs looked sideways at him when they thought Father wasn’t looking.

    Promising to meet him at his hotel at nine-thirty tomorrow—Without fail?—Gales of giggles: without fail!—Absolutely promise?—More giggles: promise!—Jay departed for the kitchen, with a last giggle assuring him that she’d show him the one Chinese restaurant in the whole of sprawling, confusing Sydney that Grandfather approved of!

    Graeme hurried back to the drawing room with a fast-beating heart, a flushed face, and a terrific hard-on. Fortunately for him Michael Pointer was too busy talking to old Maurice Fine to notice these last two factors.

    “It’s a Joint Venture. One of those into-China things,” reported Sloane.

    Ingrid’s face fell. “Oh.”

    “Couldn’t you, um, buy its shares?” suggested Melodie.

    “No!” she snarled.

    Sloane explained kindly: “Only if it’s a public company, Melodie. But it won’t be. And there’s no guarantee it’ll show any profit at all. And it certainly won’t in the near future.”

    “Oh.”

    Ingrid opened her bag and took out a thin case of cigarillos.

    “Ingrid!” said Sloane indignantly. “Not in the kitchen!”

    “You’ve finished the cooking,” she replied, lighting up. “I need this. I’ve been on tenterhooks all evening, wondering if the Burgoynes had spotted you.” She tipped back her head and slowly blew out a cloud of smoke. “What field?”

    Melodie looked at her blankly but Sloane replied: “Computer systems for heavy machinery—construction and agricultural machines. –Turn the extractor-fan on, Melodie, for goodness’ sake!”

    Obediently Melodie went to turn it on.

    “Mm.” Ingrid smoked slowly. “There’d be room for that, in China: they’ve got to feed a burgeoning middle class, and then there’s heaps of construction, too.”

    “Yes. The plan seems to be that Fine Holdings’ll supply the expertise.” Sloane shrugged. “Well, probably after a few years the Chinese’ll nick the systems and do it all themselves, but it should pay well for a while. And Crap’s bankrolling the whole thing. Plus they’ve got the contacts, through their Hong Kong office.”

    “Mm... I might put a couple of thou’ into KRP,” said Ingrid thoughtfully.

    “What?” cried Melodie indignantly.

    “It’s your money,” admitted Sloane.

    “Yeah. –What’s this idea of yours?”

    An evil grin spread over Sloane’s oval countenance. “Well, since you’re here—”

    “Just tell me one thing,” said Michael Pointer in Martin Jarrod’s ear.

    “Several sisters, none of them anything near it,” replied Martin instantly.

    Grinning all over his lean face, Michael said: “Not that, you bugger! No, uh—”

    “Mm? Oh.” Martin shrugged slightly. “Picked her up at the New Year’s Eve dance in the Great Australian Outback, would you believe?”

    “Looking at them now, yes. Before this evening, no,” replied Michael frankly, eyeing Kitten hanging on Hugo’s arm.

    “That’s my reaction, too,” agreed Martin lightly.

    Michael Pointer was aware that Martin Jarrod was Hugo Kent’s man. He said very cautiously indeed: “Couldn’t you have stopped him, Martin?”

    “A neutron bomb couldn’t have stopped him,” replied Martin sourly.

    “Ah.” Michael looked thoughtfully at the pair.

    “His business judgement doesn’t seem to be impaired,” said Martin drily.

    “No, well, considering that all our fates undoubtedly hang on his business judgement, dear boy, I hope you’re very, very sure of that,” he said smoothly.

    Martin’s lips tightened. “Yes.”

    Michael eyed him mockingly and strolled away from him. Ten years ago he’d have taken her off Hugo’s hands. But— Not that he didn’t fancy her dead rotten: what a perfect little peach! But Hugo Kent was only in his early fifties and a bloody attractive fellow, when all was said and done. Oh, well. Pity. After a moment he headed in Ward’s direction. Might as well get a second opinion as to whether their Chairman was really losing his marbles or merely doing what came naturally, for once in his bloody blameless life.

    “What are you doing in here?” gasped Ingrid as the blue baby-doll walked into the kitchen.

    “What are you, come to that?” retorted Kitten.

    “Kitten, get out, what if Joyce comes in?” hissed Melodie.

    “She won’t, you clot, she’s a wee touch tiddly-poo.”

    “Eh?” they croaked. All except Jay, she just looked at her with her mouth open.

    “A bit pissed. Hugo says that’s what’s his mother-in-law calls it. She’s a lady.”

    “No!” replied Ingrid incredulously.

    Kitten stuck out her tongue at her. “A coun-tess,” she said laboriously.

    “Shit,” said Ingrid numbly.

    “Not really?” gasped Melodie.

    “Yeah. –I think I might look her up in Debrett’s and photocopy it for my album: you never know.”

    “In what?” asked Jay.

    “Ignore it,” advised Sloane tersely. “Kitten, for God’s sake get out. –No: hang on: just tell me one thing and then get out.”

    “Yeah?”

    “When you ate the strawberry off your cake and turned Hugo Kent to a bowl of quivering mush—”

    “Did she?” asked Ingrid with interest.

    “Him and half the men at the table. Even old Mr Fine’s eyes popped,” said Melodie.

    “Mm. And both the Pointers turned sort of royal Pommy purple, didja notice?” agreed Sloane.

    “No, I was behind them,” said Melodie regretfully. “Ole Kendall’s eyes were on stalks, though.”

    “Well done,” said Ingrid laconically to Kitten. “Take a bow.”

    “Hang on!” said Sloane impatiently as the others sniggered. “You idiots are missing the point! –Well, you needed to see the way she made the pudding,” she admitted.

    “Aw, ye-ah...” said Melodie slowly, goggling at Kitten.

    Kitten looked smug.

    “Yes,” said Sloane grimly. “Those strawberries were well-nigh cemented on. Before you turned Hugo Crap and the rest of the gents with red blood in their veins into quivering mush, had you or had you not carefully detached that strawberry from the chocolate topping when he wasn’t looking?”

    “Yeah, of course, whaddaya think I am?”

    Abruptly the other girls collapsed in gales of giggles.

    Kitten, perhaps needless to state, merely looked smug.

    “Went well,” grunted old Maurice Fine, shaking Kendall’s hand excruciatingly hard at the front door.

    Kendall’s knees went weak with relief. “Yes, I thought so, Maurice,” he said smoothly.

    Old Mr Fine nodded. “We’ll have a talk. My office. Eight too early for you?”

    It was, of course: the old bastard did it on purpose. It was rumoured at FH that he only needed four hours’ sleep a night, unlike lesser mortals. Another version, popular amongst the gung-ho entrepreneurs whom old Maurice had bought out for a song, was that he just hung himself up in the closet for forty winks when the sun was at high noon.

    Kendall agreed eight wasn’t too early, made a mental note to (a) set the alarm and (b) bloody well sleep in the spare room, her snoring was enough to keep you awake all night, and tenderly saw him and Mrs Fine into their fawn Rolls. The old boy always insisted on driving it himself. Never even had a ticket. Presumably a case of the Devil looking after his own. That or he’d paid off every last traffic cop in the NSW police force. Or both.

    “Before I go,” said Kitten, “Jay can tell me one thing.”

    “What?” said Jay cautiously.

    “When Pointer Junior—”

    “‘And Son’!” corrected Melodie, giggling.

    “Right,” she conceded. “When And Son came back into the sitting-room a bit earlier with a smirk on his mug and a hard-on, had he or had he not been chatting you up?”

    “Yes! She’s got a date to take him sightseeing tomorrow!” gasped Melodie ecstatically.

    “Good one,” conceded Kitten.

    “He followed her into the dining-room,” explained Melodie. “After he’d gone to the loo.”

    “Uh-huh.” Kitten looked at Jay. “‘Followed’?”

    Jay looked airy. “I waited until he was halfway down the stairs and then I went in there very slowly. I thought he might—”

    “Say no more!” gasped Kitten, falling all over the kitchen.

    The others were over it. They just grinned.

    “Tired, sweetheart?” said Hugo solicitously as Kitten leaned back in the back seat of the taxi with a sigh.

    “Mm. Just a bit.”

    “Come here.” He put his arm around her.

    Martin Jarrod didn’t need to look round to know that she was settling her head on the infatuated Hugo’s shoulder. He stared grimly ahead into the night.

    After they’d dropped Martin off at his hotel, Kitten said in a squeaky voice: “So you are coming home?”

    “What? Yes!” he said in amazement.

    “Good,” she said, nestling into his shoulder again.

    In the flat Hugo switched on the hall light and looked at her uncertainly. “Kitten—”

    “Mm?” Kitten slipped her sandals off and looked up at him meekly.

    “Darling,” said Hugo, biting his lip, “surely you didn’t think that I—I wouldn’t want to come back to our cosy little nest?”

    “I thought you might not want to, in front of him,” she said in a tiny voice.

    Hugo didn’t reprove her for calling Martin “him”. It didn’t even occur to him to wonder if Kitten didn’t like Martin, and if not, why not, and whether or not Martin liked her. “Oh, darling!” he said in a shaken voice. “Come here!” He gathered her into his arms.

    Kitten nestled against his dinner jacket. There was a speculative gleam in the big blue eyes. Well, it wasn’t bad going, was it? Considering that four weeks back he’d been terrified of Martin Jarrod and everyone even seeing him with her!

    Ward was driving himself: slowly and carefully. The plonk hadn’t been that good, so he hadn’t had that much of it, but he didn’t want to be stopped. He knew the cops thoroughly enjoyed breathalysing an expensive foreign car. Well, the sadistic bastards thoroughly enjoyed breathalysing anything, but they enjoyed breathalysing an expensive foreign car slightly more: all things were relative.

    He lived not far away. He was nearly home when he realised the off rear tire was flat as a pancake. Bloody Hell!

    Crossly he slid the Jaguar into the curb and got out. Jesus Flaming Christ! The spare was flat as a pancake, too! How the fuck—

    As he was kicking the offending rear tire and swearing at it, a small car drove past. Ward didn’t expect it to stop: no-one did, in his experience, in the Big Smoke. Admittedly this was better than a load of muggers stopping and doing you over, but— Then it slowed, braked, and backed. Ward was not a particularly cowardly man but he had an impulse to run. Though it had looked a respectable sort of car and it hadn’t been speeding. Well, perhaps it was the one Good Samaritan in the whole of the wilderness of Sydney. He waited nervously.

    “Ward!” said an astonished soprano. “It is you!”

    Ward just about passed out. He peered incredulously. “Ingrid? What the Hell—”

    “I’ve been helping out with a job for RightSmart: that’s my sister’s firm. They do domestic temping and stuff,” said Ingrid. “What’s up: a flat?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Hang on.”

    She drew in behind him. Ward just waited numbly while she got out and came up to his side. On the pavement; sensible girl, he registered with groggy approval.

    “Funny coincidence department, eh?” he croaked.

    “Yes,” said Ingrid, smiling sunnily. “Isn’t it?” –On Sloane’s reporting that there were only a few people left and one of them was Ward, she had nipped out and doctored his rear tire. Or rather, as she hadn’t known which car was his, she’d doctored a rear tire of each. Then she’d lurked behind a bush until she saw Ward get into the dark blue classic E Jag.

    “What a lovely car,” she now said admiringly.

    “She’d be lovelier if the spare wasn’t as flat as a pancake, too!” he replied with feeling.

    With difficulty Ingrid refrained from laughing. That hadn’t been her; the Fates must be on her side tonight! “A puncture, is it?”

    “Must be. Slow leak. I’ll pump it up, might make it the rest of the way home.”

    “Yes; no point in changing it,” said Ingrid calmly.

    “No.” Ward pumped some air into it resignedly. Trying not to huff and puff too much in front of her. “That should do it.”

    “Mm. Well—goodnight, then.”

    “No, wait!” he said urgently.

    Obligingly Ingrid waited.

    “Look—uh— Look,” he said, running his hand through his iron-grey thatch: “I can’t ruddy well believe it, Ingrid! I’ve only been back in Sydney a day and a half, I’ve been rushed off my feet— Well, I was gonna ring you tomorrow!” he said with an awkward laugh. “Believe it or not.”

    “Were you?” replied Ingrid coolly.

    Ward bit his lip. “That sounded bloody silly. But it’s the truth. –Look, I know it’s flaming late, I’ve been at a bloody awful dinner party at Kendall Burgoyne’s—didja know he works for FH?” he added by the way.

    “Um—no-o...” said Ingrid uncertainly. “I only met him that one time at Muwullupirri.”

    “Yeah, of course. Well, he does. We think we might do some business together. Well, meeting up like that at Muwullupirri sort of gave him the idea— Look, we can’t talk here,“ he said, running his hand through his hair again. “Will you come home and have a cup of coffee?”

    Ingrid hesitated. “It is a bit late...”

    “I’m so bloody glad to see you, Ingrid!” he said in a shaking voice.

    She swallowed. “All right. Just a coffee.”

    “Great. Uh—follow me, okay?”

    Ingrid agreed to follow him.

    She followed the E-type in a sort of daze. Boy, that had been easy!

    “Are you sure?” said Melodie, hesitating at the back door.

    “Yes! Go!”

    Melodie and Jay got into Jay’s car and departed.

    Sloane went back inside. She put the last load in the dishwasher and sat down calmly at the cleared and washed kitchen table. There was one couple left. The drawing-room was cleared, apart from the last three glasses: Kendall’s and the couple’s. Joyce had been assisted up to bed by Kendall and herself nearly an hour ago. She had fallen in a heap on her yellow satin eiderdown and immediately started snoring. Her husband had said with distaste: “Leave her,” but Sloane had considerately removed her high-heeled black patents, unzipped her dress and put a light blanket over her. And turned the light out on her.

    She heard doors opening and closing and a car start up. She waited.

    Footsteps came slowly down the passage. She heard him yawn widely. Then the kitchen door opened.

    “Sloane!” said Kendall numbly. The colour faded right out of his ruddy face and came back in a rush.

    “Hullo, Kendall,” said Sloane evenly.

    Kendall looked dazedly round the empty kitchen. “Are you— What are you—?”

    “I came to check on my staff,” said Sloane, smiling calmly. “I usually do when we’ve got a late job. They’d practically finished, so I sent them home.”

    “Y— Um—yeah, we were pretty late,” he stumbled. “It’s good to see you, Sloane!”

    Sloane smiled calmly. She and Ingrid had exchanged clothes: this was the bright idea that had suddenly come to her when Ingrid had turned up unexpectedly. The wig was in Sloane’s handbag together with the cheek plumpers, and Sloane’s face was itself again. Ingrid had been doubtful about the idea to start with, but after Joyce had had to be put to bed there was clearly not much risk involved. She hadn’t minded swapping her clothes for Sloane’s grey uniform: it would add weight to the story she planned to hand Ward.

    “I’ll take a last look around, if that’s all right, Kendall?”

    “Uh—yeah. Of course. Come on through. –You look great,” he said awkwardly as she got up.

    Ingrid had been wearing tight stretch jeans that she’d got on sale last year and only wore as casual wear. Not worn outside the house except on quick trips to get pizza: that sort of thing. With them, since it was a warm night, she’d had a sleeveless cotton-knit top: pale yellow, coming to about a hand’s-span above the waist. The stretch jeans were belted with a silver chain. It was not at all the sort of look Sloane usually wore, even casually. Added to which Ingrid hadn’t been wearing a bra, and as Sloane couldn’t very well wear the thing of Kitten’s that was part of her disguise, she’d perforce dispensed with one, too. She didn’t usually, with tee-shirty things, though she knew her figure was good enough to let her. As she was a little taller than Ingrid the stretch jeans ended about two inches above her ankles, but otherwise they fitted okay. Ingrid had been wearing the massage sandals she often wore round the house: Sloane hated them, but they weren’t a bad fit. She’d brushed out her hair but no-one had had anything to lend her to clip or tie it back, so it was just swept behind her ears, and left loose. The very casual style suited her, while still emphasising the good facial bones. She didn’t look in the least like the terrifyingly capable Kirsten Andersen. And Kendall Burgoyne certainly hadn’t looked hard enough at Miss Andersen to notice the profile. In fact he’d rather avoided looking at her at all.

    “Thanks,” she said, smiling. “This isn’t the gear I normally wear to work, of course.”

    “No,” he said vaguely. “Through here: this is the drawing-room. Just a couple of glasses, I think.”

    “Yes.” Sloane retrieved them, and neatened the sofa cushions, checking the upholstery carefully. “Was anybody smoking?”

    “Uh—oh, I see. No, not in here. A couple of them had a smoke on the patio.”

    She nodded. “Which way is the dining-room?”

    “It’s okay: the girls have tidied up.”

    “Mm. I’ll just check,” she said with a little smile.

    “Right. Yeah. This way.” He showed her into the dining-room.

    Sloane checked it carefully, not neglecting to glance under the table. Everything was spotless, which considering she’d already checked it tonight, it ought to be. However, she made a pretence of inspecting the candles on the sideboard.

    “Dunno that I’d care if the place did burn down,” he said glumly from just behind her.

    Repressing a gasp, she replied: “Wouldn’t you? It’s rather a nice house.”

    “I can’t stand this bloody pink!” he said violently.

    “It’s quite a pretty shade,” she said detachedly. “A bit much, perhaps.”

    “The whole thing’s a bit much. Especially the ruddy curtains: I like a curtain that is a curtain.”

    Sloane had gathered that. “Mm.”

    “Those things she’s got in the drawing-room— Oh, well. Fine Brothers could have done the whole thing for her at a fraction of the price, but no, she had to get a ruddy decorator in!”

    “Help, you don’t mean it’s—” Sloane broke off.

    “What?”

    “No, it was rude!” she said in a strangled voice. “I was forgetting you were a client, for the moment.”

    “I’m not a ruddy client, Sloane!” he said violently.

    There was a little pause.

    “In any case,” said Sloane rather stiltedly, “there’s nothing wrong with the drawing-room. It’s a bit unoriginal, I suppose.”

    Kendall sighed. “Yeah. I wanted something to complement my Carlton Ware coffee set: it’s a lovely thing, my father got it back when my parents were first engaged. Very deep blue. But no, she had to go for green and flaming peach because her flaming decorator— Never mind,” he said, pulling a face.

    “I’d love to see it.”

    “Uh—righto.” Looking uncertain, Kendall led the way back into the drawing room, where he displayed the Carlton Ware coffee set that Melodie had discovered earlier. It was lovely: the outside a glowing midnight blue and the inner surfaces of everything but the pot gold.

    “It’s beautiful,” said Sloane in awe.

    Kendall rolled a cup gently in his hands. “Mm. Dad passed it on to me when I bought the house. Joyce goes as far as letting me keep it in the cabinet, but— Oh, well.”

    “You’d never match this blue, in a million years.”

    “No. Mum’s never liked it,” he revealed: “can you believe?”

    Sloane shook her head silently, though privately reflecting that Mrs Burgoyne, Snr., must be the same generation as Mrs Wainwright, so it wasn’t surprising.

    “What I thought,” said Kendall on a glum note: “was a toile de Jouy wallpaper: dark blue on white. She vetoed it, needless to say.”

    “Oh—yeah,” said Sloane numbly, stunned that he’d ever heard of it. “That would be nice. It’s easy to overdo it, though.”

    “Tell us about it! She’s got one of our spare rooms decked out in a terracotta one, and everything, I mean everything, has got the same pattern.”

    “I see,” said Sloane, biting her lip.

    “Sorry. Boring on. ‘The wife doesn’t understand me’ bit. Um—look, your people did a magnificent job for us tonight, Sloane: thanks.”

    “I’m glad you’re pleased,” said Sloane tranquilly.

    “Yeah. Terrifically. I was afraid it was all gonna be a bloody disaster, and with the boss coming— Well, you know. And Joyce had a dummy-spit.”

    “I gathered that. Well, Miss Andersen reported that this room looked as if someone had been throwing things in it,” she said, with a little smile that just allowed itself to mix tolerant amusement with sympathy.

    “Someone had. All I asked her to do was ring up and invite the guests, for God’s sake! Apart from booking the caterers, and she couldn’t even manage that properly!”

    Sloane replied calmly: “That’s rather unfair: Grierson Gourmet seems to have gone bust suddenly. They did promise to do the whole thing for her. I think I’d have thrown a few things, too.”

    Kendall smiled wryly. “Oh, sure, I can see that!”

    She looked at him in some amusement but said only: “I’d better get back to the kitchen, that last load of dishes should be just about done by now.”

    He followed her mechanically, but said when they got there: “Look, you’ve done enough. Leave those, I’ll put them away.”

    “They’re not yours,” said Sloane, very drily indeed.

    “Eh?”

    “The crockery and almost all of the glassware was stuff we hired. It has to go back first thing tomorrow.” She gestured at the boxes standing ready on the kitchen bench.

    “Shit,” said Kendall numbly.

    “Twenty-four is a fairly large number.”

    He took a deep breath. “Just before Christmas she bought two twelve-setting English china dinner-se— Forget it.”

    “Where are they?” said Sloane numbly, goggling at him.

    “Last I knew of it they were in the dining-room sideboard.”

    “They’re not there now, it’s almost empty.”

    His mouth tightened. “She must have made the bloody shop take them back. She reckoned she was gonna, because one pudding plate had a fault in the glaze. You had to go over it with a microscope to find it, but Joyce found it. I told her not to be so bloody silly and to do no such thing, but she must have done it anyway. Actually, she probably did it last week when I rang up from WA, because when we took off for Muwullupirri, both sets were in the sideboard.”

    Some of Joyce’s impassioned outburst to Miss Andersen this afternoon now began to make sense to Sloane. “I see.”

    “Yeah,” said Kendall, suddenly sitting down with a heavy sigh at the kitchen table.

    Sloane looked at him with a sympathy which was not entirely assumed. “I was going to make a cup of tea while that load finishes: would you like one?”

    “Yeah; thanks: I’d love one,” he said dully.

    She began to make a pot of tea. Kendall watched her gloomily for a while. Then he said grimly: “She does it on purpose, ya know.”

    Sloane hesitated; then she said lightly: “Perhaps she doesn’t feel putting on dinners for twenty-four at a week’s notice is in the job description, Kendall.” She turned and gave him a little, mocking look.

    Kendall was very flushed. “Look, she didn’t have to ruddy DO anything!” he said heatedly.

    “True.”

    “I hardly ever ask her to have the boss to dinner—well, he hardly ever goes anywhere: reckons no-one’s cooking’s as good as his wife’s—and I told her it was bloody important to my career!”

    “I’m convinced,” said Sloane lightly, “but it seems you didn’t manage to convince Joyce.”

    “Look, are you on her side?” he said hotly.

    “No. But there are two sides to most things, and especially to relationships.”

    “Especially to relationships that are practically down the bloody tubes,” he said, passing a hand through the pretty silver hair so that it looked more than ever like Richard Gere’s. “Yeah.”

    Sloane set the teapot and a pair of mugs on the table. “Didn’t the party go all right?”

    “As far as it went, yeah. Old Maurice—the boss—he was pleased enough, wants to go over the scheme with me at crack of dawn tomorrow morning. So that’s okay. Only old Enid—his wife—I could see her eyeing Joyce getting pissed out of her tiny mind: she’s gonna be whispering into Maurice’s shell-like that Joyce isn’t the right sort of wife to support the firm’s image, blah-blah.”

    Sloane could see the motherly, comfortable-looking Mrs Fine doing that: yes. Very like Mrs Wainwright, in fact. There would be no malice in the tone as she did it, but that wasn’t to say she wouldn’t thoroughly enjoy every minute of it. “Mm. She’s a Mrs Wainwright type, is she?”

    “What? Oh: Enid Fine! Yeah, too right. Holier-than-thou type. Living in the Fifties: white gloves and church on Sundays. Um, well, synagogue on Saturdays, in her case, I suppose, but same diff’. The sort that’s given her hubby Hell in her quiet way all her life and never stopped to ask herself if anyone was actually happy living like that in the bloody Fifties!”

    Sloane nodded silently.

    “Mum’s exactly the same,” he said with a sigh.

    She set the milk and sugar on the table and sat down. “I see.”

    “Your parents like that?”

    “No,” she said, smiling a little. “More your liberated Seventies types. Not that Mum was ever into anything hippy-ish! Um—no, if anything they go too far the other way. I think they are fond of each other. But Mum’s always worked, and she’s done as well in her profession as Dad has. She’s more interested in her job than she is in the house or in us lot.”

    “Pity bloody Joyce never bothered to get off her butt and get a job. Might have smartened her ideas up,” he said sourly.

    Sloane experienced an impulse to beat him over the Richard Gere hair with the teapot. She poured carefully. “It’s not like that. Mum doesn’t work for the sake of getting out of the house or—um—making contact with other people, or anything like that.” She laughed suddenly. “She’d tell Dad he was mad if he asked her to lay on a dinner-party for six, let alone twenty-four!”

    Kendall grinned sheepishly. “I get it. Sounds to me as if they’re happier than Mum and Dad ever were, though.”

    “Only because Dad’s not just easy-going, he’s totally oblivious to his surroundings and lives with his head in a computer!” said Sloane, laughing.

    “Yeah. Well, Dad’s all right,” he admitted, wrinkling his nose. “Poor old sod. He’s always let Mum push him around.”

    “Mm. My Grandma Manning was like that, from what I remember of her.”

    “Too right!” said Kendall with feeling.

    There was a short pause.

    “Did you know her, then?” said Sloane in a puzzled voice.

    “Mm? Aw, Hell, yeah! Let’s see: we’d have gone to Lallapinda something like... Just over thirty years ago. Dad and your grandfather had cooked up some mining venture between the pair of them. –Don’t think either of them knew what they were doing,” he added by the by. “They were off at the mine, miles up country somewhere, most of the time, so during the school holidays that left me and my sister and Mum more or less at Mrs Manning’s mercy.”

    “She was very strict,” said Sloane feebly. “I do remember that. She died when I was about eight but I can remember being told to get my feet off the upholstery.”

    “Too right!” he said, laughing.

    There was a little pause. “Jesus, you’d have been the baby!” he said, goggling at her.

    Sloane had already worked out that they must have met. “Mm.”

    “Hell, yes: there was a terrific row one Christmas because your mum refused to bring you over from New South Wales.”

    “That’d be right: Mum could never stand Grandma.”

    “Mm. –We weren’t there long: Dad moved to Adelaide after a few years. They’d decided the mine needed heavy machinery and substantial capital investment: it was more than a two-man operation. But I remember seeing you a couple of times. Your grandmother made a terrific fuss of you and your mother was totally detached from the whole bit.”

    “I can imagine!” conceded Sloane, grinning.

    “Mm. So she’s always been like that?”

    “Who, Mum? Yes.” She smiled at him. “When we were little, staying with Grandma, and later on, being invited over to Muwullupirri, was the ultimate treat: Mum’s never bothered to cook, you see.”

    He smiled slowly. “I get you. Advantages and disadvantages to both types, eh?”

    “Mm-hm.”

    He was silent, drinking his tea, staring blankly at his kitchen floor. Finally he said: “Which type of relationship would you rather be in, though?”

    “Neither. I can’t stand—” Sloane broke off, reddening.

     “What?” he said eagerly.

    “Um, I was going to say I can’t stand the type of man that lets his wife push him around—Dad’s like that, too, before you say anything: he never takes a decision about anything to do with the family, just leaves it all up to Mum. But that isn’t quite what I mean... I suppose I can’t stand the thought,” said Sloane slowly, “of turning into one of those women who make all the decisions for their ‘menfolk’.” She made an awful face.

    Kendall leaned across the table. “You couldn’t possibly, Sloane!”

    “It seems to happen to everyone,” said Sloane on a bleak note.

    “Surely not!”

    “Well, by the sounds of them, your parents; the Wainwrights,”—Kendall blenched and nodded feebly—“my parents; definitely my grandparents—both sides,” she noted detachedly—“and most couples from my own age-group are going the same way. Well, more so, if the woman’s got the man convinced he has to be fearfully New Age and share in all the domestic responsibilities. What it always comes down to,” said Sloane, now with a twinkle in her eye, “is that she makes the decision, then they talk it through and he agrees with her!”

    “Yeah,” he said, grinning feebly. “It does, doesn’t it?”

    She shrugged. “Mm.”

    Then a little silence fell. Kendall looked at her with an awkward, pleading expression on his not unhandsome face.

    Sloane got up quickly. “I’ll pack these, and be off.”

    “Oh—yeah. Lemme give you a hand.”

    They packed the dishes and glasses silently and took them out to the car, also silently.

    When the last lot was safely stowed away Kendall took a deep breath. “Hang on,” he said hoarsely as she was about to get into the driver’s seat.

    Sloane hung on.

    “Uh—look, I know I’ve got no right to— Couldn’t we get together, Sloane?” he said miserably.

    Sloane hesitated.

    “Just—just lunch or something?” he said in a shaking voice.

     “Well... All right, then. Ring me.”

    “Yes. I’ve got your number.”

    “Good. Goodnight, then,” said Sloane, quickly getting into the car.

    Kendall hurried to shut the door for her. “I’ll ring you tomorrow, then.”

    “Okay,” said Sloane mildly. She smiled at him with something of an effort. “’Bye!”

    Kendall waited until she’d driven off and then went slowly back indoors to a spotless, empty kitchen. After a moment he went through to the dining-room and opened the big sideboard. Practically empty, as Sloane had said. “Right,” he said under his breath.

    He went upstairs and, not even glancing in the direction of the master bedroom, went to bed in the spare room with the smothering terracotta-on-white toile de Jouy on every surface.

    Melodie was waiting up for Sloane, in her dressing-gown. “Did it go all right?” she asked, yawning.

    “Yes. I’m going to meet him for lunch. He’s ringing me.”

    “Ooh, good! And he never spotted anything?”

    “No. Too dumb,” said Sloane in a hard voice. “I’m going to bed, I’m all in.”

    “Yes. Um—Sloane?”

    Sloane paused in the doorway. “What?”

    “If you don’t like him—you know: don’t,” said Melodie in a small voice.

    “Do you mean don’t like him or don’t fancy him?” replied Sloane grimly.

    “Um—well, both. But I meant don’t fancy him,” she said miserably. “You don’t have to. Don’t take any notice of anything Kitten says: she’s mad.”

    “He’s fanciable enough. I’m doing it.” She paused. “But I have to admit I’m beginning to think busting up his marriage for him’ll be doing him a favour!”

    “Ooh, yeah,” discovered Melodie, goggling at her.

    Sloane smiled nastily. “There are other options, however.”

    “Are there?” she faltered.

    “Think about it.” Sloane went out, looking grim.

Next chapter:

https://thelallapindarevenge.blogspot.com/2022/11/its-only-love.html