Morning After

4

Morning After

    Ward Reardon managed to get himself up, shaved, dressed and looking presentable largely by dint of ignoring the way he felt. First thing he’d done when he’d hung up the phone had been to shove his head in the hand-basin and turn the cold tap on, hard, and that had helped a little.

    “Some of us,” Martin Jarrod said to him in the corridor, poker-face, “had been under the impression that today was scheduled as a rest day.”

    “Pommy git,” replied Ward sourly.

    “He’s as Australian as you are,” objected Martin smoothly.

    “Not him! –Oh, hah, hah.”

    “Hungover, Ward?” asked Martin solicitously.

    “Not as such, no. But strangely enough I feel as if I’ve had too much inedible food, more than enough undrinkable grog, and five hours’ sleep!”

    “That pretty little thing with the long blonde hair should have made up for it, though,” he said solicitously.

    “That was so long ago it feels as if it was in another life,” admitted Ward, yawning widely.

    “Never tell me you let her slip away, old boy?”

    “She had to push off home with her sisters, mate, and lemme tell you, if I hear one more ‘old boy’ out of you this morning, mate—”

    “Frankly, I wouldn’t dare, in front of him,” said Martin coolly.

    Ward repressed a shudder. “You got something there,” he muttered.

    Martin looked at him in sympathetic amusement. Ward Reardon was, of course, a type. He was an extremely competent man in his own sphere—and would not have risen, in spite of his name, to the position of head of their Australian operations if he had not been—so why he felt it incumbent upon him to indulge in the bluff Aussie mateship thing, Martin could not imagine. Cultural conditioning? Very likely. Lack of that sort of initiative which allows one to stand out from the crowd one finds oneself born into? Very probably that, too. Martin Jarrod was not himself a gregarious man and so he had no real understanding of the fact that Ward actually enjoyed the loud, cheerful fellowship, complete with its casual body contact, of the bluff Aussie mateship thing. Being in a group of his peers made Ward Reardon feel all warm and cosy. The mere thought of it gave Martin Jarrod the cauld grues.

    Nevertheless, the two men had struck up an odd friendship. The more jaundiced of their acquaintance, such as Martin’s wife, or Ward’s ex, maintained grimly that men were odd. Martin’s wife had tried to tell him that they didn’t really need to see that man, except on business, but Martin had replied mildly but firmly that he liked Ward and he wished her to ask him to dinner, please. Ward’s ex had objected that Martin Jarrod was a stuck-up Pom that looked down his nose at them, their house and everything they stood for and how could Ward be so blind as not to see he was patronising them, but Ward had shouted at her. She had then maintained that all right, then, but his wife WAS! Ward agreed with her on that point but he’d still shouted at her.

    Perhaps persons such as Ward Reardon and the ex-Mrs Reardon did not realise it, but Martin Jarrod, unlike Ward himself, and certainly unlike the Kents, had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had worked himself up from a very humble position in Pointer’s by doing the sorts of things that the young men in the London office with the more acceptable accents, not to say ties, would not have dreamed of doing: going to night school to get computing skills, doing an Open University degree to broaden his mind (he already had accountancy qualifications on top of six A-Levels), and accepting a post with Pointer’s in Hong Kong. Pointer’s management had not failed to take note of these and other details, and when they had merged with Kent, Reardon to become KRP, Martin Jarrod had very quickly risen in the new corporate structure.

    He had once, as a much younger man, had his sights set on heading Pointer’s Hong Kong office: but with big political changes he was no longer interested. KRP had closed down some of the Hong Kong operations, though they were maintaining a holding position there. The visit to Australia was very much a prospecting operation. The Sydney office might become the centre of their Asia-Pacific operations, if the climate looked right for it.

    At the moment, truth to tell, the climate did not look right: Hugo Kent had never liked the attitudes of successive Australian governments, of whatever ostensible political persuasion, to the corporate tax structure or to foreign investment in their determinedly jingoistic, backwards-looking country. There was apparently a lot of political posturing today about Australia being part of Asia, closer economic ties, blah, blah. KRP had reported very few instances of this hot air being translated into solid reality, let alone dollars and cents, and Martin Jarrod himself had as yet seen little evidence of it, apart from a large number of fee-paying Chinese students at the Australian universities. The Australians seemed to him still to have the old white-colonial mentality which they had presumably inherited from the British: however inept their own systems might be, and Martin had now seen enough of Australian ineptitude to last him several lifetimes, they automatically assumed them to be better than those of their non-white neighbours. They might pride themselves on their casual style and their mateship, but Martin, perhaps because he himself had once been very much an underdog, was sharply aware that their hail-fellow-well-met manner to those who were non-white and non-Australian was so patronising as to be downright offensive. This was not an unimportant point: KRP was very serious about its Asian operations. It did not in the least wish to be associated with an ambience of offensive patronage.

    Nor did the Australians seem to have their economic priorities straight: what were they in the Asia-Pacific region for? If they still had a legitimate rôle to play in international aid, a subject which did not interest Martin Jarrod except insofar as that sort of relationship might lead to future business opportunities, why in God’s name did they apparently assume KRP was as interested in the subject as they were themselves? The KRP team had already visited the Philippines, where an acquaintance of Ward’s from the Trade Mission had dragged them off to look at several instances of Australian-funded, or in at least one case merely Australian-managed, aid projects. What that was supposed to prove Martin had no idea. Worse: he could see that Ward’s Australian mate had failed to convince Hugo Kent that it proved anything. So had the sight of the trade fair where the Trade Mission was proudly sponsoring several large stands. Hugo had not had to ask what Australian business was actually accomplishing in the Philippines, because Martin had asked it for him.

    Asking such questions was part of Martin’s job: or rather, anticipating them and then asking them, so that Hugo Kent would not need to do so himself. When the Chairman of KRP took a personal interest in anything it made it look as if KRP was vitally interested, and this could only give the wrong impression. Or, worse, in some cases the right impression. Martin’s official title was Senior Executive Director. He was so senior that he did not have it engraved upon his business cards: merely “Martin Jarrod”: none of his qualifications, nothing underneath the name and, indeed, nothing else at all on the card except “KRP” in its logo form and the London, Hong Kong and Sydney telephone numbers. Perhaps in an American corporation he would have been called Senior Vice President. Anyone who was anyone at KRP knew that his actual function was that of right-hand man to Hugo Kent and that he was a very powerful—and thus very dangerous—man indeed.

    What Martin’s ambitions for himself now were, no-one knew. Though at times Ward Reardon recognised ruefully that heading up the entire Asia-Pacific operation was probably at the top of his wish-list. Oh, well. Ward himself had had a good run: he was fifty-six, now. He wouldn’t much care if they reorganised things and stuck in Martin Jarrod as his boss. He would, of course, fight not to be replaced by Martin. But some sort of reshuffle with one bloke overseeing this whole side of the business was a different matter. Ward’s ex would have suggested in no uncertain terms that that one bloke should be him. Ward didn’t know that he wanted that at all. He liked living in Sydney and, though living alone was bloody boring and he missed Nina’s capable housekeeping, on the whole he liked his current lifestyle. It was more than on the cards that KRP wouldn’t pick Sydney as its base: Hugo didn’t seem to be all that impressed with the way we did things out here and as a matter of fact Ward wasn’t all that impressed himself. Sydney itself wasn’t so bad: before Christmas they’d seen everything they wanted to, and everybody they needed to. But as for booking sessions with any politicos after Christmas—! The whole of bloody Canberra appeared to close down until February. Or April, in some cases. It was true you could strike the odd public holiday anywhere at all. But Jesus! This visit had of course been planned well in advance, though most of the KRP staff had been allowed to think it was spontaneous. Ward had naturally flown over to London to join in the planning. He had cringed all over at the sight of the nasty little smile that had appeared on Hugo Kent’s face when he was informed that the Minister would not be available during January. Likewise the highly paid public servant who was the head of Austrade. Ward had let the PA tell the boss that one.

    Ward and Martin of course both addressed Hugo Kent as “Hugo.” But even the hail-fellow-well-met Ward did not refer to him to his face as “the boss”. And neither of them was under any illusion that they were in any sense considered by Hugo to be his equals: he was friendly, he occasionally smiled, sometimes he even ventured upon a little joke. But always he kept his distance. Ward had once, before the divorce, confessed bitterly to Nina: “The man’s as much of an Aussie as I am! Why the fuck does he have to be so gracious with it? I keep feeling I’m expected to touch my bloody forelock!” He would not have been surprised to learn it was an opinion shared by the laconic Pete Dawkins of Muwullupirri. Or, as bloody Hugo Kent put it, “Mr Er.” Ward Reardon’s face had been expressionless throughout that entire exchange; and, as he knew he was expected to act as general translator and smoother-over when Hugo visited his native shores he had obligingly murmured into his ear: “Muwullupirri: the next station.” But for Christ’s bloody sake, the man was as Australian as he was! –Ward was, of course, wrong about this. Or wrong in assuming that anyone born within the same shores as he himself must—and should—automatically share his cultural assumptions. It was one of the factors that would prevent his rising to an international position in KRP.

    “Come along,” said Martin briskly.

    Ward grabbed his arm. “No, hang on, Martin: what’s it all about?”

    “I’ve no idea,” replied Martin simply.

    Ward gave him a hard look but as usual his narrow face was unreadable. “Didn’t he even give you a hint?”

    “No. He said would I step along to the suite as soon as it was convenient.”

    “Or, yesterday,” noted Ward with a sigh. “Yeah. Said that to me, too. Wish he’d make allowances for the fact that some of us are human.”

    Martin replied expressionlessly: “He didn’t get where he is today by making allowances for the fact that some of us are human.”

    “You bugger!” he gasped, taken unawares.

    Martin watched with a tiny smile as his friend shook all over his not insubstantial frame. Then he admitted: “I think he must have had a bright idea in the middle of the night.”

    “When most of us mere humans were asleep, yeah, yeah,” he groaned.

    “Mm. One asks oneself,” said Martin with a lurking twinkle in his hard brown eye, “whether the practice of chastity and abstinence tends to encourage such ideas, or if they’re merely a by-product of being unable to get to sleep into the wee small hours because of the hard-on.”

    Even though they were a good twenty yards as yet from the door of Hugo Kent’s suite Ward hissed in horror: “For God’s sake! Ssh!”

    Martin eyed him blandly. “Well?”

    Ward scratched his water-flattened, still thick, iron-grey hair. “Wasn’t there a rumour he went outside with a bit of fluff and a hard-on last night?”

    Hugo Kent’s right-hand-man replied grimly: “It was no rumour. We shouldn’t have let him go down to the buffet by himself. However, he came back inside without the bit of fluff and with the hard-on.”

    “Well, yeah, I noticed that,” he admitted.

    “Subsequently disappearing upstairs while she stayed downstairs and eventually departed with the crowd she’d come with without further contact with him.”

    “You saw her off, did you?”

    “Yes,” said Martin simply.

    Blenching slightly, Ward conceded: “Not a bad idea. Er, which one was it?”

    “A little blonde bitch in a tight pink satin thing. At a guess, thirty years his junior.”

    Ward’s jaw had sagged. “Jesus!”

    “So you did notice her?”

    “Notice her! Jesus! Look, Martin, this isn’t funny! Ruddy mid-life crises from him are what the company doesn’t need!”

    “No.” Martin rubbed his narrow chin slowly. “I have to admit I’d have thought he was incapable of it.”

    Ward nodded fervently, not asking facetiously whether he meant physically or morally.

    “What did you think of her?” asked Martin curiously.

    “You’re asking my expert opinion, are ya?” he said sourly.

    “Yes,” he said simply.

    “Uh—” Ward scratched the iron-grey waves again. His normally cheerful, tanned and rather ruddy face wore a sick expression which Martin Jarrod did not fancy was due to his over-indulgences of the previous night. “I’d say, she’d have to be something special to get near him in the first place.”

    Martin nodded, his narrow mouth tight.

    Ward grimaced. “Frankly, fifteen years ago, given an extra slice of good luck, I might have considered myself in there with a chance, Martin. But—” He shook his head slowly. “Never even bothered to try. That little bint, old mate, is extra bird. Fourteen out of ten. No, I tell a lie: fifteen.”

    Martin winced.

    “Never mind,” said Ward cautiously: “if the effort of not doing her’s given him an inspiration about what to do with the bloody Lallapinda Management Corp, so much the better.”

    “That or the entire Asia-Pacific operation: mm. Let’s hope it is only about business.”

    Ward swallowed.

    Martin gave him a grim look. “Come on.”

    Numbly Ward followed him to the suite.

    A lesser man might have greeted them with: “Oh, there you are.” And much lesser men might have descended to: “There you are at last.” What Hugo Kent actually said was: “Come along in.” Graciously. Smiling.

    They went in.

    “Brian’s ordered us some coffee,” said Hugo, smiling.

    Brian Atkins, the PA, was only about thirty, and he was looking very green about the gills, shaved and fully dressed though he was. He gave them a pallid smile.

    “Was there anyone on deck in the kitchen?” asked Ward with friendly interest.

    “Uh—” Brian looked sideways at his employer. “A couple of the girls.”

    “Uh-huh. Wendy the intrepid horsewoman?”

    “Um—she was one of them, mm.”

    Ward waggled his eyebrows interrogatively.

    “I think the other one was a washer-up. Um—an Aboriginal girl,” he said with a desperate glance at his employer.

    “The coffee should be good,” noted Ward, wandering over to the window. He yawned widely and said without turning round: “Sleep well, Hugo?” –Well though he knew him, Martin Jarrod with difficulty refrained from screaming, at this point.

    Hugo, however, only returned tranquilly: “Yes, thanks. Sorry to get you both up so early.”

    “We exist to serve,” said Martin mildly, sitting down in an armchair. “Did you order anything to eat?”

    “Did we?” said Hugo to Brian with a charming smile.

    Gamely he replied: “I did ask them to do what they could, sir. I think it might only be toast.”

    “White toast, almost entirely without nutritional value and definitely without anything approaching roughage,” said Ward dreamily to the view of the arid plain of Lallapinda. “Real bright yellow salted Aussie butter. And Vegemite if we’re really lucky.”

    “It sounds about as nutritional as my usual croissant, I have to admit,” said Hugo calmly. “Thanks, Brian.”

    The PA gave him a relieved smile.

    “In the meantime,” said Hugo, sitting down gracefully on a sofa, “I think we might chat about the Lallapinda Management Corporation.”

    “I vote to dump the whole kit and caboodle,” said Ward from the window.

    “Who would want to buy this place, though?” objected Martin.

    Brian Atkins began: “I—” and then thought better of it.

    “Go on, Brian,” said his employer with a kind smile.

    Going very red on top of the green, the young man replied: “Sorry, sir. It was misplaced. I was only going to say I think it’s a charming old place, I wouldn’t mind living in it.”

    “You and your staff of forty,” noted Martin limply.

    “Laddie, it’s miles from anywhere. And look at it!“ said Ward in a shaken voice. “They haven’t had a drop of rain within living m—”

    “I don’t think he means, to farm it,” murmured Hugo with a strange little smile.

    “No!” he gasped. “l just like it!”

    “I like it, too,” murmured Hugo. “Not all of its décor, though. I’d like to see that jarrah panelling in the front hall restored to its natural colour, rather than slathered in cream paint.”

    “God,” said Martin in a numb voice. “By all means buy the place off us, Hugo!”

    “Yeah: make us an offer!” agreed Ward with a laugh. “You, too, Brian, if you’ve got enough dried beans in your piggy bank!”

    Brian gave him a relieved smile. “Too many dried beans for me, I’m afraid, Mr Reardon.” –Ward’s own PA, whom he had left considerately in the land of Nod, why victimise the poor boy just because he was suffering, called him “Ward.” Brian evidently did not feel it was his, Gawdelpus, place to do so. Him and his old school tie.

    “No ideas, then?” murmured Hugo.

    Ward went rather red. “Not as such, no.”

    Martin looked dubious. “It’s the infrastructure, Hugo.”

    “Or lack of it: mm.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Ward sourly. “Even supposing we could swing a deal with an Asian airline or two to fly in crateloads of dim Japanese or Chinese honeymooners, they’d never get permission to fly direct to Adelaide! The whole system’s bloody ridiculous!”

    “Mm.” Hugo rubbed the large, straight nose he had inherited from the first Hugo Kent, for whom, judging by the portrait that hung in the house at South Yarra, he was a dead ringer. Baldness an’ all. Ward had sometimes wondered about that. True, the boss always appeared the epitome of self-possession: but maybe going bald so early, never mind the opinion of Tracy Reardon, aged nineteen, that it was “sexy on him”, had shaken his confidence in himself with regard to women? Well, God knew, but his wives had both been pretty disastrous. And the Lady Persse still was.

    “Eh?” he said sheepishly. “–Sorry, Hugo.”

    Hugo smiled kindly. “I said, what about setting up a private plane service to ferry our guests from wherever the commercial airlines deign to let them off?”

    Ward grimaced. “Melbourne? Shunt ’em off one plane, onto another plane, decant them at Adelaide, and onto a third plane? Um… well, we’d need tour managers to oversee the whole thing. Right from the Asian end: Narita, or wherever. It might work. Are you seriously envisaging pushing Lallapinda as the ideal honeymoon destination, Hugo?”

    Hugo rubbed his nose again. “It’s an idea. But I have to admit I’m not at all sure about it. Even honeymooners presumably emerge from their rooms at some point.”

    “And what the Hell is there for them to do, here?” said Martin on an acid note.

    “Yeah, those two we spoke to yesterday looked bored out of their minds,” agreed Ward. “Um, well, quick trip to Uluru? –Ayer’s Rock, to you. Fly them direct? Tricky: different state government, that’s the Northern Territory. Or back to Adelaide—another two planes—fart around for hours waiting for a connection, fly up from there. Or, having booked two years in advance, load them onto the Ghan—the poncy tourist train. And believe you me, even if we had five hundred of the buggers wanting to book for the bloody thing we’d have to wait two years, because the morons that run it won’t put on extra services while they’re making a profit the way they are! They’re all right, mate, it’s the Australian syndrome!” he finished loudly, panting rather.

    “Mm. Well, possibly the whole idea of Outback holidays and/or honeymoons appealing to the unsuspecting Japanese or Chinese is just another myth dreamed up by over-optimistic Australian fly-by-night promoters who’ve never heard of solid market research,” said Hugo coolly. “Get some definite figures, would you, Ward?”

    Ward nodded silently. He came and sat down in a large armchair next to Hugo’s sofa and opened his Filofax.

    “I’d suggest, also get something definite on which way the current South Australian government is liable to jump over such things as private airports for streams of flights involving commercial enterprises,” added Martin. “We might as well know what the system is we’re bucking, before we start bucking it.”

    “They’re all the same, Liberal or Labor,” said Ward heavily, nevertheless making a note. “Spend half the time going hat-in-hand to the federal government for handouts and the rest of the time spouting hot air about purely imaginary business opportunities the state can offer while drawing in their frightened little conservative toes at any real suggestions. –Small C.”

    “And with that collection of mixed metaphors,” said Martin with a laugh, “let’s have coffee!”

    There had been a knock at the door and Brian had gone to answer it while Ward was speaking. He came over to them with a tray, looking apologetic.

    “Bugger me: that is Vegemite!” gasped Ward.

    Brian set the tray down on the coffee table. “I’m sorry, sir.”

    “That’s quite all right, Brian. Pull up a chair,” said Hugo kindly.

    Brian pulled up a chair, and poured very pale brown coffee for them all.

    Ward actually managed a piece of toast. Possibly the Vitamin B in the Vegemite would do him good. Or at least prevent actual death before lunchtime. “There are beaches. Not too close, but there. Actually they’d probably like being carted off to the sea in shiny four-wheel-drives. –Jap four-wheel-drives,” he noted dreamily. “Not a facility in sight for five hundred K in any direction, though.” He poured himself more pale brown coffee. “We’d have to build them ourselves.”

    “Mm,” agreed Hugo. “Council regulations? State regulations? Federal regulations? Aboriginal sacred sites?”

    “Help,” said Brian.

    “Make a note, would you, laddie?” said Ward heavily. “‘Mem: Abo s. sites can put up cost of unwanted coastline even in SA.” He drained his coffee. “If that’s it, I’ll crawl back into—”

    “No,” said Hugo with an odd look on his face. “There is something else. The reason I asked you to stir your stumps on a rest day is that I’ve decided not to accompany the group to the next port of call, but to have a short holiday.”

    Martin’s jaw sagged.

    “Here?” croaked Ward.

    “Certainly. It seems very peaceful,” said Hugo tranquilly.

    “Yeah,” croaked Ward, avoiding Martin’s eye. He was bloody sure old Martin was thinking what he was thinking.

    With difficulty Martin refrained from catching Ward’s eye. It was damned obvious what Ward was thinking. He just hoped Hugo hadn’t realised it.

    Hugo got up. “What I’d like you all to do, is carry on later today with the group to the next place. In Western Australia, isn’t it?” he said to Brian.

    “Y— But sir, that entails going back to Adelaide!” he gasped.

    “On New Year’s Day?” croaked Ward.

    “Get as far as you can,” said Hugo.

    “Er—Hugo, we are booked to fly out in two days’ time—” began Martin.

    “I don’t think so,” he said dismissively. “We’ve wasted enough time here, I think. Tourism isn’t one of our principal interests, after all. I really don’t think the place could become economically viable, even with a golf course. And unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be enough water to service even nine holes. I’ll meet you in Perth.”

    “Perth? What about Kalgoorlie?” gasped Ward.

    “I’m sure you can handle it between you. Do excuse me, won’t you?” He went through to the ensuite.

    Ward rolled his eyes madly at Martin.

    “Mr Jarrod, does that mean me, too?” quavered Brian.

    Martin got up. “Undoubtedly. Come on, Ward: contingency plans.”

    “Yeah,” said Ward numbly, stumbling to his feet.

    They went into Ward’s room, it was nearer.

    “Jesus Bloody Christ!” said Ward feelingly, opening the little bar fridge.

    “You can pour me one while you’re at it,” agreed Martin.

    “Uh—I’ve drunk all the whisky. Brandy and ginger?”

    “Brandy and brandy, and if you put ice in it I won’t mind.”

    Limply Ward handed his Pommy mate a large brandy on the rocks. He swallowed half of his own at one gulp. “Bloody Hell!” he said deeply.

    Martin sipped, sighed, and sat down limply in the armchair. “Ward, I suppose it is—”

    Ward collapsed heavily on the bed. “What the fuck else can it be? –I use the word advisedly!” he noted savagely.

    “It may only be a short fling,” said Martin cautiously.

    “We can hope: yeah. Or it may be the first indication that he’s fallen out of his tree.”

    “I suppose he’s being discreet enough about it,” he murmured. “Getting rid of us all.”

    “Rats, Martin! What conclusions does he imagine we’re gonna draw? He’s so hot for the little bitch, he can’t think!”

    Martin grimaced. “Yes, you’re right.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Who is she?” said Martin grimly.

    Ward shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Apart from fifteen out of ten? Dunno.”

    “Well, think, Ward! That girl with the long blonde hair that you dragged away to your lair was with her when they arrived and with her when they left. So I’d say it’s on the cards they’re friends at the least, or even relatives. –Or didn’t you exchange actual words?” he said sweetly.

    “Not many. Uh—well, her name’s Ingrid.”

    “Ingrid What?” said Martin without hope.

    “Uh—dunno. Hang on, though, she’s coming over for lunch!” he said brightly.

    “Oh. Well, okay, we’ll discover some hold-up that’ll definitely mean we can’t leave until you and Ingrid have had lunch and you’ve got the facts about this conniving little b—” He broke off: the phone was ringing. As Ward was goggling at it like a mesmerised rabbit he was then forced to shout: “Don’t just LOOK at it! ANSWER it!”

    “Uh—right.” Ward picked up the receiver. “Yeah?” he said cautiously. He listened for a while. Finally he said limply: “Got that. Thanks, Brian.” And rang off.

    “Yes?” said Martin with foreboding.

    “Our Master’s Voice has decreed that we’re to be gone by the time he gets back from his trek.”

    “Huh?”

    Ward scratched the hair. “There was some talk of a trek, in the dim, distant past before F.O.O.T. –Falling Out Of Tree,” he explained.

    “Oh,” said Martin, gulping slightly. “Was there?”

    “Yeah. With Wendy the intrepid horsewoman.”

    “Oh, so there was. So when is the bloody thing scheduled for, Ward?”

    “According to Brian, start late this a.m., picnic lunch, and return just before what youse Poms call dinner.”

    “Good, that’ll just give you time to have lunch with Ingrid,” he said, getting up.

    “Where are you off to?”

    “I’m going to pack. And then I’m going to take two Mogadon and lie down!” said Martin, rather loudly. He went out, shutting the door rather loudly.

    Ward looked limply at his glass. “Bloody Hell,” he said conversationally to the melting ice-blocks in it.

    About half an hour later there was a cautious tap at his door. Ward was now sitting on the bed with his feet up. He’d decided that if Ingrid was coming over he didn’t want to get pissed out of his mind before lunch, so he’d merely added a drop more brandy and a lot of ginger ale to his glass. He hadn’t been thinking, really: he felt too numb to think. He had allowed his mind to dwell on Ingrid for a bit but hadn’t been able to work up the slightest indication of a stiffie, so that showed you.

    The cautious tap was repeated before he could even draw breath to bellow come in. “COME IN!” he bellowed.

    Doug Forbes, his PA, came in looking anxious. And very green. “Have you heard?”

    “Yeah. And shut that fucking door.”

    Doug shut the door.

    “Sit. You’d better have a pick-me-up,” said Ward.

    “No,” he said, wincing.

    “Balls, ya look green as grass. I highly recommend tomato juice and vodka. There’s some in the fridge. The tomato juice tastes so bloody awful the morning after the night before that you can’t concentrate on anything else let alone the taste in your mouth that you thought you’d never actually stop tasting before ya drunk it, and the vodka creeps up on you and kicks you into semi-consciousness.”

    Doug smiled greenly. “I can’t, Ward, honest: I’ve already thrown up twice this morning.”

    Ward sighed. “All right. Sit down—no, on second thoughts open the door to the ensuite and sit nice and near it, thanks. –Right. Now speak.”

    “Brian reckons the boss has gone troppo and it’s that girl with the blonde hair and the figure like Marilyn Monroe!”

    “Oh, really? Brian’s into the Marilyn type, is he? Wonders’ll never.”

    “Um—no: his mum likes those films.”

    “His mum?” Ward goggled at him. Doug just looked at him greenly. “Oh, well, go on.”

    “Well, is it true, Ward?”

    “You saw as much as I did, little chum,” he said heavily. “Well, more, probably. Or did you get off with that little Nikki kid, after all?”

    “No. She went off with that ning-nong Hardy Saunders. She kept telling him he looks like Martin Sacks in Blue Heelers.”

    “Who? –Forget it,” he sighed. “In that case you definitely saw more than I did.”

    “Yeah, but Ward, I only saw him go out on the verandah with her!” he wailed.

    “Yeah? And?”

    Doug looked blank.

    “Are you blind?” he snarled.

    “No! I was wearing my contacts!” he said aggrievedly. “What?”

    “The hard-on. –Hugo’s.”

    Doug had turned puce.

    “I know the whole of KRP has never observed this phenomenon heretofore,” said Ward kindly: “but it appears he can, and did.”

    “Um—yeah!” he gasped, still puce. “Um, he is normal, I suppose.”

    Ward refrained. There were some things you did not say to junior staff. Whatever the temptation. “Look, did your sharp young contacts indicate to you that he still had it, when he came back inside?” he said heavily.

    “Um—had what? Oh!”—Puce again.—“Um, I never looked.”

    “You’ll go far in the corporate environment, Doug,” said Ward kindly.

    “Was it relevant?” he said huffily.

    “Too damn right it was relevant when it was Hugo Kent’s, mate! He’s our bread and butter, not to mention jam tomorrow, and don’t you forget it!”

    “Yeah. Sorry, Ward.”

    Ward sighed. “It doesn’t matter, Doug: Martin spotted it.”

    “Um—yeah,” he said foggily. “Um, whadd’ll we do?” he bleated.

    “Do? We’ll go, mate. He’s told us to push off, the whole kit and caboodle: we’ll go!”

    “Yeah.” He cleared his throat.

    “If you’re gonna chunder again, get in—”

    “No! Um—so you don’t know?” he said nervously.

    Ward goggled at him.

    “About Neil!” he gulped.

    “What’s he done now, the little old-school-tied, up-himself, Pommified prick?” groaned Neil’s proud father.

    “Um... You know he went off with that Melodie girl?”

    “Uh—so? I wouldn’t call ’im normal, by any means, but we have known for a long time now he’s hetero. Well, since the school wrote threatening to sack him if they found him getting over the wall to see the local greengrocer’s daughter again.”

    “Uh—yeah. Um—she’s her sister!” he gulped.

    Ward sat up very straight. “That had better mean what I think it means, mate, hangover or not.”

    “She’s Mr Kent’s one’s sister!” he gasped.

    “How many little mates have you imparted that choice morsel to, little mate?” asked Ward grimly, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

    “No-one! Only I think some of them know!” he gasped.

    “Them as can put two and two together,” he muttered. “Yeah. Is she still here?”

    Doug nodded frantically.

    “Then—” Ward paused. “On second thoughts, go and get Neil. NOW! Okay?”

    “Yeah, righto, Ward!” he gasped, scarpering.

    Ward subsided very, very slowly onto the edge of the bed.

    When Neil hurried in, in his dressing-gown, looking nervous, he gave him a sour look. “You not up, yet?”

    “It was supposed to be a rest day, Dad!” he whinged.

    “Yeah. Well, it isn’t. Doug told you to pack, yet?”

    He nodded glumly.

    “Yeah. Sit.”

    Neil sat, looking nervous. “Look, everyone does it, Dad!” he whinged.

    “What? For Christ’s sake, you nana, l don’t care how many little bints you get up at flaming New Year’s Eve hooleys! –Provided you use a condom: I trust you did?”

    Christ almighty, he went puce! And he’d only known Ward all his life. What it was, see, it was the bloody age difference. Generation gap, didn’t they call it? That and the one between the ears, right.

    “Yes, of course,” he said, pouting. Looked about two years old.

    Ward sighed heavily. “Good. Now, Doug’s got some story that this Melodie you’re shacked up with is the sister of the blonde bit the boss has got his eye on. Is she?”

    “Um—well, I don’t actually know, Dad. I mean, that’s what Doug said to me, too!” he said quickly. “And Melodie did say her sisters were there, last night!”

    “And?”

    “Um—well, I wasn’t actually listening, to tell you the truth, because—um—”

    “Because you had one thing on your mind, yeah. Well, for Pete’s sake get back to your room and send her home before Kent claps eyes on her, we’re in enough shit already without that!”

    Neil hurried over to the door, looking humbly grateful.

    “Wait on.”

    He waited.

    “Can you remember any of their names? –Melodie’s sisters!” he said to the blank look.

    “Oh. Well, no, not actually: they all had those Australian n— Sorry, Dad! Um—actually I think one was Ingrid, that’s right.”

    “Get out of here,” said Ward, wincing.

    He got.

    “Jesus!” said Ward. He stared unseeingly before him for some time. Then he got up, moving very slowly, and went downstairs.

    There was no-one in the front hall. He hesitated, and then went outside. It’d be about thirty, thirty-one, and warming up nicely. Beautiful day. Nothing in sight but the hard blue of the sky and the red-brown SA dust. There was no sign of life on the wide front verandah. Ward walked slowly along it to the corner of the house. He turned the corner. Old Pete Dawkins was squatting on the side verandah near the dining-room’s French windows. A blue curl of smoke drifted up from his right hand in the clear air. From inside came the sound of someone hoovering.

    Ward walked slowly along the side verandah. It was cool: stone, of course, they knew how to build in the old days, that was for sure. “The Surgeon General has warned you that smoking is bad for your health,” he said mildly.

    Pete Dawkins expelled smoke through his nostrils. “Nah, that’s in the States. Here it only kills ya. –Want one? Only got the makings: given it up, ya see.”

    “Thanks. I’ve given it up, too,” explained Ward. He rolled himself a fag, inhaled, exhaled slowly, and sighed deeply.

    “It’s the fizz. Curdles your innards. A man should stick to beer,” said Pete mildly.

    “Yeah.”

    They smoked companionably.

    “Hear you’re moving on,” said Pete.

    “Something like that.”

    Pete looked dreamily in front of him.

    “Bugger it,” said Ward, sitting down on the verandah step beside him. “Listen: for God’s sake tell me all those girls you brought up to the balcony last night weren’t sisters.”

    “I’ll tell you, if you like, mate, but it won’t do you any good.”

    Ward winced.

    “That little Nikki with the short dark hair that looks like someone got at it with the raddle when she wasn’t looking, she’s not a sister. The rest of them are.”

    Wincing, Ward said: “Melodie, Ingrid, and—what was the tall one’s name?”

    “Sloane.“

    “Right.”

    Pete Dawkins sniffed slightly.

    “Have a heart, Pete! Put a man out of his misery, would you?”

    “Wondering how much I should tell you, ya see,” he said with a sidelong smile. “Um—well, have I got it right: your boss is staying on? The Top Panjandrum? The Great I Am?”

    “Hugo Kent,” said Ward heavily.

    “Yeah. Is ’e?”

    “Yes. By himself. That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.”

    “Mm. In that case, the other sister, the one you types didn’t get to meet, is the dreaded Kitten herself.”

    “Kitten?” said Ward with a sinking feeling in his middle.

    “Tell me ya didn’t notice her and I’ll eat these here boots, and the verandah floor along with ’em.” Pete stuck his fag in his mouth. His hands described curves in the hair. “Shortish. Short curls, very blonde. Ve-ry pale pink.”

    “Fifteen out of ten?” croaked Ward.

    “You goddit. The Kitten herself. Um—between Sloane and the twins.”

    “Twins?” said Ward feebly.

    “Melodie and Ingrid. Fraternal, not identical. Ingrid’s very like her mum and Melodie’s definitely Dick Manning’s daughter.”

    “Twins,” said Ward, taking a deep breath and passing his hand over his face. “Yes, well.”

    Pete blew out a last cloud of smoke. He chucked the fag-end in the dust that might once have been a side lawn, and looked at it thoughtfully.

    Ward cleared his throat. “Dare I ask what’s known of this Kitten?”

    “They all live in Sydney. Come out here for their summer holidays, most years.”

    “Not that! Uh, sorry.”

    Pete was apparently unmoved. “’Bout three years back she had Cal Wainwright dancing on a string.”

    “Your boss?” croaked Ward. “The man who runs Muwullupirri?”

    “Yeah. Well, ’is old man’s still above ground, but—yeah, Cal runs the place. He wanted to marry her. Kitten told the poor bugger—I had this off Melodie, so it’s fairly close to the horse’s mouth—Kitten told the poor bugger that though she fancied him, the bottom had fallen out of the SA rural economy, so it was No, ta.”

    “Eh?” he gasped.

    “You may well gasp ‘Eh?’” said Pete Dawkins placidly. He rose, descended the shallow verandah steps slowly, and put his boot on the still smouldering fag-end. Then he returned placidly to his former position.

    “God,” said Ward numbly.

    “Yep. It isn’t so much that she can pick and choose—though she can, of course, probably have any bloke she decided she wanted,” he said, kindly not looking at him. “It’s more that none of the ones she’s met so far have come up to the idea she’s got in that blonde noddle of hers of what Mr Right should be.”

    Ward swallowed. His throat felt as if it was full of that red-brown South Australian dust. “And what’s that?” he croaked.

    “No idea.” Pete began very slowly to roll himself another. “I limit meself to one of these a day, these days,” he explained.

    “Yeah.” Ward stared numbly at the dust.

    “You ready to bet,” said Pete Dawkins, scientifically applying the tip of his tongue to the cigarette-paper, “that it isn’t your boss?”

    “No,” he gulped.

    Pete put the thinner end of the misshapen thing he’d rolled into his mouth. He struck a match on his boot and lit the thicker and untidier end. He drew. Slowly he expelled smoke, looking thoughtfully at the glowing tip and the burning shreds still clinging to it.

    “He is married, ya know,” croaked Ward.

    “Shouldn’t think that’ll stop the Kitten. Do you reckon it’ll stop him?”

    “No,” croaked Ward. He threw the butt of his fag into the dust.

    Pete shook his cigarette slightly so that the burning shreds drifted slowly to the ground in the still air. “Better stamp on that,” he said, nodding at Ward’s fag-end. “Could start a bushfire.”

    Limply Ward got up, went down the steps and stepped on his fag-end.

    “If I thought for a single, solitary split second that Kitten’d look at me, I’d heroically offer to save ’im from ’is fate,” noted Pete Dawkins.

    Ward drew a deep breath, restrained himself with a dreadful effort, and stomped off round the corner of the house.

    Pete drew slowly on his fag, gazing dreamily into space.

    “There you are! You’re late!” said Wendy crossly.

    “Sorry,” replied Kitten meekly. “I had to wait for Ingrid to give me a lift. –Hi, Pete. Hi, Hugo.”

    “Gidday, Kitten,” said Pete neutrally.

    “Good morning,” said Hugo huskily.

    Kitten smiled sunnily at the small group assembled before the low stone stable block of Lallapinda. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” she said to the group in general.

    “Look, how well can you ride?” asked Wendy briskly.

    Pete Dawkins coughed slightly and watched the Kitten out of the corner of his eye.

    “Not all that well,” she said soulfully, looking in awe at the great big horsies.

    “She’d better have the pony,” decided Wendy. “–PETE!”

    Pete Dawkins jumped a foot. “Eh?” he said weakly. “Aw: righto, then, Wendy. The pony it is.” –Kitten Manning, to his certain knowledge, had been on and off her grandfather’s horses since she was two years old. Well, true, she’d been about nine when the old boy had lost the place, but between the ages of two and nine there was nothing on the property—or over at Muwullupirri, come to that—that she hadn't been on: even sat on old Mr Wainwright’s seventeen-hands Phantom, one ’orrible day. The old boy had just about had a stroke, but the Kitten had been unmoved. In every sense of the word. Sit on anything, that kid. No style, of course, but so what?

    He adjusted the stirrups on the dapple-grey pony that normally nobody over the age of twelve deigned to ride. Luckily the Kitten was pretty short.

    “Ask the man to give you a leg-up, honey,” said motherly Mrs Armbruster from the good ole USA from poor old Laddie’s back. All fifteen stone of ’er. Laddie in his time had been known to cart two hefty jackaroos, one of ’em with a broken leg, halfway across Lallapinda, and require nothing but a brief rub-down, a bucket of water and a handful of oats with his hay at the end of it. So fifteen stone was nothing to him. But all the same! Poor old boy, what a fate, in his old age.

    Before the Kitten had had time to give Pete more than a pathetic look out of those great blue peepers of hers, the Top Panjandrum in person had leapt, yes, leapt, off Blackie—he reckoned he could ride, well, wait and see—and rushed over to give her a leg-up.

    Kitten’s eyes shone: she pinkened and smiled up at him. “You look great in that gear!” she said with a nervous little laugh, licking her lips.

    Hugo had more or less admitted to himself that he’d dressed to impress her. He did have some ordinary riding kit with him; at least, he had the breeches he wore if he got out around the place in Scotland on horseback. But he wasn’t wearing those unremarkable fawn breeches: he was wearing a very tight pair of navy stretch corduroy breeches that he’d bought in Los Angeles in a mad moment and never before had the guts to wear. He was aware that his legs weren’t a bad shape and that the sleek stretch fabric flattered them. He was unaware that Pete Dawkins and Wendy Goodridge had both looked sideways at the English riding boots that he was wearing with the breeches as a matter of course. He hadn’t even considered a jacket: he’d found a loose white silk shirt which he hadn’t realised was in his baggage and that he normally wore to lounge around the place in the West Indies. He was also wearing the broad-brimmed Australian felt hat which to Brian’s unexpressed but evident dismay he had insisted on buying the second day they were in the country. Fortunately Lallapinda’s front desk had a selection of these hats for sale: after one nasty dose of sunburn on his first day out here, Brian had learned his lesson and bought one.

    Kitten was in jeans: very tight indeed, as Pete Dawkins, to name only one, had already registered. At the moment the equipment was well displayed in what might have been classed as a white singlet if you were blind or unnatural. With a little pink brooch on it, more or less sitting between ’em. Yeah. Slung round her neck on a pale pink cord was a broad-brimmed sunhat in a lightweight cream straw. She was carrying a pale blue cotton long-sleeved shirt.

    “I’d better put this on,” she said, smiling up at Hugo. “I don’t want to get burnt.”

    To the surprise of none of the males present and very probably none of the females—except possibly Wendy, who merely looked impatient—Mr Hugo Kent eagerly assisted Kitten into her loose shirt. Then he eagerly assisted her onto the pony.

    “I’ll do that,” said Pete as the Top Panjandrum bent to adjust the pony’s stirrups fractionally.

    “I’m quite competent,” murmured Hugo with a smile, stepping back to let him.

    “Yeah.” Pete adjusted the stirrups. “You’ll be all right like that, will ya, Kitten? Or do ya want me to put the leading-rein on?”

    Not a blink: you had to admire ’er. “Cool as a cucumber” always had been that kid’s middle name. “No, thanks, Pete: I’ll keep close to Hugo.”

    The Top Panjandrum swung himself up into the saddle again. “Yes, I’ll keep an eye on her,” he said airily, adjusting his sunglasses so as not to have to meet Pete’s eye. “How much riding have you done?” he asked her.

    Pete got up on Jack Frost but that didn’t stop his ears from functioning. She didn’t actually tell a lie: neat, that. For them as could manage it. “I can sit on, all right; I’m just not very good at jumping things.” Dead serious, ya know? Big wide eyes.

    Naturally the Top Panjandrum gives a silly laugh and says: “Then we’ll have to see you don’t jump anything, won’t we?” Fatherly, it was not. Verging on a cross between your avuncular godfather and your downright sugar daddy, was more like what it was. She gave that breathy little gasping giggle that was one of her specialties and put her shades on. Just as well: if he copped one more of those wide-eyed innocent looks from them big baby-blues, Pete was gonna puke.

    Pete jabbed at the blameless Jack Frost’s mouth and hauled him round to make sure that Mrs Armbruster was securely wedged on, knew where her feet were and knew that Laddie, if left alone, knew what to do. Not to make sure that she wasn’t sawing at the poor old boy’s mouth, though: that was too much to hope for. Pop Armbruster was similar but at least he was half her weight, so Silent Shadow would have an easy ride.

    Wendy’s so-called treks went along a sort of meandering track that the horses could see but the tourists bloody well couldn’t, across eight miles or so of nothing very much, and fetched up at the creek in time for lunch, more or less, depending on how many Armbrusters had had to be divested of padded windcheaters and baseball caps, or contrariwise, forced into long-sleeved shirts, long trousers and sunhats before they started.

    When they fetched up at the creek Pete mighta sorta been going to help the Kitten off the pony, and he had a sorta feeling that old Pop Armbruster had a sorta wistful look in his eye that indicated he wouldn’t of half minded helping her off, either; and that dim young birk with the black wraparounds and the brand-new Akubra untouched by human hand and that other dim young birk with the telephoto lens welded to his chest and the brand-new wife that he was more or less ignoring had definitely been gunnoo: only first they hadda figure out how to get off their own mounts; only Hugo Kent beat the lot of them to it. –He could ride, bugger it. English-fashion, mind you. But there was no hope of him falling off.

    Resignedly Pete went to help Mrs A. unweld herself from Laddie’s saddle, not to mention stop Pop and a couple of Japs from getting off their horses on the wrong side: oh, yeah. Too right. Good, it was. Most of the Australian tourists actually managed not to disgrace themselves and the country in front of the foreigners but as this was about the fourteenth trek he’d helped the girls out with, Pete by this time was past caring. The most you could hope for was to get ’em there and back in one piece. Most of them loathed every minute of it, but when they got back home they’d flash the snaps—and in some cases the dinkum shaky videos taken from the horse’s back before Pete Dawkins could tell ’em quietly that that was the surest way known to Technological Man of coming an almighty cropper—and tell all their fast-vanishing friends and relations what a dinkum Aussie experience it had been.

    Wendy began to build the regulation fire. There was no need to: Technological Man had invented the thermos; but the tourists, according to the Lallapinda Management Corp, liked dinkum billy tea. Actually no still-breathing being under God’s good sky liked dinkum billy tea: what they meant was, they expected it. So they got it. Serve them right.

    On more extended treks like the one Venita was planning to take a party of the more adventurous, or cretinous, on tomorrow, they’d make your actual damper. And sleep under the stars. One night only, the Lallapinda Management Corp had presumably figured on its little technological pocket calculators that not even the Yanks could work up a convincing lawsuit for a crook back after only one night under the stars. Pete hadn’t volunteered for the two-day jobs. Spineless: right. One of the students they hired to help out with the waiting had been told he could go: the one that could ride. He’d been thrilled: apparently that was what he had come to the Outback for. Whether he’d last out a summer season of eager Yanks in strange leisure wear, dim Asians devoid of English, not to say, horse sense, in every sense of the word, and brain-dead townees that thought anyone could ride a horse, was another matter.

    At one stage Nev Bailey had had a real bright idea: thought he’d give the treks your genuine ethnic touch. He’d bumped into Ted Perkins, one of old Wes and Mary Perkins’s kids, home for the school holidays from his teaching job, and suggested he might like to go along. Ted at the time was boozing with Kym Manning and his mate Andy, there being very little else, in fact when you came right down to it, nothing else to do in the bustling metropolis of Nearby Bay on a Sat’dee arvo, except, if you were Ted’s colour and didn’t have Ted’s brains and gumption, a bit of petrol sniffing down on the waste ground by the bridge. He had reportedly passed the mysterious remark, though it had not been Nev Bailey who had reported it to Pete: “No, thanks, Nev, my name’s not Ernie Dingo.” Kym and Andy had collapsed in sniggers and Nev had retired discomforted.

    “Mrs Armbruster, don’t sit there!” gasped Kitten.

    Pete Dawkins swung round just in time to see Mrs A.’s huge, brightly-coloured rump not being lowered to the patch of cool-looking long grass under an almost-shady gum tree and the Kitten competently grabbing up a long, thin branch and prodding the grass with it. A nice brown snake slid out of the clump, Mrs A. let out a shriek to raise the dead and before anyone could blink the Kitten had pinned the bugger down just behind the jaw with the bent end of her stick.

    “Shoot it!” gasped Wendy, white as a sheet and looking as if she was going to chunder.

    Pete came up cautiously to Kitten’s elbow. “Stand back, you lot. –Pop, stop that fucking JAP!” he said, quite loudly.

    Hugo Kent grabbed the Jap that was about to commit snake hari-kari before Pop could move. “I’ve got a knife if you need it, Pete.”

    “No, shoot it!” gasped Wendy.

    There was nothing for it: that snake was gonna have to die the death, or none of these cretins would ever have any faith in your dinkum Aussie anything ever again. Pete swallowed a sigh and drew his knife.

    “Be careful,” said the Kitten mildly.

    “Yeah. Hold the bugger down hard, Kitten.” He put his boot just behind the end of the stick and cut the poor bloody thing’s head off.

    Mrs A. went into hysterics, Wendy burst into loud tears and the palest yellow little female Jap let out a screech of eldritch laughter, clapped her hand over her mouth, and then threw up. Fortunately not on anybody.

    “They like to find a patch of long grass on a hot day,” said Kitten calmly, once the noise had died down a bit.

    Hugo Kent had spent this period calming Pop, getting Mrs A. to sit down on a snakeless patch of plain dirt, and addressing a pithy remark to the male Jap who was with the palest yellow little female. Pete didn’t have a clue what, it was in your genuine Nippon lingo, but it had the desired effect, because he went about the colour of a boiled beetroot—which Pete hadn’t known they could—and got the poor little creature sat down and having a drink of water out of her spring-water bottle. Kent came and put an arm round the Kitten and said: “Well done, Kitten.”

    “Yeah,” said Pete with a sigh, hugging the sobbing Wendy. “Ya done good, Kitten. –More than can be said of some. Come on, Wend’, buck up, it’s all over.”

    “She’s a townee, is she?” said Kent with a smile in his voice.

    “They all are, mate.”

    “Mm. We’ll look after her, Pete. Get the billy boiled, for God’s sake, and get a hot drink into them all. Got any brandy?”

    Pete grimaced. “Never thought I’d need it on these lunch-trek does, tell ya the truth.”

    “I have,” the bloke said, calm as you please. Sure enough: flask in the saddle-bag.

    “Uh—give Mrs A. a nip, she looks all shook-up,” said Pete limply. “Then we’ll put a slug in the tea. –Come on, Wendy, you go and sit down, Kitten’ll look after ya,”

    “Come and sit down here, Wendy. It’s nice and clear, there aren’t any snakes.”

    Kitten and the Top Panjandrum between them got the lot of them more or less calmed down, Mrs A. to the point where she actually stopped sobbing and told the Kitten what a brave girl she was and how Laura and Meyer back home were never going to believe— So that was all right.

    And after Mr Hugo Kent in person had put his arm round Wendy and told her no-one liked snakes and to have just a sip of this, she perked up and blew her nose and said she was sorry, and she’d better get on with it. And there was a tarp in the saddle-bag that they could sling up for some shade. Before Pete could move, or yell at the useless type in the Akubra to stir his stumps, Kent was helping her sling it up.

    Pete came and squatted beside the Kitten. “Okey-doke?”

    “Yes. But I think I might get a gun. They make sense out here.”

    “Uh—yeah. Right. Can’t be too careful,” he said limply.

    She looked thoughtfully at the fire. “If you were a real Bush Tucker Man—”

    “Just don’t!” he said, shaking slightly. “Or the little yellow lady’ll be chucking up again.”

    “I don’t think she speaks that much English,” she said detachedly,

    “Uh—ya could be right. But refrain, okay?”

    Kent came back and sat down at her other side. “I do know an excellent bush recipe, but it’s for Mallee fowl.”

    Pete eyed him cautiously. He was pretty sure it’d be the one he knew himself.

    Pop A. had really perked up: that stuff in Kent’s flask was the dinkum oil. More than V.S.O.P. “Say, now! That sounds real interesting! They’re those birds that build the mounds, huh? Sure, I read about them! They make good eating, huh, Hugo? So what’s this bush recipe?”

    Not batting an eyelid at being called by his first name by old Pop Armbruster, Kent replied: “You boil up a big pot of water and put the Mallee fowl in it with an axe head.” –Pete bit his lip.

    “An axe head? Now, say, that’s real interesting! Would it be the effect of the minerals, I wonder? The iron, maybe?”

    Smoothly Kent continued: “You boil it for at least eight hours—tough birds, Mallee fowl. Then you throw away the water”— Pop was nodding seriously—“and the Mallee fowl, and eat the axe head.”

    Everyone who spoke English let out startled howls of laughter. Half of it—well, more than half—was down to the sudden release of tension, of course. Probably why he told it. No flies on the Top Panjandrum, it seemed. Added to which he was apparently as cool a customer as the Kitten herself. Pete got up and made the dinkum billy tea, meditating on this and other, associated points.

Next chapter:

https://thelallapindarevenge.blogspot.com/2022/11/brave-new-year.html