Galahs, Silly And Otherwise

8

Galahs, Silly And Otherwise

    Lalla went cautiously into the kitchen but the sulky little teenager wasn’t there. So she investigated the breakfast room. Candida was sitting there at the table—which was unlaid—looking grim.

    “Hullo,” said Lalla idiotically.

    Candida gave her a filthy look.

    “Um, we could have breakfast on the patio, if you like,” said Lalla feebly.

    “Daddy never eats outside, he hates eating outdoors,” she retorted scornfully.

    “Oh. It’s a lovely morning,” Lalla pointed out feebly.

    Indeed it was: outside the long glass sliding doors which led to the patio the fancy white wrought-iron patio furniture sparkled under a clear blue sky and the pots of petunias, which were a feature of the patio—and which Norm, the security man, had revealed to the interested Lalla were replanted several times every summer with new plants in full bloom—made a bright show. Bright pink and bright purple, to be accurate, neither of which was a colour of which Lalla was particularly fond—but then, petunias didn’t come in all that many colours, did they?

    Candida snorted.

    Lalla gave up. “Well, me and Peter are gonna have ours out there. I’ll make enough toast for you, too.”

    Glumly she went back to the kitchen. That had gone over like a lead balloon. Well, hardly surprising in the circumstances, poor little creep. And besides, she, Lalla, never knew what to say to teenage kids. Their interests and their attitudes were entirely foreign to her; in fact she couldn’t remember ever having been madly interested in pop music, pop stars, or with-it clothes, let alone in vigorous shopping for the latter. Coralie’s daughter Bernice didn’t seem to mind whether she shopped in town, at her local shopping centre, or at Lalla’s and Jean’s local shopping centre—or even at Mrs Holcroft’s local shopping centre, which catered largely to the up-market but conservative tastes of all the grandparents who lived in the conservative retirement suburb. And Candida’s clothes were even more horribly with-it and teenagey than Bernice’s… And given that she, Lalla, was incapable of anything that could have been described as managing Bernice, or even dealing with her, when forced to be in her company, but just let her boss her around… Lalla stared glumly at the smoke arising from the flash pop-up toaster, realizing far too late that as usual when she used the thing the bread had jammed and— Blow. She switched the thing off at the wall, and into the bargain unplugged it.—Matt had once had a screaming fit at the sight of her approaching a knife to the maw of her pop-up toaster, and even a person so unfocussed and generally impractical as Lalla Holcroft found it difficult to forget the spectacle of a stark-naked, middle-aged gentleman having a screaming fit in the middle of a kitchen. Stark-naked except for a pair of pink fluffy heelless slippers of Lalla’s. (Coralie—her previous birthday.)—The toast was ruined, of course. Resignedly she put some more bread in the thing and pressed down its switch, trying to concentrate on it instead of letting her mind wander off…

    “The reason,” said a posh Pommy male voice with a laugh in it behind her, “that that toaster isn’t smoking is that you haven’t plugged it in at the wall, darling.”

    Lalla came to with a jump. “Oh—nor I have.” She plugged it in again.

    Peter came to lean on the bench at her side. Lalla looked at him glumly. Since she was in his white terry-cloth robe, he was wearing his own dressing-gown—one of them, he had several, he was the most extravagant person Lalla had ever met, including Bernice. It was a nice dressing-gown, being a plain, light-weight navy silk, but that didn’t mean his daughter would welcome the sight of him in it. Especially with her not dressed, either.

    “Maybe I ought to get dressed,” she said glumly.

    “Pooh,” replied Peter lightly. After a moment he added: “Where is she?”

    “In the breakfast room, sulking,” replied Lalla literally, not thinking.

    “I see. Where’s the fruit?”

    “She keeps it in the fridge,” Lalla explained. Being as unused as he to the Australian climate, she, too, found this habit of Merle’s very odd.

    Raising his eyebrows only very slightly, Peter went to forage in the enormous refrigerator.

    “If you want grapefruit, there’s a special little knife that Donna uses,” ventured Lalla.

    “What? Oh—yes. A grapefruit knife: of course,” said Peter with a strange little smile. “No, I think we might as well use up this tropical fruit.” He put some on a plate and began to slice it. “Hang on: that toast’s sending up smoke signals!” He made a dash for it.

    “Sorry,” said Lalla glumly as he inspected the singed and bent result.

    “Oh, don’t be, this is a visible improvement!” he said with a laugh, eyeing the blackened remains of the earlier effort that lay in one half of the giant double sink.

    “Yeah. Do you want to turn the thingy on and grind them up?” said Lalla listlessly.

    “Certainly!” Grinning, Peter operated the waste disposal, first thoughtfully rescuing a bread and butter knife from the sink. “Coffee?” he suggested brightly.

    “If you want it to be decent, you’d better make it,” said Lalla glumly.

    “I definitely want it to be decent!” he replied, laughing.

    Why on earth was he in such a good mood? Lalla put some more bread in the toaster. After a moment she said glumly: “I’d better go.”

    “Mm? No, darling, you’re fine in that robe! Very cuddly,” he said with a smile.

    “No. I mean, go. It isn’t fair on her. Because I’m not really—you know!” she hissed.

    “No,” he replied in a blank voice.

    “Not really your fiancée!” hissed Lalla, one eye on the kitchen doorway.

    “Mm? Rubbish, of course you don’t have to go,” he said, frowning. “I’ll speak to her.”

    Lalla looked at him gloomily. It was quite on the cards that he wouldn’t, because Candida was obviously in such a bad mood still that she’d undoubtedly say something very rude and that’d get him annoyed again… Oh, dear.

    “You’re making it worse, you idiot,” she said dully. “She’ll be all right once she knows there’s nothing in it. She’ll probably go back to her school and everything. She’s probably got lots of friends there,” she offered without hope. “Girls like that always do.” The toast popped up and she rescued it mechanically, putting more bread in.

    Peter looked at her with his face a perfect blank. “Girls like what?”

    Help! thought Lalla. “Um, well… girls that have trendy hairdoes and, um, those teenage clothes and, um… you know.”

    “Good gracious,” he said in a silly voice, “are you telling me you were never a mindless conformist in your teens, darling?”

    “Don’t be silly,” said Lalla, biting her lip. “Um, well, no, I wasn’t. I don’t think it was particularly meritorious: I just wasn’t interested in all that stuff.” She began to spread marg on the toast.

    “What were you interested in?”

    “Um, books, mainly. –Not good books!” she added quickly.

    Peter’s shoulders shook slightly. “Mm-hm.”

    “Some of the girls at school used to read the books that were very In that year. Um, well, um…” Lalla couldn’t think of any. Finally she said dubiously: “Joan Collins?”

    Peter’s shoulders shook again but he managed to keep a straight face. “Jackie Collins, darling, but it’s all one.”

    “Very funny,” said Lalla suspiciously. He didn’t elaborate so she said: “I liked detective stories, and, um, historical romances, mainly. Well, Aunty Jan had a great collection of Georgette Heyers: I read all those. And some Sir Walter Scott of Dad’s—that sort of thing.”

    Peter choked slightly. “That it?”

    “Um—no-o…” The toast popped up and she removed it mechanically, adding more bread. “Well, I read all of Dad’s novels. Um, Nevil Shute, and Jane Austen,”—Peter was past choking, he merely goggled at her with his jaw sagging—“and Emily and Charlotte Bronte, I liked Jane Eyre best, and um, well, lots of one-offs, I can’t remember all of them… Eve-lyn Waugh,” she said carefully. “Dad liked him, he had lots of them.” Peter nodded numbly. “And I tried his Dickens and Dostoevsky, only I couldn’t get through them, so he said not to worry, I’d probably grow into them later, and it was a miracle that I could even read two sentences strung together, given the quality of New Zealand education these d— Um, sorry, it’s his hobby-horse, only not when Mum’s around, of course.” Peter just watched with his jaw sagging as she began to spread Vegemite on the toast. “Then when I got to varsity we did Nicholas Nickleby in English II and I decided I liked Dickens after all. So since then I’ve read a lot of them, only you can’t always find them in the bookshops.”

    “No. Uh—what about the public library?” said Peter feebly.

    “I hate having to finish a book by a certain time,” replied Lalla calmly. “I only borrow detective stories from the library, because I always get through them quickly. –Isn’t that coffee done? It’s hissing.”

    Hastily Peter rescued the coffee-pot.

    “I’ve read lots of other books as well,” said Lalla in a kind voice.

    “Yes,” he croaked. He watched numbly as the last lot of toast popped up and Lalla spread marg and Vegemite on it. “I think that’s probably enough toast, to start with,” he croaked.

    “What? Oh!” Lalla appeared to realize what she’d been doing. “Oh, well, if we don’t get through it the birds’ll probably like it. Um, do you think galahs like toast?”

    “What?” said Peter faintly, picking up his tray of fruit and coffee.

    “Galahs. You must know what they are! Those pink and grey parrots.”

    “No,” he said definitely, heading for the breakfast-room.

    Lalla picked up her plate of toast and followed him. “Pe-ter! Honestly! Are you blind? Canberra’s full of them!”

    Candida was still sitting at the breakfast table looking sulky but as they came in she turned her head with a relieved expression which her father, at least, did not miss. “Full of what?”

    “Galahs. You see them in the trees in the early morning,” explained Lalla, putting her plate of toast on the table and going over to open the sliding doors. She came back to the table and retrieved the plate. “Pink and grey parrots. Haven’t you heard of them either?”

    The bony little cat-like face was now very red. “No,” she said shortly.

    “What about the expression ‘silly galah’?” asked Lalla in a cautious voice.

    Peter choked.

    “NO!” shouted Candida furiously. “And you’re NOT FUNNY!”

    “I wasn’t trying to be funny: it’s an Aussie expression, it’s quite well known. But I suppose only in Australia and New Zealand,” said Lalla calmly, going over to the French doors with her plate of toast. “Come on, Peter.”

    “Come on, Candida,” said Peter to his daughter in exactly the same calm tone, following her.

    “You HYPOCRITE, Daddy!” she shouted, bounding  up.

    Peter put his tray down on the white wrought-iron table and turned without haste. “Why?”

    “You KNOW you hate eating out of doors!” screamed Candida, her face bright red, tears standing in her long grey eyes.

    “Oh. No, only in the miserable English weather, sweetheart,” he said mildly, turning his back on her and busily setting out cups. “Lalla, darling, you forgot the toast plates.”

    “Yeah. I’ll get some,” said Lalla in some relief. She hurried back past the red-faced Candida and headed for the kitchen. Hopefully by the time she got back he’d have managed to make her sit down and eat.

    When she came back with a pile of plates and a handful of unneeded cutlery, Candida was sitting at the patio table eating chunks of pale green melon with a small fork. Earlier Lalla had silently categorised these small forks, the sort that Mum and Aunty Jan used for cakes at afternoon teatime when they were being fancy, as “la-de-la.” Now she was just so relieved at the sight that the phrase didn’t even cross her mind. In fact she felt her knees actually go weak. She tottered over to a white wrought-iron chair and sank onto its bright jade cushion.

    “Coffee, darling?” said Peter nicely.

    “Ta,” croaked Lalla.

    He poured for her, smiling. “Shall we expect to see flocks of these pink and grey parrots, then?”

    “Eh?” said Lalla numbly. “Oh—ta,” as he passed her a cup of coffee. “Oh! The galahs! I asked Ted, and he said they do flock, only at this time of year you’re more likely to see just a few. But you need to get out before it starts to heat up, if you want to see them.”

    “How hot does it get?” demanded Candida in a loud, sulky voice.

    “At this time of year, Ted says it can get up to about forty in the early afternoon but it’s more likely to reach a top of around thirty-five or -six,” replied Lalla tranquilly.

    “Celsius, not Fahrenheit,” said Peter kindly to his daughter. “Comme en France: trente-cinq ou trente-six, t’entends?”

    “Yes!” replied Candida angrily in English.

    “Thirty-eight Celsius,” said Peter on a prim note, “equates to a hundred degrees Fahrenheit.”

    “But—” Candida’s jaw sagged.

    “So I suppose thirty-fiveish ’ud be in the nineties,” concluded Lalla tranquilly. “See that tree over there?” She pointed. Candida glared at it sulkily but said nothing. “I saw some little blue and red parrots in it the other day. Parakeets, I think they would’ve been. Um, Norm called them something else… Rosellas? Um, well, it could have been.”

    “The family Psittacidae, or parrots, is native to Australia but not to New Zealand,” Peter explained kindly to his fifteen-year-old daughter.

    “No,” said Lalla tranquilly. She put down her fruit fork and smiled at Candida. “He’s wrong, see? We’ve got a few native parrots. Keas and kakas, and those waddly ones that are almost extinct, I always forget their name. They’re not pretty like the Australian ones, and you never see them anywhere near the cities, they only live in the remote bush. –Kakapos, that’s it. Fat waddly things.”

    “That’s put us firmly in our North-centric places,” Peter explained, smiling. “Have some delicious toast and Vegemite, Candida?”

    “No,” she said tightly.

    Smiling, Peter helped himself to cold singed toast and Vegemite.

    “The fruit’s nice,” offered Lalla pacifically.

    Candida ignored this remark, scowling, but she did not stop eating fruit hungrily.

    When Davey emerged onto the patio, yawning and blinking, the fruit was all gone and Candida was eating toast and Vegemite in the intervals of telling her father loudly and scornfully about the sins of one, Prudence Cartwright, and one, Honeyfall. Lalla, having worked out belatedly that the latter was a horse, possibly though not definitely the property of the former, had stopped listening and was dreamily watching some very ordinary European sparrows pecking at the toast crusts she’d tossed onto the lawn.

    “I say, am I too late?” bleated Davey, looking at the depleted breakfast table.

    “Yes, and good morning to you, too,” replied his uncle blandly.

    “’Morning,” said Davey with a sheepish grin. “’Morning, Lalla, you look blooming, if an almost-nephew-in-law can say— Er, sorry, Uncle Peter,” he ended lamely. “Has Mrs Whatsit gone, then?”

    “If you mean Mrs Linarello,” replied his uncle in a steely tone—Lalla goggled at him unbelievingly—“no, because today’s Saturday, and she doesn’t come in in the weekends, which I admit I overlooked in the excitement of you two arriving last night. And to address your sub-text, no, there is no breakfast for you.”

    “Don’t be mean, Peter,” said Lalla calmly. “There’s stacks of stuff for breakfast, Davey, just tell me what you’d like and I’ll get you some. And he calls her Mrs Whatsit all the time, too, so you can ignore that entirely.”

    Davey looked uneasily at his uncle but to his astonishment he was grinning broadly. “Oh—ah—jolly good,” he said, much relieved.

    “Get it yourself, you great lump,”  said his uncle without interest.

    “Daddy!” said Candida impatiently.

    “What? Oh—the horse. Make the damned stables an offer, if you want it, God knows your allowance is hefty enough and your mother’s got stabling enough for five dozen spavined hacks.”

    “He’s not!” There was short pause. “Really?”

    He shrugged. “Provided you haven’t spent it all already.”

    “No! There’s nothing to spend it on!” She paused. A cunning expression, which would have alerted a child of two, spread over her little cat-like features. “But if you look on it as an investment, it would be much more sensible to take the money out of my trust fun—”

    “No,” said Peter with finality but without interest.

    “But Daddy—”

    “An elderly gelding that you don’t intend to race is not an investment, Candida.”

    “Not unless you’re planning a cat-food factory,” noted Davey.

    “Keep out of this, Davey Sale!” she screeched.

    When the air had cased tingling, Peter said languidly: “Well?”

    “Um, well—well, yes, Daddy. If you really mean it?”

    “If you can afford the thing—yes. And if your mother will stable it.”

    “I'll make her!” she vowed, scowling. She looked at her watch. “What’s the time there?”

    “England or Jamaica?” drawled her father.

    “England, of course! I’ll make Mrs Fanshaw-Briggs an offer first.”

    “Very wise,” said Peter languidly, consulting his wrist. “The middle of the night.” He met his daughter’s scowl. “The time difference is about ten hours, depending on the Australian time zone one happens to be in. One gathers there are at least three—that right, Lalla?”

    “I don’t know,” said Lalla simply.

    Peter grinned. “There you are, then,” he said to the scowling Candida.

    “Ye— Um, but then it could be about six-thirty in the evening at home!”

    “Only if the world was revolving in the other direction.”

    “Stop it, Peter,” said Lalla crossly. “The man in his office in London, well, he rings him up at night about ten o’clock,” she said to Candida. “When it’s ten o’clock here, I mean. And he’s at work, then, you see.”

    “It’s probably about midnight at home,” said Peter on a resigned note. “And given that Mrs Whatsername with the hyphen has to get up at around five to muck out, I wouldn’t ring her. But that’s just founded on my experience of twenty years of business negotiations.”

    Lalla stared at him. “Have you been in the firm for twenty years?”

    “More or less—twenty-one, I suppose. Started working in my holidays when I was sixteen—it was my father’s idea,” he said, smiling at her. “Kept up the holiday work while I did my degree and then went into the firm full-time.”

    “The Sales are like that, Lalla,” said Davey on a sour note. “Slave-drivers. Well, my grandfather and old Sir Peter damned well were, and by all accounts Dad was just as bad.” He gave Peter a sour look.

    “I think your father might have been happy for you to go into the Army like he did, rather than the family business, if he’d lived,” said Peter mildly.

    “Killed in Northern Ireland,” said Davey sourly to Lalla’s shocked and sympathetic face. “Hardly remember him at all. At least he had the sense to appoint his cousin, Uncle Richard, I used to call him, as my guardian, not my great-grandfather. Only then he popped off—”

    “And appointed this slave-driver as Davey’s guardian,” finished Peter drily. “Yes. Eleven years back, this was, darling,” he explained to Lalla.

    “I see,” she said faintly, doing arithmetic. Peter wouldn’t have been much older than she was now, and Candida would have only been two. So Peter must have been landed with the responsibility for the firm, not just the responsibility for Davey, just at the point when his marriage was starting to go wrong? Ugh. She betted it hadn’t just been a case of him wanting to make love when Monica had just done her face or those other things he’d said, by any means. More like up at crack of dawn for blimming breakfast meetings every day, and staying late at the office every night, and—and never being free to take her to the horsey things she liked!

    “Does your mother go to the races at Ascot?” she suddenly said to Candida.

    The conversation had completely veered away from Candida and her concerns just when it had seemed to be focused on it, and had left her, more or less, open-mouthed and scowling. She jumped. “What? What’s that got to do with anything? Yes, if you must know!”

    Peter had read every thought as they passed over his false fiancée’s very expressive face. “Mm, that was a bone of contention,” he murmured. “Well, it was back then, and it has been every year since.”

    “Would it kill you to take Mummy to something nice once a year?” retorted his daughter angrily.

    “Yes. –Davey, stop boring Lalla with the family history and go and get yourself some breakfast.”

    “Oh! Yes, rather,” said Davey quickly, though not without a wistful look at Lalla.

    She got up. “I’ll give you a hand.”

    “Lalla, you do not have to slave for my damned relatives!” said Peter, rather more loudly than he’d intended.

    “Silly, I’m not slaving; and I know where everything is,” she said, smiling. “Come on, Davey. There’s a giant fridge, and if you can’t find anything, it’ll be in there, because Aussies put everything in the fridge…” Their voices faded away.

    “Even bananas,” said Peter thoughtfully to his daughter.

    “What?”

    “Even bananas. There were two whole hands of them in a vegetable crisper in that fridge.”

    Candida shrugged impatiently. “Don’t do the domestic harmony thing for my benefit, Daddy, it’s entirely unconvincing!”

    “Oh, I’m doing it for my own benefit,” he murmured.

    Candida scowled and fidgeted.

    After a few moments Peter said: “Had enough breakf—”

    “Ssh!” she hissed, leaning forward tensely.

    Peter blinked. “Eh?”

    “Don’t move!” she hissed.

    Cautiously he peered over his shoulder. He smiled. Two fat pink and grey parrots were waddling across the lawn to peck at Lalla’s toast crusts.

    After a long, rapt silence his sulky little teenage daughter breathed: “They are really wild, are they?”

    “Mm.”

    “Gosh!”

    Peter smiled. They watched the galahs in rapt silence.

    There was, it appeared, nothing to do in Canberra on a Saturday. Given that Peter had been planning to spend the day in bed with Lalla, lazing by the giant oblong pool with Lalla, and quite possibly making love to Lalla on the pudgy white monstrosities in the sitting-room, he was at a loss for a suggestion.

    “Um, dip in the pool?” bleated Davey.

    “NO!” shouted Candida.

    Lalla opened her mouth to say she’d get her conference brochures, and shut it quickly again. Yikes.

    “I’ll ring Ted,” sighed Peter. “Given that he did almost no work yesterday—”

    “No!” cried Lalla. “It’s his granddaughter’s birthday! How could you forget?”

    “Very easily,”  he groaned. “Very well, I’ll ring the yuppie.”

    “He’ll be at his tennis club,” warned Lalla.

    Ignoring this, Peter rang the yuppie. He was. And his mum was so glad that he (Peter Sale) and Lalla had liked the Lebanese restaurant! Limply Peter rang off. “I’ll ask Mrs Linarello if she can suggest where we might go. She’ll want me to reassure her how delicious that damned meal was last night, mind you.”

    “I’ll do it,” said Lalla firmly. “You can dial, though.”

    His lips twitched, but he obediently got the number. Mrs Linarello was (apparently) delighted to be reassured by Lalla that they’d all enjoyed the dinner and it was just that Candida wasn’t used to avocados—indignant glare from Candida—and that Candida was very comfortable in the iris room.

    “All the rooms are comfortable, and the yellow one’s even more hideous,” she said to Candida, having hung up.

    “Well?” said Peter heavily.

    “She’s sending Donna over,” said his false fiancée, smiling seraphically at him.

    Peter clutched his head.

    “Stop that, silly,” said Lalla in a voice that lacked conviction.

    “How old is this Donna?” asked Davey cautiously, though with a smile lurking.

    “About eighteen, at a guess,” said Peter heavily.

    His young relative’s wide, fair, and to be completely just, vacuous face split in a wide grin. “Good; she might know of some place to go that won’t be deadly dull!”

    “How many points of interest do you imagine there’ll be in a purpose-built federal capital where nothing is more than sixty years old?” he said heavily.

    Lalla giggled suddenly.

    “Nothing architectural,” said Peter heavily.

    Lalla collapsed in helpless gales of laughter. Her eyes streamed.

    Resignedly Peter handed her his handkerchief. “Well?” he said loudly to Davey.

    Davey was watching Lalla with a smile. “Mm? Oh! No idea. Um, well, kangaroos?”

    “Possibly. Nothing more than that, certainly.”

    Donna arrived about twenty minutes later, panting. They’d heard her toot the horn of Merle’s car loudly as she’d drawn up on the sweep, so the panting must just have been the result of the dash from the front door. “Hi!” she panted. “Mum says ya want the low-down on the tourist traps! Here, I grabbed these from the information centre in town!” She thrust a handful of small, brightly coloured brochures at them. “Take the bus tour, it’s the best. Get off at the botanic gardens, that’s the best thing. Only make sure ya don’t miss the last bus back. The aquarium’s feeble, ya don’t wanna go there. The Sydney’s one much better! I gotta go—sorry!” And with that she dashed out again.

    Dazedly they looked at the brochures… After Peter had determined that there were two tourist bus routes and that the one which stopped quite near to the house did not go to the botanic gardens (or the aquarium), at the far side of the lake, but to the war memorial and the hideously modern new parliament buildings, neither of which anyone expressed a wish to see, he said feebly: “Well, er, picnic at these gardens?”

    “Peter, it’ll be terribly hot out,” said Lalla in a low voice.

    “Thirty-fiveish, mm,” he said, smiling at her. He held out the brochure. “Look, darling! It sounds easy and painless: taxi into the town centre, hop on the tourist bus, then just sit back and let it take us to wherever. Round the lake shore: it’ll be lovely.”

    “I’m not going up that tower thing,” she warned.

    “Oh, don’t you like heights? No, very well. –Yes, I dare say you two can go up it!” he said loudly. He paused, and consulted the brochure again. “Um, if one can: it doesn’t say so, here. And then on to the gardens. They sound really interesting: native plants.”

    “Since when were you interested in native plants?” snarled his daughter.

    “Australia has a fascinating and unique flora. And I dare say there’ll be lots of native birds,” he said, smiling at her.

    Candida turned away, scowling.

    Feebly Lalla pointed out: “Um, they’ll be asleep in the middle of the day, Peter.”

    “Well, never mind, the gardens will be lovely.”

    “Yes. Um, we’d all better slather ourselves in sunscreen,” she said limply.

    So they went.

    Very, very fortunately Lalla wanted to look at the architecture of a long, low, white block near the centre of town which clearly pre-dated most of Canberra: in fact it reminded Peter of nothing so much as colonial New Delhi, with its heavy square white columns and its deep verandahs; and this block featured a chemist’s which sold, amongst a heap of other tourist paraphernalia which Davey had to be dragged off, sunhats. Davey found quite a smart cream straw which Lalla inaccurately characterised as a panama. She herself was already wearing a wide-brimmed, floppy bright pink thing which she couldn’t manage very well, and Peter was in the panama he’d worn at the stud. So after Lalla had urged the merits of a wide-brimmed yellow lady’s one and a wide-brimmed lime green one lady’s one very like hers in style, Candida grimly chose a clone of Davey’s. The hats were most certainly needed: it was hot enough walking the short distance to the bus stop, but out at the botanic gardens at the far end of the tourist bus route it was boiling.

    The gardens were quite well laid out, on a hillside which allowed for lot of winding paths, flights of steps, and so on, but although there were little notices here and there and even a couple of guides, not in charge of groups but wandering around chatting to anyone who seemed interested, they were nothing like anything that those used to Kew might have been expecting; and the native flora was, pretty obviously, like nothing that Peter’s young relatives had ever seen. Candida, with a scowl and a pout, called it ugly, but to the unprejudiced eye it was far from that: washed-out soft greys and a variety of soft greens with grey-green predominating, the scraggy skeletons of branches and the fine-leaved foliage forming a delicate tracery that perhaps could have been rendered with a fine, hard pencil but that was entirely alien to anything the European consciousness instinctively related to. No wonder the colonial artists had failed dismally to catch the character of the country! thought Peter, looking up at it with a tiny smile. He had seen a reasonable amount of the native bush and he fully appreciated the artfulness with which the gardens were laid out: there was quite a lot of variation in the flora with, he had a strong suspicion, far more variety than one would naturally get in any of the drier parts of the country, which this area obviously was. Nevertheless the shade offered could only have been called scant.

    After quite some time of silent struggle, not to mention silent scowling on the part of some, Davey, sweating in his designer jeans and laced fawn suede desert boots, ventured: “I thought they had rainforests in Australia?”

    “Not here, it’s too dry,” said Peter.

    “Yes, and the winters are much too cold. They even get a scattering of snow, sometimes,” said Lalla.

    “Eh?” croaked Davey, undoing his smart denim shirt.

    “Yes. Do your shirt up again, Davey, you’ll get horribly burnt, there’s much more ultraviolet here than you’re used to.”

    “But last summer I—”

    “Yes. Never mind that,” said Peter briskly. “Do it up. And put some more sunscreen on your forearms.”

    “Look, that chap that just went past us—”

    The chap that had just gone past them had been with a wife, a putative ma or ma-in-law, and three kids—the girl in a sunhat and the little boys in cloth caps with flaps over the back of the neck, képi-style. He himself had been wearing a battered cotton hat, with a droopy, though not very wide brim, in what might have once been blue, an open Hawaiian shirt, crumpled baggy khaki shorts, almost knee-length, and blue rubber flip-flops. He had been very tanned.

    “He was a local, Davey; don’t be a fool,” he said tiredly.

    “Yes, and these days he’d be slathered in sunscreen, too, never mind the macho thing,” said Lalla kindly.

    “But I’m boiling,” he whined.

    Lalla delved in the capacious, not to say hideous, fourre-tout she was lugging and produced a bottle of spring water. “Here. You need to carry water in this climate.”

    “What absolute rubbish, the city’s just over there!” snapped Candida.

    “People carry water in the city too,” replied Lalla calmly. “Didn’t you notice that girl on the bus?”

    Candida glared. The girl drinking water on the bus had been perhaps in her late teens and presented a very trendy appearance indeed, what with the pocketed cargo pants, the camouflage tee-shirt, the shabby black bandana on the head, the possibly army-surplus canvas backpack, the dark maroon lipstick and the multiplicity of tiny silver studs and hoops in the ears. Candida had spent more time looking at her than she had at the passing scenery.

    Lalla began: “If you come down with an awful headache tonight—”

    “I’m wearing my bloody hat!” she snapped.

    “Yes, not that. It isn’t just the sunburn you need to watch out for, it’s the dehydration,” replied Lalla seriously.

    Davey lowered his water bottle, gasping. “Does it give you a headache?”

    “It can do, yes; an awful one.”

    “Then we’d better be after you with that water, Davey,” said Peter.

    “No, it’s all right; I’ve brought plenty,” said Lalla placidly, delving in the bag again.

    Peter watched limply as she produced water for everyone. The bottles weren’t very big, about 600 millilitres, perhaps, but— He took the bag off her. “What have you got in here?”

    “Some more water and half a watermelon,” said Lalla meekly. “I thought you could slice it up with your pocket-knife.”

    Candida had glared but accepted her bottle of water; now she lowered it, gasping slightly. “I am not going to sit round eating watermelon like a native!”

    Lalla gave her a puzzled look. “Um, watermelons aren’t native to Australia.”

    “No,” murmured Peter. “Never mind, all the more for us.”

    At this someone gave a gurgle of unkind laughter and Candida, who had turned away with a scornful shrug, swung back angrily. “Who was that?’

    “It wasn’t us,” said Davey on a weak note, looking round for the culprit.

    Lalla’s eyes had lit up. “Ssh!” she hissed, peering round eagerly. “I think it was a kookaburra!”

    Candida opened her mouth scornfully but Peter gripped her arm ungently before she could utter. “Ssh! –Over there,” he breathed.

    Sure enough, sitting on a branch only a couple of feet above their heads and less than a yard back from the path was a stout, heavy-beaked but otherwise unremarkable brownish bird. They all watched it breathlessly, even Candida, but it appeared indifferent to their presence and didn’t utter again. After a short while it flew off into the bushes and was lost to view.

    Lalla drew a deep breath. “I’ve never seen one before.”

    “Was it?” asked Davey dubiously.

    “Yes, of course!” she beamed. “I didn’t realise they were such big birds!”

    “Yuh— Um, not that, I realise it must have been a kookaburra. Um, was it really it, um, laughing like that?” he said with an uneasy glance at his young cousin.

    Lalla nodded ecstatically. “It must have been! Wasn’t it fantastic?”

    “Absolutely,” he said dazedly. “I could have sworn it was a person.”

    “Me, too!”

    “Yes,” agreed Peter, smiling very much. “Well, red-letter day, mm? Galahs and a kookaburra!”

    “I dare say they’re as common as muck,” said Candida disagreeably, striding onwards.

    “I don’t think they are,” said Lalla, her face falling.

    Peter drew a deep breath, transferred the fourre-tout to his other hand, and took her arm firmly. “No. Ignore her, darling: don’t let her ruin the day for you.”

    “I don’t think anything could, after the kookaburra,” said Lalla with a smile, tilting her head to look up at the sketch of a canopy. “Isn’t it lovely? So light and airy! It’s completely different from the New Zealand bush!”

    Peter hugged her arm into his side, smiling.

    If bloody Candida hadn’t managed to ruin the day, however, the acacias very nearly did it. One of Donna’s helpful brochures had a little map on it which indicated there was a whole grove of them, and after some stumbling around they managed to find the right track. The acacias seemed to be at the summit of a fair-sized grassy knoll where there was also a little shelter: much more developed for visitors than the rest of the gardens, and not, in fact, very attractive; but they panted up it in the heat.

    “Phew!” said Davey, collapsing onto the seat in the shelter. “Thank God for a bit of shade, eh? I say, what about that watermelon?’

    “Yes,” said Lalla, mopping her eyes. “I’ll just—achoo! Ooh, sorry. Achoo! Help!” she gulped, her eyes streaming.

    “Darling, there’s a terribly strong scent: it must be the acacias; are you allergic to them?” said Peter.

    Lalla just looked at him blankly over the handkerchief she’d clapped to her nose.

    “Er—mimosa?” he ventured. “There is another name. Um… oh, yes, Australian wattle?”

    “There is a very strong pong,” admitted Davey. He wandered out to investigate. “They’ve been flowering like mad—but the flowers look as if they’ve just about had it.”

    “I’b all righd,” said Lalla soggily, mopping her eyes. “Achoo! Achoo! –Blast.” She blew her nose.

    Peter had a look at the acacia bushes. Davey was right: laden with blossom, the branches drooping almost to the ground with it, but all very tired and frowsty-looking.

    Lalla’s eyes were streaming, her handkerchief was soaked and she was sneezing uncontrollably and starting to gasp for breath, so he grabbed the bag, said: “Come on,” and led her off.

    “I’m all right,” she said weakly, some hundred yards further down the path.

    “Yes; it must just have been the pollen.” He looked around for somewhere to sit but that damned shelter on the knoll had been the only possible spot they’d seen. Hell. He peered at the map.

    Candida came up to them looking sulky. “Can’t we sit down?”

    “I’m just looking for a possible spot,” he said heavily.

    “I’m sick of walking, it’s too hot,” she whined.

    “I realize that, Candida. Just let me look at the map.”

    Davey peered over his shoulder. “Doesn’t give any idea of the terrain, does it? Quite hilly, really.”

    “Mm. Look, I’d think we’d better just go back to the bus stop.”

    “Um, Uncle Peter, could be ages to wait for the next bus,” said Davey uneasily.

    “Yes, but at least there’ll be a minimal amount of shade. Unless you can see a shady spot to sit, on this damned apology for a map?”

   “No,” he admitted.

    No, quite. They went slowly back to the bus stop. Bloody Davey was right, there was ages to wait for the bus. Peter ignored his daughter’s scowls and chopped up Lalla’s half watermelon. It wasn’t a huge one, but a fair size. She’d wedged it into large Tupperware pot, so after a certain amount of manoeuvring he managed to hack chunks off it without getting watermelon all over himself. He, Lalla and Davey all partook but Candida, scowling, ignored them.

    After quite some time a hot-looking party consisting of two middle-aged woman and a little boy came up and sat down at the other end of the shelter. Enviously the little boy pointed out the watermelon, so Lalla, smiling, leaned forward and said: “Would he like some?” After a certain amount of demurring the offer was accepted and soon everyone except Peter’s daughter was eating watermelon, and the two women revealed that Pauline was William’s Granny, and Anne was her friend and neighbour, both from Ipswich: it was their first time in Australia, and Julia’s Tony was an Australian, a civil servant here in Canberra, and though of course Julia had said it would be hot, they hadn’t realised… No, quite.

    Eventually the bus came and they all piled on, Pauline revealing to Peter that all the Australian buses seemed to be air conditioned: it was such a blessing, wasn’t it? Hitherto he would have claimed that an artificial atmosphere was highly undesirable, the more so as the homes and offices all seemed to be air conditioned, too, but now he just humbly agreed with her.

    The city seemed almost deserted, apart from a few hot-looking tourists sitting disconsolately waiting for buses, and no wonder. They found a taxi, thank God—though by now Peter was at the point of deciding that he’d drag Ted away from his bloody granddaughter’s bloody birthday party if he had to, no matter what Lalla said—and were driven home to the accompaniment of pop music interspersed with racing results.

    Candida went straight to her room without arguing or, indeed, speaking.

    “Go,” said Peter to his nephew with a sigh. “And have a cool shower before you pass out.”

    “Right!” he said gratefully, disappearing.

    Peter looked limply at Lalla.

    “Well, it—it used up part of the day,” she said lamely.

    “Mm. And the kookaburra was a big plus.” He looked at his watch. “Er—actually it used up quite a lot of the day. I should have thought about lunch: I’m sorry, darling.”

    “I wasn’t hungry. I could make you a sandwich or something if you like.”

    “Just a glass of water with lime, I think. Um, take it to our room?’

    Lalla looked at his strained face and didn’t warn him that they’d better not do anything with his daughter in the house. “Yes, let’s. You go up: have a shower.”

   Gratefully Peter went upstairs.

    He was fast asleep, stark naked, when she came in with the jug of Perrier and lime on a tray. Quietly Lalla adjusted the curtains, undressed, and lay down beside him.

    Peter came to groggily. She was asleep beside him. God knew what the ti— Four forty-four. About time for the humidity to strike, then. He went over to the window. Sometimes the late afternoon humidity was accompanied by a shower, but not today, apparently. He closed the window, turned the air conditioning on for her, grabbed his dressing-gown and tiptoed out. Investigation revealed Candida zonked out, snoring, amidst her frightful giant irises, and Davey zonked out, snoring, amidst terrifying giant purple-tinged magnolias. True, the yellow room was even worse. Peter retreated silently.

    He was getting himself round some very cold cheese and some of the sliced bread which Lalla had mercifully left on the bench instead of stowing it in the fridge or, worse, the freezer, as Merle did, when the phone rang. Bernie Carpenter. There’d been an accident at QSMME’s Western Australian iron ore mine and since Peter was actually out here— Peter agreed grimly that he'd better get over there, and left it up to Bernie to make the arrangements. Hell! He rang the yuppie’s home number but he was still at tennis; his mother expressed horror at the bad news and promised to contact him and send him over immediately. This probably meant as soon as he’d been home, changed, and been fed, but— Peter thanked her nicely.

    He didn’t like the thought of leaving Lalla to Candida’s tender mercies—the more so, he reflected with a grimace, as she wasn’t really his fiancée at all. But he couldn’t think what the Hell else to do. He went upstairs slowly, frowning.

    “Candida!” He shook her skinny shoulder hard. “Candida! Wake up!”

    She came to slowly, scowling and squinting. “What?”

   “Sit up. I need you to listen to me and be sensible.”

    She sat up and looked at him sulkily.

    “There’s been an accident at one of our mines in Western Australia. I don’t know how bad it is yet: some heavy machinery turned over, it’s an open-cast mine—but several men have been injured: I’ll have to go over there.”

    “Ooh! Can I—”

    “No. Just listen, please. I know your knowledge of geography is almost nil, but Australia is very large and this mine is about two thousand miles away. –Yes!” he said impatiently as she began to object. “Just listen! I’ll only be away for a few days. You can have a bit of break and see the sights. And think about where you want to go to school. If you haven’t a preference it’ll be the local grammar, so kindly take it seriously.”

    “But why can’t I come with you?” she wailed.

    “It’ll be very boring, that’s why. Nothing whatsoever for you to do, and I’ll be tied up talking to the mine manager and the Press. And I’ll have to see the men’s families, too.”

    Candida glared sulkily. “What about her?”

    “Lalla will stay here and keep an eye on you,” he said grimly.

    “NO!” she shouted. “I WON’T!”

    The shouting woke Lalla up. She sat up slowly. Oh, dear: now what? Well. perhaps Candida was only hungry. “Yikes,” she muttered, looking at the time. She went over to the bedroom door and peeped out. Further down the passage she could see Candida’s door was ajar.

    “It’s not FAIR! You never take me ANYWHERE!” shouted the now horribly familiar high English voice.

    Peter’s voice said coldly: “Possibly because your behaviour never merits it, Candida.”

    Oh, help, thought Lalla in dismay. That was the wrong tack entirely.

    “I’m not staying here with HER! She’s an unsuitable NOBODY, Daddy! Marrying her’ll ruin your life, why can’t you SEE it?” She burst into noisy sobs.

    “Look, stop bawling!” he said loudly.

    Candida continued to sob.

    “Very well, you can go home to your bloody mother!” he cried.

    “NO!” she shouted. “You’re mean and horrible, Daddy! Why can’t I come with you? I won’t be a nuisance!”

    “I just said, you idiot! You’d be bored stiff and there’ll be nothing for you to do!”

    Ooh, heck, did he mean in the Outback? Was he refusing to bring Candida along on their trip? Lalla made a face. She went cautiously down the passage.

    “Peter—”

    “Go AWAY!” screamed Candida, bursting into further violent sobs. “You’ve ruined EVERYTHING!”

    Peter got up, looking very fed up. “We’ll leave her to cool down,” he said to Lalla.

    “I’d better go,” she replied in a stifled voice,

    “What? No! Look—” He drew her down the passage to her room, explaining rapidly.

    Lalla collapsed limply onto the edge of her bed. “Puh-Peter, if you leave her with me, she might do something really—really silly,” she faltered.

    “What’s the alternative? Take her with me, where she’ll be a complete bloody nuisance, get bored to death and do something really silly?”

    “I don’t think she’ll be so naughty if she’s with you,” she said faintly.

    “Possibly not. Well, one presumes they have television in Western Australian hotels: she can always lurk in her room watching it and eating junk food,” he said with a sigh.

    Lalla wasn’t too sure that the vast inner reaches of Western Australia would have that sort of hotel, but she just nodded obediently. Anything’d be better than having Candida go really off the rails if he left her behind with her. “Um, you could take Davey, too,” she ventured.

    “As a counterirritant?” he said with a crooked grin. “No, very well, darling, I will.”

    “Yes. And it’ll only be a few days at most, won’t it? It’s not as if there were men stuck down the mine shaft, isn’t it all open-cut?”

    “Er—yes, quite.”

    Lalla got up and began to scramble into her clothes. “I’ll make some sandwiches, goodness knows when you’ll get a meal.”

    “Thanks. Er—Lalla, we’ll need to talk seriously when I get back.”

    “Yes,” said Lalla in a small voice, not looking at him.

    When he got back to Canberra she was gone. The baroque pearl earrings, the pearl necklace and the unopened packet from Graff were sitting on the dressing-table with a note.

Dear Peter,

    I don’t think it’s fair to Candida to go on pretending. Thank you for everything, I had a lovely time. I hope it’s all right to keep the ring. I think that’s fair, because it’s within the terms and the spirit of the letter of contract. But I’m leaving the other things: they’re too expensive and I don’t think you had anything that dear in mind when you wrote it, did you?

Lalla.

P.S. I’ve kept the scent, Ted said that’d be okay.

    “TED?” he shouted furiously at the top of his voice. He stamped over to the wardrobe and flung the doors wide. God! She’d left everything! Even his old shirt!

    “What’s wrong?” said his daughter’s voice cautiously from behind him.

    “Get out! This is all your fault, you spoilt little bitch!” shouted Peter.

    Bursting into loud tears, Candida rushed off.

    Peter didn’t even notice her go. He sank down onto the bed and buried his face in his hands. God! He didn’t even know where she lived, or what her real job was, or— Jesus! Hang on: the aunt! Barb. Yes, that was a great help. He strained his brain but nothing more came. Christ, why hadn’t he paid more attention when she jabbered on?

    After quite some time he pulled himself together sufficiently to go downstairs. Davey and the yuppie were in the Goddawful sitting-room, both looking rather sick.

    “Um, Shuh-Shane says Lalla’s gone,” stuttered Davey.

    “Ted told me,” said the yuppie quickly.

    “Yes. –Get out, Davey, you’re no more use than ornament.”

    Gulping, Davey slid out.

    “You may recall,” said Peter coldly to the quailing Shane, “that the Sydney office sourced Miss Holcroft for us.”

    “Yuh-yessir!”

    “Get onto them, get her permanent address, and FIND HER!” he shouted.

    They tried: they really tried. But Lalla Holcroft—if that ever had been her real name: quite possibly she’d been a friend of the real woman, though apparently she swore she hadn’t asked anyone to fill in for her—had vanished.

    Possibly Merle Linarello could have told Peter a bit more, but he never thought to ask her. And Donna, if asked, wouldn’t have breathed a word: she’d been on Lalla’s side all along.

Next chapter:

https://thelallaeffect.blogspot.com/2024/01/lalla-back-home.html