Marie-Louise Disposes

22

Marie-Louise Disposes

    It was a trifle unfortunate that the over-keen Gazza, Den and their mates should have swung into action before Marie-Louise got there to settle Peter’s hash—which was, alas, how Lalla thought of it—but as the competent little Frenchwoman had checked out Gazza’s website and rung several of his listed clients, first checking out their websites, too, he was thoroughly pre-empted. So by the end of the week the ground had been levelled and compressed, the slab had been poured, and they were only waiting over the weekend for it to dry properly before getting the walls up.

    Peter then got the second great shock of that week. His wife and child vanished early on the Saturday morning, but he merely assumed, since on enquiry his driver had also vanished, that Troy had taken them shopping. Lalla had been burbling about some sort of fresh produce market that the Mason woman encountered over the sheets at DJ’s had told her about, so probably that was it.

    Four hours later they resurfaced complete with his mother, the sort of heap of suitcases that he’d heard Maman condemn as totally unnecessary times without number, and a delivery truck of the U-Haul type. Two hefty chaps jumped out of this, Troy dashed over to them, and the three of them proceeded to unload a selection of huge cartons, Troy then leading them into the house with: “It’s okay, Lalla, I’ll show them!” Peter just watched limply as in their wake Maman captured Petey in the traditional steel grip and Lalla hefted a suitcase and said: “Do you like it, Marie-Louise?”

    “Yes, certainly! A charming ’ouse, most suitable, mon chéri, and that is a most excellent photo Troy sends me!”

    What?

    “Peter! Do not stand there staring, pick up these baggages!”

    Peter came numbly to pick up a couple of suitcases.

    And that was pretty much that. She’d taken over.

    The giant cartons contained a full set of office furniture, brand-new, from France, for Peter’s study, and Peter’s old books that he’d had as a child, plus a bookcase for Petey’s room in which to put them. The efficient European sort, with movable shelves. Plus a small desk and matching chair from France for Petey. Navy-blue, the chair having a red seat: yes, naturellement it was to match with your duvets, mon chou! And a laptop for Petey.

    Lalla was stunned by this last, and merely asked dazedly: “Will it even work on our electricity?” but it was fair to say she wasn’t as stunned as Peter.

    “Maman, after all you’ve said about children not needing electronic toys and the dangers of the Inter—”

    “Rubbish, Peter. All the school children need a computer these days, and I peut the appropriate stops on it, bien sûr!”

    The suitcases contained clothes for Lalla, appropriate for the season, a genuine French anorak for Petey which would, apparently, be necessary in the winter months, several books that hadn’t fitted into the cartons, the latest fashion magazines for Lalla, a catalogue from a French firm which specialised in reproduction Louis XV and Louis XVI furniture, and last but by no means least, some carefully wrapped and packed French nostrums. Guaranteed French nostrums.

    “Maman, how in God’s name did you get these onto the plane? And the suitcases weigh a ton! What on earth did you have to shell out in excess ba—” Swiftly rubbished. They had come air freight with the other packages. Naturellement she had declared the medicines, all the paperwork had been most faithfully filled in and the man from S-STI had been most ’elpfeul, did Peter think he was the only person who could arrange things? “Not that”—the steely glare went right through him and pinned him to the floor—“you ’ave done mush of that lately, paraît-il!”

    “Maman, I’ve been swamped at work, what with John still in Bri—”

    Completely rubbished. Completely. Peter retreated down the garden to Miss Starkie and Earl Grey tea, only to find her on Marie-Louise’s side—sight unseen, yes—now and forever. Period.

    Later that afternoon, fresh as daisy after a light lunch supervised by herself and a two-hour nap to settle the jet-lag, Marie-Louise forced her son to accompany her to Miss Starkie’s fastness, where after introductions, which she did actually allow him to make, she apologised for the lack of warning, but Lalla had not thought to put Miss Starkie’s number in her phone, was warmly welcomed, and asked in for a cup of tea. Would she prefer it with lemon? She would, this was most thoughtful. Miss Starkie having replied drily that it was sheer good luck, her own lemons were over and the Australian supply of lemons was erratic, it was almost impossible to get decent Lisbons, and half the time the things turned out to be Meyers, and Marie-Louise having received this intel with total understanding and sympathy, it was only too apparent that they were getting on like a house on fire, and Peter had nothing to do but excuse himself and fade away.

    He got back to the house to find Lalla and Petey in the latter’s bedroom, in the bunks, Petey reading a dog-eared Biggles book and Lalla reading his old charmingly illustrated copy of La Chèvre de Monsieur Seguin, given him by a neighbour of Maman’s to improve his French at the age of about seven.

    Peter just sat down on Petey’s inadequate brand-new desk chair and looked at them limply. “Lalla,” he said after quite some time, “did you know— Never mind,” he sighed.

    “I just couldn’t cope, Peter,” she replied earnestly. “And who else was I gonna turn to but Marie-Louise?”

   “’Course,” said Petey unexpectedly into the Biggles book.

    “Uh—yes, of course.”

    “It was all her idea to come out, though.”

    “I have no doubt of that, darling.”

    Lalla eyed him cautiously. He didn’t look cross, actually: he just looked dazed.

    “Um, it’s like she says: you’ve been used all your life to being surrounded by people doing things for you. You don’t understand how difficult it is to have to actually do them.”

    “One of her many theme songs,” he sighed. “My darling, you will find you have reaped the whirlwind.”

    At least it’d be a whirlwind that’d get things done! “Mm,” Lalla murmured, returning to the story of the pretty little nanny goat, which was now getting rather scary, actually…

    Peter had almost dropped off—reaction, no doubt—when he realised she was bawling over the bloody book. Oh, shit! As a kid, with the usual enjoyment of the gruesome, he’d taken it in his stride, but—

    “Not suitable for adult sensibilities,” he said firmly, taking it off her and shoving in into the bookcase. “Have my handkerchief, darling.”

    Lalla duly mopped, blew, and sniffed. “I had no idea.”

    “No,” said Peter wryly. M. Daudet’s cautionary tale, of course, ended with the words: “Alors le loup se jeta sur la petite chèvre et la mangea.” One had but to cast the whole of Australia as the unfortunate nanny and Maman as— Well, quite.

    Mrs Wainwright was the first to be vanquished. Lalla had been unable to get out of agreeing to a shopping expedition with her on the following Tuesday. The which gave Marie-Louise more than enough time to gather her forces in preparation for a counter-attack. “Now, you will wear this dress, Lalla, quite suitable for the weather, I think? –Yes, my dear, I realise that it is getting cooler. Also the shoes. …Now, these are for you.”—Producing, to her daughter-in-law’s horror, an unmistakeable jewel case.—“Just the pearl earrings today: so!” None of them ever worn by herself these days, was the claim, and she had kept the ones which had been special gifts from Richard. Lalla looked dubiously at herself in a soft, slim-fitting blue-grey dress, glorious matching shoes which she rather thought were lizard, yikes, how had she got them into the country? And the “pearl” earrings, which actually were good-sized pearls ringed by tiny sapphires. Well, blue stones, but she had no doubt that they were sapphires. Before she could utter she was being helped into the matching simple lightweight coat. “Only” prêt-à-porter? The things had a ruddy up-market label for ready-to-wear!

    The handbag was then produced. Hermès, yes, rather restrained: nice, no? “She will ask you if is a [forgettable name], Lalla, so you just say: ‘Oh, very likely. My buyer in Paris, she selects it for me.’ You sound airy and not terribly interested, okay?” Possibly something in Lalla’s look of horror then registered, because she pointed out that she had bought it in Paris for her.

    “It’s the most beautiful purse I’ve ever seen,” said Lalla dazedly. “But I—I don’t usually wear blue things, Marie-Louise.”

    “This I know, mon chou, but I find the bag and then I see the shoes, so of course I choose the mashing dress and coat! Convenient, you see: for that sort of lady, they invite one to a five o’clock and then one may remove the coat and be comfortable. But it will be necessary outside at this time of year. I would say, too, it is more a grey-blue, hein? Not too definite.”

    No, this was true. But it definitely shrieked “Paris” and “Put this in your pipe and smoke it”. Oh, dear!

    Unsurprisingly Mrs Wainwright—do, please, call me Corinne—was properly overcome. The more so as Marie-Louise, with a splendid show of mixed reluctance and indifference—how did she do it?—admitted that she herself was wearing Givenchy, but “only an old thing.” Yikes!

    On her mettle, Corinne then took them to all the most expensive, exclusive antique shops and furniture shops—the latter so posh they were more like fancy drawing-rooms than commercial establishments—in the whole of metropolitan Sydney. Finishing up in a place called Double Bay outside a charming little dress boutique, nothing like what Marie-Louise was used to, of course!—no contradiction from the said Marie-Louise: Lalla had to swallow—but there might be one or two things…

    When it was all over and an exhausted Lalla was lying on her bed with Marie-Louise, sparking on all cylinders, administering a cup of most excellent thé au camomille, she wondered feebly: “Why on earth was Corinne so keen on taking us to that dress shop?”

    “Ah! Now, I think per’aps she is that sort of woman, but I reserve judgement, tu sais?” She looked at Lalla’s blank face. “My dear, is it not obvious? She gets a commission from the shop if she brings in a new customer.”

    Lalla’s jaw dropped.

    “Mais si.” Looking dry, Marie-Louise advised her to rest, she did not think the woman would bother her again, but of course one should not refuse a dinner invitation, and, adding casually that she would prepare dinner tonight, went out.

    Take it for all in all, Lalla felt too shattered even to utter “Yikes.”

    The question of heating was next, being deemed the most urgent, with the weather getting chillier. Mercifully, some time back the Hahns had had ducted air conditioning installed throughout the main part of the house, but it did not also supply heat, which Marie-Louise thought was most wasteful. Also the rooms on the side of the house with the tower had been neglected, and one could not count that silly box in the kitchen window! Okay, they’d take the advice of M. Carpenter and consult the firm that did the central heating for his house—yes, one realises that he is now divorced and has an appartement. We just telephone to check, okay? …Merci mille fois, M. Carpenter. They looked up the website, then went into town to see the firm and its shop floor display. It was a big firm, obviously solid and established. It would be able to install central heating throughout their two-storeyed house… Let’s see. Fit you in next October-November, Mrs Sale! (Breezily.) Comment? But this is unheard! My good man, this is not the way to make a sale! (Not betraying awareness of the homonym by so much as an eyelash flicker.) Come, my dear Lalla, I think we ring your nice Mrs Mason ’ose brother supplies the frigo so promptly, hein?

    They did that. Zoe would come over immediately.

    “Good, we have a nice cup of tea with ’er, hein?”

    Over the tea and the excellent homemade muffins, this is so generous, Mrs Mason—Zoé, of course! You should not ’ave, Zoé—it was determined that her brother Dan did sell heaters and reverse-cycle air conditioners at Dan Mason Electrical. –Careful explanation to Marie-Louise that the latter were heaters as well.

    That was excellent, a double-purpose appliance was highly desirable. One for each room of the far side of the house, then, and one for the kitchen. A rangehood, Zoé? Oh! Certainly, but we wait for Mrs Beattie, and buy all when we buy a new stove. A dishwasher? Lalla faltered that Peter hadn’t mentioned that. The mouth was seen to firm.

    “I am sure he did not, mon chou: he is so used to leaving all that to an employee. This is the influence of his English grandfather, you understand, Zoé. I do my best, but one cannot say, No, you cannot go to your grandfather for your ’oliday. And my poor Richard, he could never stand up to the man.”

    “He had a weak heart, Zoe,” said Lalla in a small voice.

    “The rheumatic fever when he was a child,” stated Marie-Louise grimly. “And ’ose fault was that? One does not order a six-year-old child to get on ’is pony and ride out with the ’unt on a freezing and wet winter’s day! No wonder he dies when still a comparatively young man!”

    “Oh, good Heavens! My dear, I’m so sorry,” said poor Zoe Mason in horror.

    “Thank you, Zoé. Well, it is all in the past, but it explains why Peter cannot understand that things do not get done unless one sees that they are done. When he took over at the company they all rush to do everything for him, and it reinforces it.”

    She nodded understandingly.

    “For me, I would peut my feut down and order that dilatory John Faraday to get over here immediately, but Peter is mush too soft with ’im!”

    “He does need to find a good tenant for his flat,” murmured Lalla.

    She snorted. “One peuts such a matter in the hands of a reliable agent, my dear! He is the sort of man who cannot think outside ’is little box, you know? He never expects a move to the other side of the world, and so he drags ’is feet—unconsciously, bien sûr, but nonetheless.”

    They looked at her in awed respect. She was undoubtedly spot-on.

    Dan Mason was staggered but thrilled to receive such a large order, decided he’d better come back with them to see just what was needed in each room, and duly came. And duly helped them eat a splendid lunch starring “a quick ratatouille” (tomatoes, onions, and zucchini, the price of eggplants at the supermarket being outrageous). He and a helper returned that afternoon with appropriate slim-line heaters for the bedrooms and a reverse-cycle air conditioning unit for Peter’s study, together with a mini wall heater plus, on Mr Mason’s own initiative, a small fan for Petey’s den. An inspection of the wiring up there followed, and they allowed that the heater could be put in next day, along with the large slim-line heaters or reverse cycle air-con, according, for all the downstairs rooms, and departed, with cheerful grins and “See ya’s!” at around five. In nice time for Peter to arrive home and contemplate the fait accompli.

    The dishwasher was also installed the next day.

    Furnishing the big sitting-room was, of course, a major problem. Dubiously Marie-Louise suggested that it perhaps might be reserved as a more formal drawing-room? Miss Starkie had told her that in the old days the Hahns had entertained formally a great deal, which was why the room was so large. The small front room on the other side of the passage would have been their usual sitting-room. The room behind it which Peter said was the dining-room? Yes, that would be quite correct, mon chou. After a little she noticed that Lalla was looking very downcast, and it dawned. “You like the big room? Then certainly it shall be your sitting-room! We have the chimney looked at, I think, then you may ’ave a nice open fire. The small front room will make an excellent breakfast room: one must not forget that Mrs Beattie’s kitchen will be ’er own domain. We peut a nice small table—elegant, but simple—near the big window: that is east, non? Good. So, where to start? First, you look at the catalogue I bring, my dear.”

    So Lalla looked at the catalogue. The reproduction Louis XV and Louis XVI chairs and sofas with which it abounded were so well made and their silken fabrics were so gorgeous that the things were extraordinarily beautiful, but she didn’t feel they were suited to their house at all. However, there was a much later set of pieces which she really liked: late 19th-century, a tallish wooden-backed sofa, rather settle-like in style, and a lovely sideboard, both in pale woods with a little inlay.

    “Ah, yes! Elegant, non? I spoke to their chief cabinetmaker myself: he would be very pleased to make such pieces for you, it is the work he prefers, though of course many of their clients, they like the style of Louis XV. These are a little more Art Nouveau, hein? Though not extreme, personally I do not admire the pervasive curves of the style, they are too mush.”

    “I think so, too. But these are really nice.”

    “Yes: a little the French Provincial style, these. But the room is large, and Peter, I think, prefers a more solid, English look… Per’aps just the sideboard, then, Lalla?”

    At this moment the unworthy suspicion that she’d already ordered it invaded Lalla Sale’s mind and would not be banished. “Yes, that’d be lovely. Or—or maybe two?”

    Marie-Louise’s face lit up. “Ah! Perfect! I email him immediately!”

    Right: that’d give him something to do, because of course he’d nearly finished their first one… Lalla had to bite her lip.

    “I think, really, something simple but classic for the sofas. If one can buy such here,” Marie-Louise noted grimly. “Not too modern, hein? But comfortable.”

    “Mm. Um, not blue,” she added faintly.

    “Of course not, mon chou, you must choose the colours that you like! And do you think wallpaper for above this wainscoting?”

    Lalla swallowed hard. It had been something like “ou-enne-scott-ing”, the O from the back of the mouth in the French fashion, and the T very definite, and what should have been the W very, very clearly not English at all.

    “I dunno. It’d have to be something very pale and—and unobtrusive, I think.”

    “Correct. You prefer per’aps the look of Miss Starkie?”

    “Um, yes, but she’s got blue,” said Lalla in a small voice.

    “Of course not blue, but just the pale paint, hein?”

    “Mm, it is nice. I like it in her place, but this room’s so big…”

    “D’accord. Tell me of another room you like, mon chéri.”

    “Um…” All Lalla could think of was the big guests’ lounge at Jan and Pete’s Taupo Shores Ecolodge, with its gabled kauri ceiling, spread of matching golden kauri floor, and armchairs and sofas covered in a heavy, dark green linen-look fabric.

    “Ah…” The eyes narrowed. “Yes. Per’aps dark green for the sofas, and a very pale green for the walls? And possibly long curtains, but a spriggy fabric, with green?”

    Lalla smiled. “Spriggy like that lovely room in Peter’s flat? Yes, that’d be super!”

    “Indeed. But I think not the walls as well… No, that is too mush,” she decided unilaterally. Lalla nodded meekly. “And whatever we shoose, it must suit the lovely dark red rug, non?”

    “Yes, of course. It is a super rug, isn’t it?”

    She nodded, and murmuring something about something that was in storage at the maison de campagne—which Lalla now understood was a beach house where they used to spend the summer holidays, if she’d managed to wrench Peter away from his grandfather—herded her out of the room to get changed. Zoé had given her some excellent addresses, they go into town now, hein? –A purely rhetorical question.

    Lalla had to have another lie-down after that expedition: her feet were killing her, even though the blue-grey lizard-skin shoes were extremely comfortable. And her brain was spinning.

   … “Um, we will have lots of flowers,” she said uneasily to her husband, when Marie-Louise had finished her report.

    “Er—yes. Maman, don’t you think dark green risks being a little depressing?”

    Soundly rubbished. Peter sighed and got up to get himself a second whi— Not. Drinking far too much Scotch!

    “I haven’t been been able to source a decent sherry here,” he replied with a sigh, sitting down again—perforce on a kitchen chair, there being nowhere else to sit. The chairs were a mixed bag, having come from something called “Eddy’s Easy Pick”, which he wasn’t even going to start asking about. Emporium suggested by Helen Adams, chairs chosen by her, with Lalla and Troy panting a long way in her wake. Sturdy, sensible. Maman approved of them as extremely suitable for a kitchen, ’nuff said.

    He hadn’t asked the right persons!—Clearly.—Doubtless Mr Wainwright—

    “Maman, the man’s got no palate! –And don’t suggest Bernie, he’s a whisky drinker.”

    The eyes narrowed. “Then, mon fils, you ask the man who told you of the shop where you buy the Persian rugs.”

    Peter’s jaw dropped, what time Lalla cried, unfortunately not tongue-in-cheek: “Yes! Brilliant, Marie-Louise! Fancy Persian rugs and silly expensive sherry always go together in English books, don’t they?”

    “Précisément, mon chéri.”

    Peter smiled weakly. “Very well. Er—so did you manage to buy anything tod—”

    There was a lot of it, but it boiled down to “No”. All appalling, vulgar, and modern.

    Funnily enough it was a combination of a visit to a smallish boutique hotel, near but, Lalla thought dubiously, not in a place called Rose Bay, for cocktails with the Wainwrights, and a spur-of the-moment lunchtime visit to the little antique shop next to the Kaffee Klatch, which solved the problem of the sitting-room furniture.

    Lalla had panicked at the word “cocktails” but Marie-Louise had that well in hand.

    “This little dress I buy in Paris for you, mon chéri: simple but elegant, you see?” Lalla at any rate saw that “simple but elegant”, sometimes varied by “elegant but simple”, was one of Marie-Louise’s many theme songs. This product of the couturier’s prêt-à-porter art could have been called a little black dress, except that it was slashed with emerald green across the bust—its bust, hers mercifully not being exposed—and had one artful emerald-green button on a shoulder just above the slash. It came to about two inches above the knees, a look which was exaggerated by the shoes. High-heeled black patents with thin ankle-straps fastened at the front under, not with, a flat bow. Cripes. And the bag to match. Fortunately this one didn’t seem to have a name that she wouldn’t remember that would wow Mrs W., it was a simple black patent clutch bag with a diamanté clasp—very suitable for cocktails or a dinner party, oh, really? Lalla peeked inside it and almost fainted. It did have a name, but she was definitely gonna forget it immediately. How much had Marie-Louise spent?

    The dress was sleeveless, so she was afraid she was gonna freeze getting to the place, but no. The “shacket” was unveiled. Lalla goggled at it.

    “Fun, no?” said her mother-in-law gaily. “I find it at Les Puces. I think it may date from les années cinquante, or maybe a later copy. It is white, so I ’ave it cleaned and dyed to mash…” Long story about the complete reliability of the Paris dyer and the effort it had taken to find him, some fifteen years back, of which Lalla took in not one syllable. It was a short jacket, its outer integument consisting of ten-centimetre thick emerald fake fur! It was crazy, it was glorious, it was completely mad! And Peter would probably have ten fits at the sight of her in it.

    “It’s fabulous!” she gasped.

    Marie-Louise smirked. “So I think.”

    Lalla put it on. Yep, it was exactly right with the dress. The precise shade of emerald.

    “Um,” she said, standing on one leg.

    “Yes?”

    “You did say we’d collect Peter from work for this do, didn’t you?”

    “Yes, certainly. Oh, you worry that he has not time to shange? But he has a very pleasant bathroom, my dear, naturally the boss has all facilitays, and he may ’ave a shower and shange there.”

    Crikey, really? It rang strange bells… Um, Sabrina? The jacket, come to think of it, could well be that vintage! “Y—um, that’s good,” she managed. “Um, no, I was just wondering if, um, if he’d like this jacket.”

    Marie-Louise’s eyebrows rose. “One does not need to consult ’im, my dear.”

    Yikes. The idea that she’d completely ruled the roost with Richard Sale had occurred before, but now Lalla was sure of it. But as there was no way she was gonna give up this wonderful jacket, she merely replied weakly: “I see.”

    … The car drew up in the no-parking zone outside QSA’s huge high-rise downtown building. “He’s not there,” Troy ascertained. “You wanna pop out an’ fetch him? I’ll haveta take ’er down to the basement.”

    Marie-Louise approved this suggestion. They got out. They went in. It was a secure building, with a uniformed guard and a man on duty at a reception desk in a glassed-in hutch. Though as there was no physical barrier to stop anyone approaching the lifts, all it would take was one terrorist with a gun, really. The guard didn’t look as if he’d be quick on the draw. Oh, well, Lalla reflected, maybe it was all meant as a deterrent. Marie-Louise addressed the receptionist firmly: “Good evening. Please tell Sir Peter that Lady Sale and Mrs Sale are here to collect him.”

    Lalla gulped.

    “Yeah, sure!” the unfortunate fellow gasped, punching buttons madly. “He’ll be down in a minute,” he reported.

    “Thank you.” Marie-Louise looked around coldly. “Why are there no shairs here, young man?”

    “Um—people don’t usually wanna siddown!” he gasped.

    “I speak to my son,” she stated ominously.

    He gulped.

    Peter was so stunned at the sight of Lalla looking like a huge emerald puffball that he couldn’t utter, so Marie-Louise got right through the speech.

    “Er—yes. Very well, Maman, chairs and a sofa for the lobby… Lalla, sweetheart, what is that?”

    Lalla looked mutinous. “I love it and I’m wearing it.”

    “Certainly. I ’ave it dyed to tone with the dress.”

    The jacket wasn’t done up and as Lalla now ceased hugging it mutinously to her bosom, he could see the emerald slash. “Right,” he sighed. “Of course you did. Um, couldn’t you have had it shorn, or—or something? That fuzz must be ten centimetres long!”

    “That’s the whole point, ya nit!” said his wife crossly.

    “Never argue with a woman about couture, mate!” said an Aussie voice from behind him with a laugh in it. “Gidday, Lalla. You look corker; ignore him.”

    “I am!” she beamed. “Hullo, Bernie! Are you coming to this cocktail thingy with us?”

    He was, and as Marie-Louise, greeting him firmly, informed him that the car was in the basement “parking”, they went.

    The boutique hotel—which was actually quite a large structure—had gone all out in its sufficiently spacious lobby area, with countless buttoned chesterfields in antiqued real leather, brown and green, and myriads of green-shaded brass lamps on the huge teak coffee tables which did not quite chime, style-wise, with the seating, but take it for all in all, the effect wasn’t bad. Considering that the purpose of the space was for large Aussies to sit round knocking back the booze. The cocktail party was not being held in this lobby, but in a private room.

    The private room featured dark green walls which picked up the tones of the lobby’s sofas, several smallish but glowing chandeliers, a bar, some spindly gilt-legged chairs with peach plush seats pushed right back against the walls, and very little else. Not that there would have been room for much else, with the crowd assembled there. The gents were unremarkable in lounge suits, though some of the ties were surprising. The ladies were in all colours of the rainbow, some of them all at once, and so many fascinators made of wisps of veiling and sprays of feathers that if viewed from above one would have taken them for a flock of exotic birds.

    Corinne Wainwright, in contrast to her colourful peers, was in restrained silver-grey silk, though rather bunchily draped as to both skirt and bust, and rather low-cut as to the latter: she was a tall, thin woman whom the neckline did not flatter. The fascinator was a twist of silver-grey silk, some silver loops, a wisp of grey veiling, and a spray of wispy feathers of the stripped sort, cunningly shaded from very dark grey though silver to white. The short, well controlled wavy hair matched. So did the heavy triple string of very large pearls. The earrings were composed of three larger pearls: white, pale grey and dark grey.

    A trifle unfortunately, Marie-Louise was also in silver-grey. A suit. Silk—moiré silk. Givenchy, again. The grey shoes were exquisite: she was a little woman, of course, and she had tiny feet. She was also wearing pearls: one strand, of the choker variety. Not too large. The clasp, which was at the front, was of rubies and small diamonds set in platinum. The earrings were small ruby drops. The tiny clutch bag was perhaps the triumph of the outfit. Gathered ruby velvet. Sucks, in short, thought Lalla gleefully, as Mrs Wainwright’s face took on the expression of one who had bitten into a slice of presumed orange and found it to be lemon.

    Neither Marie-Louise nor Lalla was wearing a fascinator and this really, as Peter noted when the painful thing was at last over, might have been considered the icing on the cake but in his opinion was the last straw that broke the traditional!

    “So you weren’t bored stiff?” ventured Lalla.

    “With the company in general, yes, of course. But watching the faces as they took in your outfits must rank as one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life.”

    “Hah, hah,” she said uneasily.

    He laughed. “No, truly! Did anyone dare to ask you how old that suit is, Maman?”

    “Certainly not,” she replied with dignity.

    Peter broke down in awful sniggers.

    “The maison remodels it slightly for me,” Marie-Louise explained to Lalla, ignoring him.

    “The mais— Oh!” she gulped. “I see.”

    “It looks great, Mrs Sale,” offered Troy kindly from the driving seat.

    “Thank you, my dear boy,” she replied calmly.

    “So ya both knocked all them flash dames’ eyes out, eh?” he pursued.

    “They certainly did, Troy!” Peter agreed.

    “Good on ya,” he concluded.

    It wasn’t until they were nearly home that Lalla recovered sufficiently from the cocktail do to note: “I suppose the hotel was pretty bad, really, but their sofas in the front lounge place were rather nice, I thought.”

    “Lobby, darling,” said Peter. “Uh—yeah, they were, come to think of it. Well—an embarrassment of riches, but in moderation, yes, very nice.”

    “My dears, they— Eugh, comment dit-on?” She said something to her son in French.

    “I think you would say they’d been antiqued, Maman. Er—artificially antiqued?”

    “C’est ça. With the shading around the buttons, Lalla,” she explained.

    “Oh. But the, um, general effect was nice, I thought.”

    “Indeed, mon chéri! So, we think about two buttoned green sofas, not with the antiquing, for the big sitting-room, hein?”

    “Yes,” Lalla agreed gratefully. “That would be very nice.”

    The next day, Lalla having shyly suggested lunch at the Kaffee Klatch, assuring Marie-Louise that Troy’s mum, Helen, liked it, they went—today taking a taxi, as Troy had to go to the dentist. Just a check-up: he could easily cancel— He could not, and it was most important to look after one’s teeth! Marie-Louise immediately spotted the interior design shop next-door to the café. They would sheck it out after lunch.

    To Lalla’s huge relief both the café itself and the lunch got the seal of approval. Very pleasant, very clean. And the food was very fresh, the Greek salad having excellent ingredients. Phew!

    Marie-Louise then plunged into the small interior design shop, Acacia Interiors, its logo being a casual-looking sprig of wattle which on the white sign above its plate-glass window gave a fresh look: charming. Soon she was deep in confabulation over printed curtain fabrics with the shop woman, probably the proprietor, who seemed only too eager to give her her full attention. After a while Lalla wandered out quietly—her opinion was never solicited—and went over to the antiques shop.

    She was looking wistfully at a little Victorian lady’s chair which had been re-covered in a spriggy print and wondering if she’d be allowed to have it and where on earth it could go: it didn’t look like a sitting-room chair—when a young man came up to her, smiling, and said: “Pretty little chair, isn’t it?”

    “Yes, very. Only what sort of room would it go in?”

    “Intended for the privacy of a lady’s boudoir, I think!” he said with a laugh. “It’d be a nice bedroom chair.”

    “Ye-es… We’ve got a heavy old Victorian headboard on our bed: it’s not very high but it’s wide and very thick, with a sort of swoopy extra wooden bit on top,” she explained, making gestures in the air.

    “Oh, yes! I know the sort of thing! The top bit in a darker wood!” he beamed.

    “Yes, that’s right.”

    “Lovely old style. Well, the chair’s got a rather different look, but it is mahogany, and the period’s right.”

    “Mm,” she agreed, wondering if he was perhaps the shop’s owner and wanted to make a sale. “Um, only the man who sold us the headboard, he said it wasn’t mahogany, because my husband asked him if it was. Um… something like Huron?”

    “Oh! Huon pine, that’d be! My word, you are lucky!”

    “I’m sorry,” said Lalla, going very pink, “I’ve never heard of it.”

    “A Kiwi, are you?” he smiled. “—Yeah. Well, Huon pine comes from Tazzie and it’s what the best Australian antiques are made of. Like hen’s teeth these days, you were very lucky to find something. Got a wonderful red-brown patina, hasn’t it?”

    “Yes, it’s gorgeous.”

    “Uh-huh. Well, a bit of mahogany wouldn’t clash with it. The oldest stuff—William IV, that period—it’s all in museums, these days. But you do sometimes see the later 19th-century stuff. You might be lucky. Though it’s years since I saw robes in it! –Sorry, that’d be wardrobes to you, I think.”

    “Oh! Yes. My husband’s got lots and lots of clothes back in England and he’s started complaining because there’s nowhere to put them. Mr Hahn—the man who sold us the house, I mean—he sold the original wardrobes, evidently.”

    His gaze might have been seen to sharpen, had Lalla been the sort of person to watch out for that sort of phenomenon. “Would this be Chris Hahn, the Q.C.?”

    “Mm. It’s his grandparents’ old house. We’re calling it Green Gables.”

    He grinned. “I know the place: on She-Oak Rise, eh? Green Gables suits it!”

    “Yes. I love it,” she confided. “But it’s completely empty, it’s really hard trying to find stuff that suits it… My mother-in-law’s come over from France, she’s been wonderful, but of course she doesn’t know the Sydney shops, either.”

    “Haven’t thought of getting in a decorator?”

    Lalla shuddered. “No. Most of the awful houses we looked at before we found Green Gables, they’d been done by decorators.”

    “The wrong decorators,” he said firmly. “Look, I really think I could help you. Let me give you my card. That’s the address of the shop—got transport, have you?”

    “Yes, but our driver had to go to the dentist today.”

    The young man managed to take this without a blink. “Right. Well, why not pop over tomorrow—the opening hours are on the card—and see what we can do for you. We do specialise in the restoration and redecoration of older homes. That’s why I’m here: looking for a few nice pieces for a client who’s just bought a house about the same vintage as yours, that’s been hideously modernised inside. We’re restoring it to something much nearer its original look: what we call Federation in Australia,” he finished, smiling at her.

    “I know: 1901 was the date of the federation of the old Australian colonies into one country, wasn’t it? That sounds very nice.” Lalla looked at the card. “Travitsky Interiors. Are you Mr Travitsky, then?”

    “That’s me: Alan Travitsky!” he beamed. “Excuse me, I must just grab Jamie, or he’ll be selling my nice old commode to someone else. –Very heavily restored, but pretty: the client’ll like it!” he assured her, darting off to grab the proprietor, who’d just seen off a customer.

    Lalla looked dubiously at the card. Well, Mr Travitsky liked the chair, and he was very tastefully dressed, in a lovely light tweed jacket, she thought the pattern was houndstooth checks, in very pale fawn and cream, with a pale yellow, grey and fawn silk tie and the palest of yellow shirts, plus a pair of very smartly pressed fawn trousers, and his hair was sort of toning: pale yellow with lighter highlights. He was probably gay, no-one that wasn’t would be that beautifully dressed, she was sure, but he had no affectations. He just sounded like an ordinary Aussie. So perhaps his interior décor would be tasteful and not awful. Well, maybe Marie-Louise would agree to look…

    She went back to the other shop, where Marie-Louise was still inspecting curtain materials and thought this one, in shades of green with small, inoffensive pink roses for the master bedroom?’

    Lalla looked at it in dismay. “It’s very pretty, but I—I sort of had a picture in my head of little yellow rosebuds on a white background, I dunno why!” she gasped.

    “Then of course you must have that, mon chéri! If there is nothing in Sydney, I find the very thing in Paris, I promise you! So, per’aps this for a spare bedroom, hein?”

    “Yes, that’d be nice,” Lalla agreed thankfully. It would at least be progress.

    Briskly Marie-Louise made incomprehensible arrangements with the seller over the curtain material. Was the woman intending to make the things? It sounded like it. So was that what shops like this did? Lalla just waited until they’d finished—there was no big parcel to take home as she’d expected—and then said: “I saw a nice little antique ladies’ chair in the other shop.”

    Excellent, they would look. They looked, Marie-Louise approved: yes, it would go very well in the master bedroom, they would think about re-covering it later when they had sourced the material with the little yellow roses, but yes, the light look of that type of fabric was charming—and this was the address for the delivery, thank you.

    They then went back to the Kaffee Klatch and occupied two of its chairs without ordering anything while Marie-Louise called for a taxi and they duly waited for it. Help! But the lady at the counter didn’t seem to mind and at least, as lunchtime seemed to be over, they weren’t depriving any customers of a table.

    “Um, when I was in that shop,” said Lalla, “a man gave me his card. Mr Travitsky. He does restoration and interior design for old houses. I thought he seemed nice; he liked the chair. I told him about the headboard on our bed and he knew all about it—the wood and the style. It’s an Australian wood from Tazzie, I mean Tasmania.”

    Scrutiny of the card resulted in a decision to visit his shop on the morrow. Well—one could but hope!

    Having secured his commode, or what the rest of Australia called a chest of drawers, Alan Travitsky drove straight back to his place of business, dashed into his office, and fell upon his computer, muttering: “She-Oak Rise, She-Oak Ri— Oh! Thank God!” –as Hays Lowe’s ad for Number 5 came up with a big red “Sold” plastered across it. “Thought so! Now, who would know… Hang on.” Leaving the screen up, he picked up the phone. “Hi, it’s Alan,” he said when someone answered. “Listen, you’re quids-in with the legal beagles, aren’t you? Do you know who Chris Hahn has sold that big old place of his grandparents’ to? …Oh. Well, who would know? –Okay, thanks, I’ll try him. …French polisher? Well, yes, I can give you a name, but he’s booked up from here to Christmas.” He duly supplied the name, rang off and tried another number. “Hi, it’s Alan. Can you talk or is the Grand Panjandrum breathing down your neck? –Good. I’m trying to track down who Chris Hahn’s just sold that big old place of his grandparents’ to. …Eh? Are you sure? –Yeah, I know he’s out here, Leslie, I do read the financial pages! …Um, well, hoping, yeah!” he admitted with a laugh. “Thanks very much, I owe you one. –Not that much! See ya!” He hung up. “Okay,” he said to himself, “we get the job or die in the attempt.” He got up and went through to the shop, where he informed Robert, his assistant, who wasn’t bright but had a flair, and Janey, his junior assistant, who was very bright but needed grooming, that if a tall, pretty lady with long brown hair and a whacking great baroque pearl ring on her left hand came in he was to be alerted immediately. When? Probably tomorrow, Robert, but any time! Geddit? His staff got it. Alan retreated to his office, got his computer up again and looked critically through his very best sketches…

    Given that Marie-Louise had sussed out Travitsky Interiors on the Internet before venturing forth to it, and that Alan’s further research had revealed to him that yes, Sir Peter Sale did have a French mother—though, oddly, there was nothing about his wife—honours were about even. Lalla didn’t have to say anything; which, she reflected drily, was just as well. So she merely looked round the lovely shop, kind of wishing she could just pack it up, lock, stock and barrel, and take it home. It was very pretty without being fussy at all, and definitely elegant. Added to which, it was all in shades of lemon, white, and fawn, which she really liked. Not dissimilar, in fact, to the proprietor’s outfit of the day before; but today he was in a severe navy-blue suit with a red and blue Paisley tie, very smart. After a while the girl who’d been sitting at a desk when they arrived came over to her and said: “Do you like these colours?”

    “Yes, they’re lovely. I like a light look with lots of white, and so does my mother-in-law, but our house has got a lot of very dark panelling. I mean, it’s gorgeous, I wouldn’t want to get rid of it, and we’ve had it polished, but it’s hard to know what to put with it.”

    “Yeah, it would be. If ya had all light stuff it’d clash too much, eh?” she agreed sympathetically.

    Lalla nodded hard. “That’s exactly it. So we thought maybe big dark green buttoned leather sofas for the main sitting-room. It’s a big room: Marie-Louise says it’ll take two sofas easily. And she’s ordered two nice sideboards in quite a pale wood from France; um, sort of late 19th-century, but not heavy-looking, a bit more Art Nouveau, but without the curlicues.”

    The girl nodded. “I geddit. That sounds good. So you’d want everything else to fit in with them, eh?”

    “Mm.”

    “I suppose they’d be the feature pieces, really,” she said thoughtfully.

    “Yes,” Lalla agreed. “They’re not old, they’re reproduction, there’s this firm that specialises in making wonderful reproduction pieces. She wouldn’t tell me the prices, so I suppose they’re horrendous…” She sighed. “She’s quite frugal and sensible on a personal level,” she explained—there was no danger of being overheard, the shop’s owner had now taken Marie-Louise into his office—“but when it comes to other stuff, she—she just spends money like water! She brought me suitcasesful of clothes from Paris… Every time we go somewhere she produces something new, it’s awful.”

    Janey Dickinson didn’t think it would be all that awful, but she nodded kindly and said: “I geddit. She’s used to being rich, eh?” –The sort of remark which Alan was trying to groom her out of: their wealthy customers did not appreciate it!

    Luckily for her it hit the right note with this particular wealthy customer: Lalla agreed gratefully: “That’s right. And Peter’s just as bad. Our driver, Troy, he’s been trying to get him to make up his mind to buy a car—at the moment we’re just using a hired one, you see. And the other day he said that that one seemed all right, so why not go ahead and get one if he thought it—it was smooth or something!”

    “A smooth drive, I s’pose,” said Janey. “It looks all right,” she conceded, peering. “What sort is it?”

    “I dunno, but Troy likes it and Marie-Louise said it’s appropriate.”

    “Goddit.”

    “Yes!” Lalla agreed, suddenly laughing. “Only then Peter gave Troy a credit card, would you believe, and said to use it!”

    “To—to buy a car?” she croaked.

    “Yes! I mean, it—it isn’t human!” said Lalla on a note of despair.

    “I know,” Janey admitted, swallowing. “People just don’t.”

    “No. –Well, I knew it’d be an uphill battle to get him to start living a more ordinary life—I don’t want our little boy to grow up feeling he’s, um what’s the word?” she groped. “It’s a good word, even if it is trendy.”

    The only expression that came to mind was “filthy rich”. Janey racked her brains. “Um, privileged?” she offered.

    “That’s sort of it. I mean, it is it, but there’s another word, it means they think they ought to have stuff.”

    “Um… oh! Entitled!”

    “Yeah, that’s it. I mean, would you want your little boy to grow up feeling entitled?”

    “Heck, no! I mean, not that I’ve got one!” said Janey with a flustered laugh. “But I know whatcha mean.”

    “Mm.”

    “Aw, heck: I geddit! Yeah, it would be uphill work!”

    Lalla nodded gratefully.

    “So, um, what does your mother-in-law think? About your little boy, I mean.”

    “She agrees with me, in principle. And she’s very firm with him—she doesn’t let him get away with things. But then, kids notice how adults behave, don’t they? And she brought him a desk with a special chair and a bookcase from Paris, and he saw her hauling all these clothes out of suitcase after suitcase for me, you see, and she sent us a whole lot of mattresses and sheets and things from France, just like that. And a whole lot of kitchen thingies, most of them I can’t even work.”

    “Yeah, all the new appliances seem to be really techo, eh?” agreed Janey sympathetically. “Mum wanted some scales, her old ones, they belonged to her gran, and Dad said he was sure they weren’t accurate any more. She tried loads of shops and all she could find were these weirdo like, electronic ones, y’know? Like, flat. Plain metal. With a digital display.”

    “Um, ye-es…”

    “Like, imagine a small laptop, like closed, you could say these scales, they were like that. Only they didn’t open, and they had a stupid digital display, like numbers, at the top. Only about this big, see?” She demonstrated, holding her hands about fifteen centimetres apart.

    “Flat?” said Lalla dazedly.

    “Yeah.”

    “But where would the flour go?” she groped.

    “That’s exactly what Mum said! So she gave up and came home. Anyway, she reckons if ya gotta have, say, two hundred grammes of flour, and a hundred of sugar, then it doesn’t matter if the weights aren’t exactly right: the proportions’ll still be the same, ’cos you’re measuring them on the same scales! See?”

    “Yes, of course!”

    They beamed at each other.

    At the far side of the shop Robert was demonstrating a very nice new furnishing fabric to a lady from not-so-distant Double Bay. He observed the body language and sagged slightly. Phew! Whatever Janey was saying to Lady Sale, it seemed to of hit the spot, thank goodness!

    The visit ended with a firm appointment for Mr Travitsky in person to come and look at the house, sketch out some designs for the sitting-room, and generally see what he could do to help them, and Lalla clutching a sample of one of the lovely yellow and white fabrics from the current display, sure that it would do for something. Luckily Marie-Louise agreed: it would be perfect for the “breakfast room”: a sunny look, tu sais! Curtains, of course, and per’aps a small sofa… Ah! She knew the very look! White painted wooden frames and natural cane backs; also for the dining chairs, bien sûr! They looked at the website… Boulevard St Germain, Paris, 5e. Oh, dear.

    … “Well, it’s progress,” Lalla admitted limply to Miss Starkie next day after the promised visit or perhaps visitation: the designer had brought his assistant, several large rolls of fabric, four giant books of fabric samples, two laptops containing innumerable sketches, photographs, and you-name-its, a digital camera—the assistant using a different one as an extra, or back-up, or something—and an electronic tape measure.

    “Sounds as if he’ll do a good job for you. Wait and see. At least you can afford to get rid of the lot if you hate it.”

    “Mm. –Did you know they had electronic tape measures these days, Miss Starkie?” she burst out.

    “Nope, but I’m not surprised. I think this calls for a bracer.” Insouciantly she produced a bottle. Lalla’s eyes bulged: vodka?

    “Can you take it neat?” the old woman asked, pouring into two well-sized tumblers.

    She shook her head numbly.

    “In that case it’s ginger ale or homemade lemon cordial.”

    “Off your tree? I’d like to try that, please.”

    Miss Starkie duly poured, added water and handed her a glass. She sat down and picked up her own—neat. “Down the hatch,” she said, raising it.

    “Cheers,” replied Lalla numbly, tasting. Ooh, lovely! Before she knew it she’d finished it. Ooh, heck.

    Miss Starkie had simply knocked her own back. “Better?”

    “Mm, lots, thanks! Oh, dear: Peter said I’d reaped the whirlwind, and that’s exactly what she is!” she said with a weak laugh.

    “Right. On the other hand, think of the ma-in-laws you might have got. –Well, his obbo John Whatsisface’s mother, for a start.”

    “Ugh!”

    “Exactly. Or any of those cosy, managing middle-class mums that infest Antipodean suburbia, really.”

    Lalla met her eye, reddened, and gulped: “Yes!”

    Miss Starkie merely nodded wryly, and stowed the vodka bottle away for the next occasion, in no doubt that there’d be one.

    Chris Hahn, Q.C,., had invited Sir Peter and Lady Sale to a cocktail party. “Why us?” said Lalla numbly.

    “People do,” Peter replied feebly.

    “But— I mean, we’ve never even met him!”

    This was undeniably true, all the paperwork for the house having been handled by the appointed representatives, and seller and buyer never having come face-to-face.

    “All I can say is,” Peter admitted, “it’d be even worse in London.”

    “Ugh. Shall I wear that nice black dress again?”

    “Little black number,” he corrected. “Why not? It’s what it’s for.” Forbearing to say “But leave the giant green puffball at home.”

    So they went, Lalla in the giant green puffball over the little black dress. This time Peter investigated the jewel case Maman had foisted on her and foisted a pair of emerald earrings from it on her. Not large, but nice.

    “What am I supposed to say about these?” enquired Lalla on a dry note. “‘Oh, these? Yes, I think possibly they came from Paris’?”

    “Well, you could say: ‘Oh, these? Rather nice, aren’t they? Peter spoils me.’ –What’s the matter?” he gasped, as her face puckered.

    “That’s what—you said—in Canberra!”

    “Eh? –Don’t cry, for the Lord’s sake, darling! You’ll ruin your make-up!”

    “I’m not,” said Lalla, sniffing hard. “It was about the ring.”

    “The— Oh! So it was!” He picked up the neat little hand that bore the ring and kissed it. “Nothing to bawl about.”

    No, maybe not. But she had a feeling this ruddy cocktail do could be.

    … Chris Hahn twinkled at her over a glass of something sharp-looking. Maybe it was a Martini: she thought that was the sort of glass they served them in at Palmyra Polynesia. Few of their rich clients had gone for anything tropical, they all seemed to drink what they were used to at home.

    “So how do you like the house, Lady Sale?”

    “I wish you’d call me Lalla,” replied Lalla with a sigh. “Since my efforts to drop the blimmin’ title entirely in Australia have proved vain.” –By this time she’d drunk three strange-looking dark pinkish things in fairly sharp but not very sharp glasses out of sheer desperation. Peter had been hauled off by a clutch of suits who were now yacking at him.

    “I’d be happy to call you Lalla! I’m Chris.”

    “I know. The whole of Sydney seems to call you that.”

    The Q.C., who wasn’t the middle-aged, portly person whom Lalla had been imagining, but a good-looking, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man who might be forty, but scarcely more, looked wry. “Yeah. Home turf, Lalla. So how is the house?”

    “It’s lovely. But it’s so big: it’s taking ages to put enough furniture in it. I mean, my mother-in-law and I did look at lots of shops, but their things were all hideous. Only now we’ve found a nice decorator, by sheer luck: he was in a little antique shop when I was, and he’s really helping, he knows where to find things. I s’pose if I’d always lived in Sydney I’d know, too, but I haven’t a clue and of course Peter’s mother is just as much as sea, because she’s French. Well, I mean, she can deal with anything and anybody!” she added with a laugh, “but it’s a matter of finding the stuff, isn’t it?”

    “Of course,” he agreed gravely, not betraying the fact that he was trying not to laugh. Adorable, wasn’t she? No doubt the muck she’d been drinking—was that a bloody Manhattan glass?—had helped oil the wheels, but it was pretty clear to the not inexperienced Mr Hahn that Lalla Sale was both intelligent and naïve, a combination all too rare in the Land Down Under. In his circles, at least. They were either abysmally stupid but not naïve at all, or not naïve at all and both marginally intelligent and fiercely competitive, like his bloody ex.

    “So how far have you got?”

    “Well, the two lovely dark green leather sofas for the sitting-room have come, and we’ve chosen the curtain material: a little spriggy green pattern, quite delicate, on a white background. Alan—the decorator—thinks we should paint the walls above the wainscoting white, not try for a colour. And he’s going to use the spriggy pattern on the big seat in the bay window, too: he’s going to have it upholstered.”

    “That’s good. It used to be upholstered, but I had it all removed, it was very grubby and worn. After my grandmother died my grandfather used to let the dogs sleep on it.”

    “I see. That wouldn’t have been a selling-point.”

    “No. The agents thought I should have the kitchen done up, but it would’ve been pointless, women always have their own ideas about kitchens, don’t they?”

    “Um, yes,” Lalla admitted. “My friend Sherrie, who used to flat with us in Auckland, she’s married to one of our old landlords, a very nice man, and when they decided to make it permanent she had the kitchen completely re-done, even though he’d had it all done just a few years earlier. That was before his wife left him and he was trying to do things to please her, he didn’t realise that she had a boyfriend down in Christchurch, poor man. It was a very smart kitchen, but Sherrie wanted a different look.”

    “And he didn’t kick up at the unnecessary expense?”

    “No, he’s a rich butcher,” she explained seriously.

    Chris Hahn very nearly lost it. “I see,” he said very weakly indeed. “So you’re an Aucklander, Lalla?”

    “Mm.”

    Possibly he should’ve got someone to do a bit of background research before inviting the Sales, Chris reflected: he had a vague idea that the marriage was very recent. Uh—something someone had got off that bloke Carpenter from QSMME, was it? Damn. So he didn’t pursue that avenue but merely asked with a twinkle in his eye: “So what do you envisage for the kitchen, Lalla?”

    “I like it as it is, really: I love old kitchens. Marie-Louise, Peter’s mother, has got lots of ideas, but I think we’d better let Mrs Beattie choose. That’s Peter’s cook, she’s still in London. But their granny flat is almost finished, now: the men are just doing the fiddly bits round the windows!” she beamed. “It’s not a flat, really, it’s like a little house in the garden.”

    “Oh, right,” he said groggily. “Uh—how did Miss Starkie take that, Lalla?”

    “She thought it was the best spot,” Lalla replied sunnily.

    He sagged. So they’d bothered to consult the old hag. Well, possibly their lives wouldn’t be made a misery for them, then. “Good! Now, what are you drinking?”

    Lalla looked blankly at her empty glass. “I don’t know. The nice girl with the tray was offering them to people and they were ignoring her, so I thought I’d better take one. And then she gave me two more. Did you order them specially?”

    ‘Uh—no. Just asked the caterer to do all that. It looks like a Manhattan, Lalla.”

    “It was sort of darkish pink.”

    “Mm. Did you like it?” he asked. He was aware that for the past ten years or so the stupid and not naïve ones—and not a few of the marginally intelligent and not naïve ones—had been knocking back the bloody things under the impression they were sophisticated, some damned thing on the TV having given them the idea.

    “Not really, it was too sweet, but the poor girl was looking upset because she kept trying to serve people and they all ignored her. Your caterer employs her through RightSmart: that’s the firm that’s found people for us!” she beamed. “Isn’t that a coincidence?”

    “Uh—yeah,” he croaked. “So—uh—you’ve got a full staff, Lalla?”

    “Heck, no! Sam’s doing the garden, he’s really good at digging, and Gina’s helping with the housework. They started off as polishers, though.”

    “Polishers?” he echoed numbly.

    “Polishing the wainscoting.”

    “Good God! You found people to do that?”

    “Well, I didn’t: the lovely people at RightSmart did.”

    “In that case,” said Chris Hahn on a sour note, “possibly they could find someone to do butler for me, on the rare occasions when I need to give a dinner party.”

    Lalla laughed. “Actually I could do that! –I’ve done a proper English course online,” she explained. “And I did butler service at Palmyra Polynesia when the clients requested it.”

    “That place in the Cooks?” he croaked.

    “Mm. That’s where I used to work.”

    Even in Australia the land of mateship people tended to marry within their own social circles: most certainly in the circles in which he now moved. He would not have dreamed, himself, of marrying anyone from his parents’ old suburb, for instance, unless, like him, they’d been to uni and done a decent degree. Chris Hahn, Q.C., now felt as if his eyes were starting from his head. Sale had married a female butler?

    Lalla continued blithely: “But of course RightSmart could find you someone: they’ve got all sorts of people on their books and they check their references very carefully.”

    “Uh—good,” he croaked. “Sorry; what?”

    “I said, maybe I could ring you tomorrow and give you their number? I mean, it’s in my phone, but I don’t know how to send it to you.”

    “Uh—oh. Thanks—yes, do ring me.” What the Hell had he been about to say? His eye fell on her empty glass. Oh—yeah. “Uh—do let me get you something else to drink.”

    “I think I’ve had enough, really, thanks. Hadn’t you better circulate?”

    What? He stared at her.

    Maybe he was a bit deaf? Lalla repeated politely: “Hadn’t you better circulate, Chris?”

    “Oh! Yeah, maybe I better had,” said Chris Hahn numbly in the accents of his boyhood.

    Lalla breathed a sigh of relief as he went off into the crowd and started talking to a lady in a bright fuchsia dress, sort of very creased, only meant creased, with a very fancy fascinator that made her look rather like a puce parrot. He seemed like quite a nice man, but she never knew what to say to people at fancy does.

    … “You seemed to be getting on very well with Hahn,” said Peter in spite of himself when they were on their way home—in a taxi, Lalla having refused to hear of either making Troy wait or of dragging him out in the city traffic again. There was now, of course, very little traffic, it being past les heures de pointe.

    Lalla repeated her earlier thought: “He seems like quite a nice man, but I never know what to say to people at fancy does.”

    Peter’s hackles, which had unaccountably risen, at this lay down again and he merely said mildly: “No. So what did you talk about?”

    “I just let him ask questions, really. About the house, mostly. Guess what: his grandmother used to have upholstery on the nice window-seat, too!”

    Er—one would. Or at the very least a heavy seat cushion. “Fancy that,” he murmured.

    “And he explained why he hadn’t had the kitchen done up as a selling-point: he knows that ladies always like to redecorate their kitchen their own way!” she added with a giggle.

    Right. This was gonna introduce the Sherrie and Bob saga, or he was a Dutchman in his—

    It did.

    Peter just leaned back, and slipped his arm round her.

    —in his clogs, in his tulip garden! he finished the thought. Quite!

    Peter would not perhaps have been so smug had he known that next day, when Mr Hahn rang Lalla instead of waiting for her to ring him, he certainly got RightSmart’s details off her, but he also asked her warmly to lunch.

    To which Lalla replied blithely: “I can’t, thanks, Chris. Peter’s mum and I are gonna suss out a lovely armchair that Alan thinks’ll be just right for Peter in the sitting-room! Good luck with the butler! Bye-bye!”

    The sophisticated lawyer hung up and looked bitterly at his phone. Concluding: “Well, sod bloody Sale and his bloody armchair—and his bloody French mother, come to think of it!”

    This last sentiment was pretty much that of the unfortunate antique dealer with the chair.

    She looked underneath it. “Do not dare to tell us that this is an antique shair! –Not one word!” as he opened his mouth. “That price is outrageous! –We don’t pay it, Lalla. I cannot imagine why Alan sends us ’ere!”

    “It’s a rort, is it, Mrs Sale?” put in Troy who, since the somewhat obscure suburb in which the place was situated contained plenty of free parking, had been able to follow them in.

    The dealer gave him an evil look.

    “That’s an Australianism. It means they’re trying to rip you off,” Lalla explained.

    Up until this instant the dealer had believed that Lady Sale was a real soft touch. He glared bitterly.

    “Quite correct, Troy,” Marie-Louise agreed grimly. She made a counter offer. It was less than a tenth of the asking price. Lalla clapped a hand to her mouth.

    “No!” said the dealer angrily.

    “Very well. Come, my dears, we go.”

    They went.

    The dealer was left staring numbly at a specimen of, really, a very nice 1930s Victorian-style winged armchair.

    It would, indeed, if re-covered in the lovely dark green brocade Alan Travitsky had recommended, have looked just right in the sitting-room. But no-one tried to rip off Marie-Louise Sale and got away with it.

Next chapter:

https://thelallaeffect.blogspot.com/2024/01/snips-and-snails-and-puppy-dogs.html