Settling In

21

Settling In

    “There it goes!” said Lalla as the campervan disappeared down the driveway. She waved to it, smiling.

    The firm which hired out campervans and caravans had been only too glad to hire her a nice big one, the summer holidays being over and demand having, as usual, dropped like a stone, but had been disconcerted at being asked if they could deliver it and take it away when they’d finished with it, pointing out that most people did that themselves. However, she’d assured them that her husband had plenty of money and would pay them for these services. Adding uncertainly that he’d given her this funny credit card thingie, the hotel in the Cooks where she used to work took them, they had a lot of rich American customers, but she didn’t know if they’d work in Australia. Weakly the gentleman at the other end of the line had asked what it was. Diners’ Club. He had gulped slightly but admitted: “Well, yeah, we do take that, if— Um, I mean, yeah.” Would he like her to pay in advance for bringing it and collecting it? Lalla had asked sunnily. “Um, we do require a downpayment Mrs, Um,”—“Sale, only the card’s in my husband’s name, Peter Sale.”—“Um, yeah, that’s okay. Um, yeah, well, delivery and collection in advance, plus the usual downpayment then, Mrs Sale? –Good-oh.”

    “Wasn’t it fun living in a tiny wee house on wheels? When I rang up to say they could take it back, and told the nice man what fun it was, he said that lots of people take them on holiday, and to bear them in mind for our next holiday. That’d be rather nice, what do you think, Peter?”

    Peter thought over his dead body. “Er…”

    “Hey, yeah! Can we, Peter?”

    “Perhaps. We’ll see. I, um, thought we might go back to the UK for your mid-year break, Petey.”

    “And stay at the flat?”

    “Mm.”

    “And go up to Scotland and stay at the castle again?”

    “Uh—well, the weather’ll be better. I hadn’t thought of… We’ll have to see if it suits Jimmy,” he said weakly.

    “I must say it’d be rather nice to see if summer in Scotland lives up to all those awful English paintings of it,” said Lalla comfortably.

    Peter swallowed a laugh. “Where did that ‘awful’ come from?”

    “Partly from an episode of the Antiques Roadshow—not the one with the hairy cows, they were on a vase, though come to think of it, that was pretty awful, too. They had an episode with a painting of some place in Scotland, Glen or Ben or something, and I thought those colours couldn’t be right, so I looked up some more on the Internet. And they were all like that.”

    “Er—mm. If the hills looked pinkish it would have been the heather in bloom.”

    “That or the artists’ bloomin’ imaginations!” she squeaked, with a burst of giggles.

    “Very good, we’ll make a cryptic crossword compiler of you yet,” he said, putting his arm round her.

    “Ugh!” replied Lalla in frank horror. “Honestly, their minds are on the level of the clever-clever boys in the top form at school: stupid puns, then they used to collapse in sniggers at their own wit.”

    After a moment she realised he was goggling at her. “I’m right,” she assured him tranquilly.

    “Yes,” he admitted ruefully. “So you are, darling. Oh, lawks! All that misplaced intellectual effort!”

    Lalla smiled. At least he was in a good mood. Though very possibly living in their very bare house was gonna chase that away rather soon. If only he’d express an opinion about the furnishings! But he’d contributed considerably less than Petey, who’d at least thought a wallpaper with old planes on it might be good, and volunteered that the spriggy room at the flat had been okay, but it wasn’t a boy’s room, was it? And kindly okayed the choice of one bright red and one bright blue duvet for the bunks. Choosing the red one for his own bunk, of course the top one. Silly Peter had come in and gaped at him installed in it and said: “Wouldn’t the lower bunk be more convenient, old chap?” Really! You’d think he’d never been a boy himself!

    “Come on, Peter, we’ll have another cup of coffee to celebrate moving into Green Gables at last!” she decided. “I’m so glad Marie-Louise sent us that lovely Italian coffee-pot.”

    “Wouldn’t it be French?” Petey objected, as they duly adjourned to the kitchen, which at the moment was the only downstairs room that had any furniture in it. Which was not Lalla’s fault: she couldn’t do everything all at once, and if it hadn’t dawned on him by now, well, it was going to, when nothing appeared in the other rooms, wasn’t it?

    “No,” she said. “It was made in Italy, the Italians make the best coffee-pots. You can buy them all over France, evidently.”

    “I geddit. Joe, he’s Italian, didja know?”

    “Mm, I thought he must be—well, Australian-Italian: Franchini’s an Italian name,” she said, pronouncing it as Joe himself did, with a “ch” sound as in “china”.

    “I’d say it was an Australian-Italian name,” put in Peter drily. “When I was a boy, the H following the C before a front vowel hardened the consonant in Italian: ‘Frankini’,” he pronounced carefully.

    Lalla clapped her hand to her mouth. Help, she was gonna laugh!

    “What?” he said, and that did it. She broke down and laughed helplessly.

    “What?” cried Peter. “What was funny in that?”

    Before she could stop herself, Lalla found she was gasping: “You—were never—a boy, Peter Sale!”

    The two Peters looked at her with identical puzzled expressions.

    Peter Junior found his tongue first, of course. “Yes, he was, Mum, we seen—I mean saw—the photos!”

    Help! She was laughing again!

    “Look,” said Peter Senior loudly, “was that some sort of veiled insult or—or what? What have I done?”

    Lalla wiped her eyes shakily. “Assumed that a boy of Petey’s age would want the bottom bunk, you great twit!”

    “Uh—oh.”

    “Yes, oh. Honestly, Peter! You live in another world! –Um, that’s a saying, Petey.”

    “Yeah, I know. Hey, Mum, since it’s like, a celebration, c’n I have a cup of coffee?”

    “Why not?” said Lalla airily. She could see that Peter was about to object: he opened his mouth, frowning, and then he shut it again. Silly nit, had he imagined she was about to give a kid full-strength, dark Italian-roast espresso coffee?

    Bernie Carpenter looked at the empty sitting-room with its glowing polished floor and its one crimson rug, sourced, he was aware, courtesy of some ponce of an offsider of Clyde Wainwright’s who was into antiques, and grimaced. “Yeah, see whatcha mean, Lalla.”

    She sighed. “Yeah. He won’t express an opinion, Bernie! Well, once he said he liked those huge old square leather armchairs at Scotch Jimmy’s place; but would that style suit this room? And can you even get that sort of thing these days?”

    “This the bloke with the 19th-century fake castle? –Yeah. Well, I’d say not, in that case. What sort of stuff has he got in his flat in London?”

    “Very traditional. Buttoned brown leather, but not too bulky. It’s smart, but a bit depressing.”

    “Mm.” He eyed the wainscoted walls thoughtfully. “Ya don’t wanna bung too much dark stuff in a room like this. Look, this’ll sound a bit mad, but at least polishing that bloody panelling’d brighten it up a bit. There’s a firm downtown that can supply people for all sorts of odd jobs like that.” He scratched his head. “Who the Hell was it that was telling me about it?”

    “Sharon?” offered Lalla hopefully.

    “Um, yeah, mighta been: coulda been the firm that found her cleaning lady… Hang on, I’ll give ’er a bell.” He outed with his phone, got the intel, and reported: “RightSmart. One word, she reckons. She’s sending me their number.” His phone beeped. “Yeah, here is, where’s your phone? I’ll send it to you.”

    Oh, no, horrid technology, thought Lalla, her heart sinking. “But how do I get it out again?” she gulped.

    Bernie’s jaw sagged. “Uh, look, you fetch it, eh, and I’ll show you how the bloody thing works.”

    Gratefully Lalla let him do that. “Thanks, Bernie. It’s awfully complicated, isn’t it? Well, I know how to ring Marie-Louise, now—that’s Peter’s mum—but I didn’t know how to do other stuff.”

    “No. We’ll just go over it again, eh? Now, you’ve turned it off—right. Ya wanna ring someone up: go on, show me.”

    “Um… Oh, dear! It looks different!” she discovered.

    “Yeah, that’s because it’s got more than one number in it, see? Now…” He explained all over again, wondering as he did so what the fuck was wrong with bloody Sale. Not to say, how many other bits of techno junk that she couldn’t work the house might contain.

    Lalla did finally get it, and managed to contact the firm. Bernie wouldn’t have said her end of the conversation was all that clear, but the person at the other end seemed to get it, took her details, and she hung up, smiling, to report: “They’ve got some very reliable people, they check all their references, and they’re sure they can find someone suitable!”

    “Good. Um, look, we could ask Sharon about furniture shops, but, um, well, you’ve seen her place. Don’t think ya want frilly cushions and stuff.”

    “Um, no. Though they are pretty.”

    Sickening, more like. Bernie took a deep breath. “Think you’d better get Peter to ask Clyde Wainwright where his wife shops. Ya won’t like her, she’s a flamin’ snob from the Victorian Establishment—uh, Melbourne, Lalla,” he clarified somewhat weakly, “but they have got a lovely old Federation house, and the furniture’s real antiques. Think that’d be what you’d need in this room.”

    Mrs Wainwright sounded terrifying! Lalla looked at him in horror. Help. Peter was due home for tea any minute now: she was pretty sure if she didn’t mention it, Bernie would.

    … He did. Yikes.

    RightSmart had sent two lovely people for the polishing, a wiry man of around fifty, who looked nice and strong, and a very energetic-looking young woman in her mid-twenties who explained apologetically that she couldn’t start before nine forty-five and would have to leave around two-fifteen to collect her little girl from school, it was a bit of a drive. They both had excellent references, and although she was supposed to choose one of them, Lalla decided to take them both: why not? Especially since the man, Sam Andrews was his name, looked thoughtfully at the passage walls and said off his own bat: “Hey, these could do with a going-over, too: could do them for ya, if ya like, Mrs Sale.” The young woman, whose name was Gina Culthorpe, agreed and asked if there was anything else that needed doing. What about housework?

    She was looking hopeful and it dawned on Lalla that of course once they’d finished the polishing the poor things would be out of a job, so she said: “Well, we will need help in the house soon, Mrs Culthorpe, but at the moment we’re just kind of living in the kitchen. I mean, we’ve got beds, and Marie-Louise, my mother-in-law, sent us some lovely bedding from France, and my neighbour helped me get two nice duvets for the bunks in Petey’s room from a shop not far away, but there will be lots of vacuuming and dusting eventually: that sort of stuff.”

    “And cleaning the bathrooms, I could do that, Mrs Sale! I’ve done loads of housework jobs, only I had to give up my last two because one lady went on an overseas cruise and the other one decided she wanted me to come at three o’clock and I simply couldn’t! I mean, Katie’s only six.”

    “No, of course not!” Lalla agreed warmly. “Um, well, I’m supposed to be looking for furniture: it’s taking up an awful lot of my time, so what say you start on the cleaning when the polishing’s all done?”

    “Really?” she gasped, looking as if she was going to cry, oh, dear! “Thank you! That’d be great! Can I tell RightSmart? I mean, you’d wanna employ me through them, would you?”

    “Yes, of course: the lady who rang me explained it all to me, it sounds really easy.”

    “Any other stuff ya might need doing?” asked Sam Andrews hopefully. “Outside, maybe? Bit of gardening? I’ve done a fair bit of that—well, mostly the heavy stuff, ya know? Most of RightSmart’s ladies, they like to choose the flowers and shrubs themselves. But I’ve done rockeries, and lots of flower gardens, and one place, I put in the veggie garden. That was a good job, only once I got it established they didn’t need me no more.”

    “Really?”

    “Um, yes, it’s in me résumé, Mrs Sale.”

    “Yes, of course: I mean, that’s just the sort of gardening we need; I wasn’t doubting your word, Mr Andrews.”

    “Sam,” he corrected her happily.

    “I’m Gina,” added Mrs Culthorpe, blowing her nose and stowing her handkerchief away.

    “Righto: Gina and Sam, and I’m Lalla,” said Lalla firmly. “It’s a bit unusual, isn’t it? My mum got it out of a book.”

    “That’s nothing compared to the names some of the kids, they have nowadays!” replied Gina breezily.

    “I know! There’s a little girl in Petey’s class that he swears is called Addison!”

    “Heck,” replied Gina in awe. “Katie’s class hasn’t got one of those, but there’s a Harper and an Indiana.”

    “Eh?” croaked Sam. “Ya don’t mean, like Indiana Jones? But he was a bloke!”

    “No!” said Lalla with a sudden loud giggle. “Don’t you remember, in one of the films his dad—I think it was his dad—says ‘We named the dog Indiana!’”

    “Ooh, yeah!” Gina agreed. She went into a giggling fit but recovered to say: “Sean Connery, was that the one? With a beard. Well, he was older, then, of course.”

    Sam grinned weakly. “You’re right. But I can’t laugh, it’s too mad. Indiana, poor little kid! And what sort of name is Harper, for Pete’s sake?”

    “It’s not a first name at all, surely?” said Lalla dazedly. “I mean, I know a Jan Harper in New Zealand.”

    “That’d be right! There was an old Mr Harper in Mum and Dad’s street,” said Gina. “I remember Nonna said—well, it was in Italian, but it was awfully rude. It was because he was too mean to let the kids pick his plums, he had two enormous trees and he never ate any of them, just let them rot. She tried to put the evil eye on him, but it didn’t work, more’s the pity, he sold that place for megabucks and retired to the Gold Coast.”

    Sam sniffed. “Depends how ya look at it. One of those all-white retirement complexes for wrinklies, was it, Gina?”

    “Um, yeah, judging by the pics he showed Dad down the bowling club, yeah.”

    “Ugh! Deadly! He deserved every horrid inch of it!” cried Lalla militantly. “I never heard of anything so mean! –So your family’s Italian, are they, Gina?” –She certainly looked as if they were: she was very pretty, with a slightly olive skin, big dark eyes, and a mop of black curls, in fact she was very like nice Donna Linarello from Canberra.

    “Yeah, well, originally, on Dad’s side. Nonna made her kids speak it at home but we’ve never bothered—I mean, Mum’s not, and she said, Blow that, we’re in Australia, not Italy. They had a big row, because of course Nonna thought we oughta go to church and the Catholic school as well, but Mum said No way, you hear such terrible stories about those places. And just look at all the stuff that’s come out about them since: she was right!”

    “Too right,” Sam agreed sourly. “Met a bloke at RightSmart, he’d been in a kind of class action against the bastards—lot of Brothers, think it was: they’re notorious for child abuse, Lalla. Well, dunno if they got anythink in the end, the Catholic Church is tight as a duck’s bum when it comes to coughing up dough, but at least it showed them up.”

    Lalla nodded, her eyes very round. “It sounds terrible, Sam!”

    “Yes, was, poor joker. Never really got over it. Well, started off with a nice job in a big accountants’ firm, passed his exams and that, only then he had a breakdown. So after that he just took on casual jobs for RightSmart. They do get some accounting jobs—temping at tax time, that sort of thing, y’know? And they were real decent to ’im: said they’d give him first whack at them, but poor ole Ron, he couldn’t face it. So he just done odd jobs. Liked working outdoors.”

    Lalla nodded, her eyes filled with tears. “Poor man.”

    “No, well, he was happy when he was out in the fresh air, Lalla. Loved working with flowers. Got a nice part-time job with a big plant nursery in the end, twenny hours a week, so it worked out okay for him.”

    “I’m glad.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Gina. “Some of the stories ya see on the news— Well, it destroys them, poor things!”

    “Yeah. So ya just went to an ordinary school, Gina?” asked Sam cosily.

    “Aw, heck, yeah! Took Nonna years to come round, of course; only when Di, my eldest sister, she had her twins, that done it. You’d of sworn the old bat didn’t even notice they weren’t christened by Father O’Malley!”

    “Ooh, twins!” said Lalla eagerly. “My neighbour Cherry’s got twins: they’re grown up now, though. How old are they, Gina?”

    Di’s twins were now seven, and a pair of holy terrors, and with these and many more fascinating details of Gina’s extended family’s lives, and mugs of instant coffee all round, not to say some slices of a lovely date loaf donated earlier by Miss Starkie, the rest of the so-called job interview passed very happily on all sides.

    Lalla and Sam then went down the back to consult Miss Starkie about the garden, and Gina came too, since she had the time.

    Very fortunately Miss Starkie seemed to approve of both Sam Andrews and Gina Culthorpe, so that was all right. Though she did note after they’d departed, with fervent thanks to Lalla and promises to see her tomorrow morning, early as she liked, okay, nineish, then (Sam), and around nine-forty-five, or ten if the traffic was bad (Gina), that the proof of the pudding was in the eating.

    The immediate result of this encounter was that Peter opened his front door at eighty-twenty-five on the following morning to a complete stranger, garbed in faded jeans and a baggy grey tee, who greeted him with: “Gidday. You’d be Lalla’s hubby, eh? –Sam Andrews.”

    “Er, yes, Mr Andrews?” he fumbled.

    “Come to do a bit of polishing for yer.”

    “Er, I’m sorry, what?”

    “Polishing. I brought all the stuff, like I promised Lalla: see, there’s nothing like beeswax for bringing up old varnished wood.” He held up the shopping carrier that he was lugging and opened it for Peter’s inspection. “Plenny of rags, too, thought ya might not have any, if ya’ve just moved in. An’ I got some sheepskin thingos to buff it up with—well, thought that that Gina, she could do that; see, I’ll do most of the hard yacker, she’s keen but she’s got no idea, really: a proper polishing job, it takes it out of yer. Hadda try all over for the wax, Bunnings and Mitre 10 were both hopeless, of course: finally fell back on the old hardware shop near Dad’s place. ’Course, Dad reckoned I shoulda gone straight there in the first place.” Possibly this speech did not seem to have convinced his audience, as he added: “I’ve got the receipts like Lalla tole me; I mean, heck, I coulda just bought them, only she made me promise!”

    “Er—yes, I’m sure she did,” said Peter very weakly indeed. “Just hold on a moment, will you?” He retreated to the kitchen, where Lalla was pointing out to Petey that if he didn’t hurry up and finish his toast he’d be late for school.

    “Why can’t I have an egg?”

    “Because there aren’t any. Are you gonna eat that toast or shall I chuck it—”

    “Yes!” He picked up the toast but added aggrievedly: “Why aren’t there any eggs?”

    “Because I forgot to put them on the shopping list.”

    “Don’t interrogate your mother like that, thanks. Hurry up, if you want a lift to school: Troy’ll be here any minute.”

    “Wasn’t that him?” said Lalla in surprise.

    “No, Lalla, it was a middle-aged fellow who seems to be expecting to do a polishing job.”

    “Ooh, good, he’s come!” She made for the door but Peter barred her way.

    “Lalla, what is going on? Who is he and what the Hell is he intending to polish? I thought Franchini was doing all that?”

    “Frankini, don’tcha mean?” replied Lalla with a loud giggle. “No, Sam’s not doing the fireplaces, silly. It was Bernie’s idea.—That day he came to tea and you were late home.—He thought if the panelling in the front room was all polished and shiny it’d help brighten the room up, and then Sam thought the passage needed doing, too, so I said of course they could. So they’re starting today.”

    “Who are starting today, exactly, and where did they come from?”

    “This lovely firm that Bernie’s sister Sharon knows! She got her cleaning lady there, you see, and so Gina’s gonna do ours once the polishing’s finished! –We can’t leave him standing on the doorstep, Peter!” With this she pushed past him and rushed out.

    “Petey, do you know anything about these polishing people?” asked Peter Sale pathetically of his ten-year-old son.

    “Sam and Gina. Her little girl, she’s only six, there’s girls in her class called Indiana an’ Harper, an’ Mum’s never gonna doubt my word on my schoolfriends’ names again, see! Only I wouldn’t call Addison Lemon a friend, she’s a girl.” Peter was about to blast him, but he added: “They’re gonna polish the walls. Where that wood is with the funny name.”

    “Funny— Oh. The wainscoting, that’s the technical name for it, Petey.”

    “Wainscoting. Yeah. –I tole Dean Martin that was it, only he said it wasn’t a word!”

    “In future don’t take Dean Martin’s word on anything whatsoever, up to and including the fact that the world is still turning in its orbit.”

    “It’s gotta be, or we’d all fall off, it’s like, linked to gravity, that holds us all on; Ken, he explained that to me.”

    Given that the bloody scientists had come up with no better explanation of what gravity was, all the definitions merely saying what it did, the which, Peter had discovered long since, was the way of all definitions written by cretins, he merely nodded groggily.

    “Come in, Sam,” said Lalla gaily at this point. “Would you like a coffee? Peter likes real Italian-stye coffee but I always think instant’s more soothing in the morning, really.”

    “Um, no thanks, Lalla, just had one. This your Petey, then?”

    “Yes, this is Petey. Petey, this is Mr Andrews, who’s going do the polishing and then the gardening!” she beamed.

    Peter’s jaw dropped. Gardening?

    “Gidday, Petey. Named after yer dad, eh?”

    This was possibly the right thing to say, as Petey then plunged into the full bit and was still at it when Troy walked in.

    “Gidday! Sorry I’m a bit late, Peter, we better get going if we’re gonna drop Petey off.”

    “How did you get in?” he croaked.

    “Yer front door was open.”

    “What? Lalla, darling, this isn’t the Cooks! Please don’t leave the doors open! Anyone could walk in!”

    “Anyone didn’t, Troy did. Well, I’ll try not to, Peter. Tell you what: I’ll tell myself every time I open the door that it’s like the flat: if I leave it open someone’s sure to stroll in and borrow something that I’ll never see again!”

    “Er—yeah.” He looked at his watch. God. “Petey, leave that bloody toast and come on, you’ll be late!”

    Immediate panic. “Where’s my—” etcetera, but they finally took off. The bell was ringing when they got there and he dashed in without so much as the “See ya!” which over the past week had replaced the “Bye-bye” which he must have learned from his mother. Peter sighed.

    “The office now?”

    He jumped. “Yes, thanks Troy. –Look, did you know about these damned polishing people?” he demanded.

    “Yeah, sort of. I mean, Lalla told Mum after your mate Mr Carpenter, he suggested this firm. They do temps an’ stuff. Anyway, Mum knows a lady that’s worked for them for yonks—you know, cleaning jobs an’ stuff—she says they’re really great people to work for and if anyone’s a bit iffy they don’t take them on. See, they really check out their references. And they guarantee the work. So Lalla brought the draft contract round for Mum to have a look at,”—Peter gulped, the word “contract” had not heretofore been mentioned: what in Hell had she signed?—“and that was in it, all right. So she said if these people they were sending looked okay just make sure the real contract had the same wording and it’d be jake. Anyway, she rung Mum—see, she can do that now, Mr Carpenter, he put lots of numbers in her phone and showed her how to look them up,” he added by the way. Peter gulped. “And she said it did and they were gonna start today. Mum says it looks like a really simple arrangement for Lalla, like, she’s not the employer, that’d mean PAYG and stuff. The firm, it’s their employer and Lalla, she just pays their bill every week and they send her a receipt! –They pay the people, see?”

    “Yes,” said the CEO of Quinn Sale very faintly indeed. “I see. Thanks very much, Troy.”

    “No worries!”

    Peter might have observed at this juncture that Troy then gave him a cautious look, opened his mouth as if to speak again, and then thought better of it: but he was far too stunned to notice anything but a full-scale invasion by the Klingons. And quite possibly not even that.

    By the time they reached the office he was just barely compos mentis enough to croak: “Troy, why did Lalla think your mum would be the one to look at the contract?”

    “She used to work for some accountants, she managed their office for them: they took on a lot of temps at tax time and she always hadda check their references and their employment contracts.”

    “I see. Good, I’m glad someone who knows what they’re doing had a look at it.”

    “Yeah, sure, ya can trust Mum!”

    It was to be hoped you could, mm.

    Miss Starkie listened as he poured out the whole saga. Then she said only: “I was just going to boil the jug, Peter. Would you like a cuppa? There’s Earl Grey as well as English Breakfast. –Twining’s,” she added drily. “Heaven only knows what those other brands put in theirs.”

    Gratefully Peter opted for Earl Grey. It suited the way he felt. “Effete, really,” he explained.

    “Hardly, you’re the wrong sex.”

     After a startled moment he laughed. “Yes! My God, I don’t know another soul who’s interested in English etymology!”

    “Mm. Possibly you’re in the wrong job. What did you major in?”

    “Uh—Eng. Lit., with a strong dose of historical linguistics. I couldn’t go on with it,” he said with a little sigh: “it was already obvious that Dad was a sick man, and he was so anxious for me to come into the firm… Not that I wasn’t already in it, really: worked there in my school holidays since I was sixteen, and sacrificed all of the varsity long vacs to it as well.”

    “I see.” She said no more, just got on with the tea.

    When they were both sipping he said, gazing out at her pretty garden: “The latest is, Lalla appears to have unilaterally appointed Troy as the family chauffeur: she’s planning to employ him through this RightSmart firm. True, it’ll be convenient for her, but it’s hardly a fulltime job. Someone apparently suggested driving lessons when she disclosed she can’t drive—Helen Adams again, was it? Or possibly Cherry Simpson.”

    “Two peas in a pod,” noted the old woman.

    Peter gave a startled laugh. “Yes! It was certainly someone without the wit to realise that if she hasn’t learned to drive by now there must be a damn’ good reason for it. –Complete inability to coordinate simultaneous hand and foot movements with the messages from the brain. She can actually feel the messages going out, she tells me, but she can’t move the desired appendages. She has the same problem when a tennis ball’s flying at her. Got into hot water at school when she tried to explain it to the dunderheaded games mistress, poor darling.”

    “Mm. Neurological, I’d say,” said Miss Starkie thoughtfully.

    “I think it must be, yes. We made the mistake of letting her field once when Petey and I were playing cricket in the Cooks.” He winced.

    “Broken window?”

    “No, I was strongly advised not to buy a kid of that age a real cricket ball!” he said with a laugh. “No, Petey’s rubber ball. It went into the tropical undergrowth.”

    Miss Starkie smiled. “How long did it take to find it?”

    “All up? About twenty-five minutes before dinner, and something like an hour after it. I was successful, but I had to resort to a stiff Red Label with a lot of ice at the conclusion of the hunt. –Neither of them helped with the second round, Petey because he had to go to bed, and Lalla because she claimed it would be easier just to buy him a new ball.”

    Miss Starkie laughed. “Women are more practical than men.”

    “Practical! Do we need a fulltime chauffeur?”

    “No, but the boy needs a job. And at least you wouldn’t be paying that car-hire firm a small fortune.”

    “True. On the hand, it would necessitate a certain expenditure,” replied Peter, fixing her with a cold eye.

    “Buying—a—car!” the old woman choked, going off in a fit of laughter.

    “Quite. –I grant your earlier point, or at least its general reference, but please do me an immense favour and don’t refer to Lalla as ‘practical’ in my presence again. –My nerves are shattered,” he explained over the further peals of laughter. “I hope that’s asexual enough for you?”

    “Stop—it!” she gasped. She wiped her eyes, revived herself with a sip of cooling Earl Grey and added: “Thank God. Thought I was going to live out my days without ever finding another kindred spirit.”

    “Me, too,” Peter admitted wryly. “I must get my books over. Well, my PA is sorting things out for me at the London end, but I’m afraid he doesn’t see selecting my linguistics tomes, not to say my English classics, as more urgent than finding someone reliable as a tenant for his flat.”

    “Does he own it?” she asked in surprise. “I thought one generally didn’t, in London.”

    “That’s true, but John’s a financial whizz—worked out he’d do much better as an owner. He ought to be working at a higher level, really, but we have an arrangement that if his old mum falls off the rails he can take off for New Zealand without notice to pick her up again.”

     Miss Starkie made a face. “Alzheimer’s, is it?”

    “No, just some sort of mental instability—she has had treatment in the UK—coupled with, I’m afraid, a rooted selfishness and the idea that her family members exist to serve. The husband was completely under the thumb: retired early for her sake, but then just faded out, poor bastard: worn out, one gathered. The daughter couldn’t take it: she emigrated to Canada when she was only about twenty. The bloody woman had thrown one of her turns when the poor kid was in the middle of A-Levels: the sort that can’t stand attention being focussed on anyone but herself, you know? –Mm. Every so often she loses it and starts accusing anyone and everyone of any crime one would care to name and some that one wouldn’t, and throwing things.” He looked dry. “Heavy enough to go through the nearest window but not too heavy to be easy to heft.”

    “Oh,” said Miss Starkie in the voice of one who now fully understood.

    “Quite. Well, been doing it all her life and getting away with it, why would she stop now? She was spectacularly pretty when she was young, possibly that’s connected.”

    “Uh-huh. Discovered the world wasn’t her oyster after all, eh? Well, poor fellow. One might say he’d be better off leaving the woman to get on with it, but very few of us would have the guts to walk away from that sort of family tie.”

    “Quite,” Peter agreed, wondering involuntarily if perhaps Miss Starkie herself had done so and that was why she’d come to live on the Hahn property when she was still quite a young woman.

    “May I freshen your cup?”

    “Yes, please do,” he said, smiling. “Miss Starkie,” he said, having sipped and sighed, “it—it’s ridiculous! Lalla’s surrounding herself with a—a retinue of prospective old family retainers!”

    Her eyes twinkled but she merely returned mildly: “She’s used to working with a group of people. I think she’s been lonely in that big house. Possibly you’d better get those Beatties of yours over pronto if you want them to fit in.”

    “Hell, you’re right!”

    She hesitated, and then said: “What about a kitset house for them?”

    “I beg your pardon, Miss Starkie?” he croaked.

    “I only have the word of the egregious ‘Pop’ Martin on this—”

    “And that’s another one! I can’t step out onto my own front drive without falling over the man!”

    “Quite.”

    “I’m sorry, please do go on with what you were saying.”

    “He claims to know of an excellent firm which specialises in small kitset houses. He characterised them as ‘Federation’; but as you know, that’s quite wrong. The things probably come complete with a small verandah and quite possibly finials.”

    “Finials?”

    “On the peaks of the gables.”

    “Oh! Yes, I have seen one or two older bungalows… I see. Er: kitset?”

    “Ready-made walls. Possibly the modern term is ‘flat-packed’,” said the old woman with infinite distaste. “One gathers that the workmen pour the slab, unquote, and get the house up for you in no time. Whether the things have any sort of insulation I don’t know, but I would strongly doubt it. They come in a choice of one or two bedrooms. I think possibly you might class the result as a chalet.”

    There had been a slight but definite emphasis on the “you” in that last sentence. “I see,” said Peter, looking wry. “Well, the site has planning permission for several more residences, I gather Hahn went into that long since.”

    “Mm.”

    “Well—uh—how on earth does one contact Martin?”

    “And will the old fool recall the firm’s name if you do? –Quite. Get home at afternoon teatime any day of the working week, would be my suggestion, Peter. They’ll all be there,” she ended on a horribly neutral note.

    Miss Starkie was, of course, right. They were all in the kitchen, cosily ensconced round the huge old oblong wooden table that had been sourced at inordinate expense from an “antique” shop recommended by the place that sold the Persian rugs—Lalla had fallen irrevocably in love with it. The thing’s top was stripped down to the wood and gave the impression of having been scrubbed by generations of hardworking skivvies with stiff brushes, yellow soap, and hot water boiled on an old black iron wood-burning stove. The slab-like straight legs were done out in what Peter would have taken his dying oath was the putrid “distressed” look that had been horribly fashionable not so very long ago: in this case, layers of cream and pale green paint, scraped back with the raw wood artistically showing here and there. His bet would have been a lock-up somewhere discreetly distant from the trendy shop, in which Bert and Alf or, this being Downunder, Steve-o and Jimbo, neither apocryphal, were employed to strip, scrape, scratch, scrub, paint, re-strip, attack with various h’implements, and generally scarify. One leg had a tremendous burn mark which looked as if a poker or a hefty soldering iron had been wielded.

    Involuntarily he counted heads. Lalla, of course: fetchingly decked out—it was a lovely warm day—in a skimpy pink shoe-string-strapped top, braless, and a glowing pareu in shades of gold, pink, blue and bright lime. Next to her, a completely strange little girl of about Petey’s size, fawn-headed, with a determined look about her, in what Peter would have taken his dying oath was also one of Lalla’s sarongs, doubled over and wound around her small but sturdy form. Sam Andrews, tired blue-grey tee, tired jeans. Joe Franchini, tired black tee, tired jeans—the downstairs fireplaces were done but Lalla had agreed he could do the upstairs ones. Cherry Simpson from Number 3, at the precise moment handing large slices of what looked like a Namesake Cake. Troy Adams, very startled—Peter had taken a taxi from the office—his hand halfway to his gob with a giant sandwich. Pop Martin, complete with Dean Martin. And Petey. Both with bulging cheeks, though at least the glasses in front of them appeared to contain fruit juice rather than Coke or a ferocious “energy” drink. Which according to unreliable report Pop did so let Dean drink! And, last but not least, an attractive young woman with a mop of short black curls who was presumably the fabled Gina who was never there at the times he was, plus a very sweet little girl with a mop of ditto.

    “Hullo, Peter!” cried his spouse happily. “We weren’t expecting you! You’re just in time for some of Cherry’s lovely cake!”

    “It’s a cherry cake,” said the fawn-headed child next to her in a solemn voice. “Because she is.”

    “Yes,” said Lalla, putting her arm round her: “that’s right, Addison. –This is Addison Lemon, Peter, who’s in Petey’s class. L,E,M,A,N: her great-grandad was French. That’s right, isn’t it, Addison?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Hullo, Addison,” said Peter weakly. “Good afternoon, Cherry; good afternoon, Mr Martin. Er—I know Joe and Sam, of course, Lalla, darling, but I don’t think this lady and I have met, have we?”

    “This is Gina and her little girl, Katie, of course!”

    “Of course,” he echoed weakly. “It’s nice to meet you, Gina. So you managed the late afternoon, after all?”

    “Yeah—no—I’m sorry, Mr Sale!” she gulped. “But I hadda bring her, the stupid school was having a classless day—what that means, they have a blimmin’ teachers’ meeting and then go home early, never mind the parents are all going mad trying to jack up day-care at a moment’s notice!”

    “It’s impossible, of course,” said Lalla calmly, “so I said just to bring her. We had a nice day, didn’t we, Katie?”

    She nodded hard. “I helped,” she volunteered.

    Peter found he was smiling at her. “Did you, Katie? Good girl.”

    “They made gingerbread men,” put in Petey, glaring.

    “Well,” said Lalla peaceably, “we could make gingerbread men if your school has a stupid classless day, Petey, but I thought you’d decided that you and Dean would go fishing with Pop if it does?”

    “Nah! Not fishing, yabbying!”

    Lalla looked helplessly at Mr Martin. “I thought that was fishing, Ceddie?”

    Peter gazed around feebly for a chair, but finding none, propped himself on the sink-bench. This could go in for some time.

    Pop was in full spate when Sam got up, came over to him and said in a low voice with a wink: “Take my chair, Peter. No-one’s ever been known to stop the old boy. –Me and Joe’ll get back to it,” he added loudly. Joe got up, grinning, and the two of them went out. Peter tottered to a chair…

    By five o’clock, the crowd had thinned. In the hinterland Joe and Sam were packing up. Gina had given a gasp about fifteen minutes earlier, wailed something about the traffic, and shot out, together with tiny Katie. Cherry, miraculously taking the hint, had made a sour remark about feeding the great stomach, and also gone. And the boys, fending off poor Addison with “Nah! You’re only a girl!” had long since departed on what Peter now knew was referred to by white Australia as “Secret Men’s Business.” Rites and ceremonies pertaining only to the male side: quite. That this was an exact translation of an Aboriginal phrase seemed unlikely. Doubtless they had the concept: but the phrase?

    So he was at last able to ask about kitset houses. No worries, Pop had all the gen!

    He’d got right through it when Troy remarked: “Dad coulda told you that, Peter. His cousin Den, he works for that Gazza bloke that sells them.”

    Peter couldn’t laugh, really. He just looked at the boy limply, the more so as Pop agreed happily: “That’d be right!”

    So it was all settled and Den, or possibly Gazza, would email Peter some pics and the web address and— Yes. Well. Half of Australia was clearly destined to have Peter Sale’s personal email address and doubtless his private phone number as well very, very shortly.

    … The mystery of poor little Addison’s presence, incidentally, was solved by the arrival of Mrs Leman just as they were finishing dinner around seven-thirty, very flushed and grateful. Addison’s great-gran. Broken leg, you know what the blimmin’ hospitals are—

    “She’s been very, very good,” said Lalla, smiling. She dropped a kiss on the little girl’s untidy fawn head.

    “Look what Mrs Sale gimme, Mum!”

    And with more distracted expressions of gratitude from Mrs Leman and assurances from Lalla that it was no bother and she wasn’t to worry, she’d look after Addison any time, and the dress was only a bit grubby, she’d fallen over, poor mite, they finally disappeared, and the Sale nuclear family was left alone.

    Peter just looked numbly at his empty pudding plate.

    “Want more?” asked Lalla.

    “Huh? Oh—no, thank you, darling, that was lovely. What on earth— Sorry. What was it? Not some sort of trifle, was it?”

    “Nah! Fluffy jelly!” cried Petey.

    “Flu— Omigod,” said Peter.

    “Peter! What’s the matter? You look terrible!” cried Lalla in alarm.

    “No—I just…” He had to swallow hard. “Mrs Linarello made some for us in Canberra after bloody Candida turned up.”

    “I think she did, yes!” said Lalla with a laugh. “It’s an Antipodean stand-by. Petey loves it.”

    “Mm. Lovely. It—it brought it all back, Lalla. How ghastly it was when you disappeared and—well, I suppose I had an awful vision,” said Peter, looking limply round his huge and, pace the monster table and the towering slab of fridge-freezer deemed suitable by local Aussie whitegoods emporia, pretty much denuded kitchen, “of what life would have gone on being like if I hadn’t found you.”

    Lalla got up, smiling. “But you did find me, silly.” She came and dropped a kiss on his head—just as if he was little Addison’s age, he realised groggily—and took his plate. “Don’t go into a brood about something that never happened. –Petey, take your plate and Addison’s over to the sink, please.”

    “But—”

    “Both plates, please,” said Lalla in a steely voice.

    Looking sour, Petey obeyed.

    “I’ll get you a nice glass of whisky, Peter,” she added, dumping their plates on the bench and opening the cupboard which was doing duty as a liquor cabinet. Supposed to be too high for ten-year-old boys to reach. There was the small point that it would merely entail dragging a chair— Oh, well.

    Lalla watched him narrowly as he drank it. That greyish look vanished, thank goodness, but she’d ring Marie-Louise tomorrow as soon as he was out of the house.

    “Well, that solves the problem of the Beatties’ granny flat!” she said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible.

    “Mm? Oh: yes, of course! Well, thank God: one more thing settled.”

    Lalla nodded. “Won’t it be lovely to see them again?”

    “Yeah,” Petey agreed eagerly, “and then we only have to get furniture that you like, Mum, ’cos you already wanta stay in the house, don’tcha? And then I can have my dog and call Peter Dad!”

    Peter smiled shakily. “I see. That’s what you’ve been waiting for, is it, Petey?”

    “Yeah, ’course; that was what we agreed,” replied Peter Christie Macdonald Townsend Holcroft placidly.

    Lalla looked hopefully at Peter but he didn’t make any suggestions about the furniture. Oh, heck. Well, she wasn’t gonna prompt him, he was looking very tired.

    “Come on, let’s have an early night. The dishes can wait. I’ll just rinse them quickly.”

    “Mm? Mm. Good idea,” Peter agreed, finishing his drink.

    “But I’m not tired!” Petey objected.

    “Well, read your book in bed,” replied Lalla on a firm note. “It’s pretty late, anyway.”

    He glared at the windows but as it was manifestly nearly dark, didn’t point out that it wasn’t.

    Frankly, Lalla didn’t care if he read till his eyes dropped out, we all had to learn some time that if we sat up reading till all hours we’d feel ghastly next morning. “Come on, Peter.”

    She’d got him actually into bed, not letting him have a shower, when he said: “Look, it’s no good Petey using that blasted tower room as his den, darling: if there was any emergency he’d have to rush downstairs and get into our half of the house. If it was something really drastic we’d never know until it was too late, would we? Not that he’s up there all that often, with the weather being so fine, but with winter coming… I think we’ll have to think about knocking a hole in the wall up here and at least giving him access to the bedroom corridor.”

    What? All that noise and mess, when they hadn’t even got properly settled in! He was mad! No, well, it was an aspect of his nervy thing, wasn’t it? Lalla took a deep breath.

    “It’s highly unlikely anything drastic would happen. Besides, that room’s so small it’s hard to think what sort of accident he could have up there. He couldn’t break his leg, there’s nothing to fall off. Being outside is far more dangerous, if you look at it objectively.” She was going to say: “And it hasn’t got a fireplace, so there’ll be no temptation to play with matches”, but stopped herself in time. Peter would then start worrying about Petey setting himself, the house, and the entire property on fire.

    “Um, I suppose you’re right..:” he said dubiously.

    “Yes. But if you’re worried, why not move into your study, get all the phones and computers and stuff in, and bring out your study furniture from England? I’m sure S-Speed-Tran International could arrange that for you: they did such a marvellous job on the bedroom stuff.”

    “Uh—yes, of course… I hadn’t really thought… It may be too soon.”

    “I dunno, it’ll take the pressure off QSA. Bernie was telling me that they’re all on edge, they’re sure you’re gonna start downsizing any minute now.”

    “What? Rubbish!”

    He really did live in a different world, didn’t he? “That or replacing them with whizz-kids straight out from Britain,” she said on a firm note.

    “Neither idea was ever suggested!”

    “Not by you, no. All big organisations are like that: hotbeds of rumour. Naturally you should still go into the office in town every so often. Maybe if you had set days for it they wouldn’t feel they were being spied on.”

    “Sp—” Peter was speechless.

    “You’ve never been an underling. You don’t know what it’s like,” said Lalla, trying not to look as if she was eying him narrowly. Well, that grey look had gone and he was a bit flushed, but that was indignation combined with a triple Black Label. Which, incidentally, he hadn’t even noticed she’d put ice in, so he’d been pretty stressed out, all right.

    “Well, I… It’s certainly an idea. We’d be able to see a lot more of each other—have lunch together: that’d be nice!”

    Yes, and she’d be able to see he had a sensible lunch, not to say actually did take a lunch break. Bernie’s Bronte was a tower of strength, of course, but she’d have to go back to her real job as soon as John Faraday came out for good.

    “That’d be really super, Peter. I mean, sometimes it doesn’t feel as if we’re married at all, with you being in at work so much,” she said, hoping she wasn’t laying it on too thick—though it was what she felt.

    It worked, because he said: “Oh, Lor’, darling! Of course I’ll set up a home office. Sorry—been on my own far too long. I just didn’t think.”

    “Great!” She didn’t chance her luck: she just went quickly off to the bathroom.

    When she came back he was fast asleep. Lalla abstracted his blimmin’ mobile phone and took it and her book quietly downstairs to the kitchen. When John rang she said without preamble: “John, it’s Lalla. Peter’s asleep. Don’t ring him at this hour any more unless it’s an emergency, please. I mean really an emergency, not something silly about those idiots at the bank. He’s getting too tired and starting to stress out over silly things—not just work things. You can email him if he really needs to know.”

    The poor man was left with nothing much to say, given that it was his boss’s wife speaking. He apologised, said it was nothing urgent, and rang off.

    Lalla bit her lip. “Yikes, I came on like Mrs Ledbetter at her firmest. Oh, well. too bad! There are worse rôle models!” And with that she took herself up to bed.

    “Ah,” said Marie-Louise at the end of the long report. “I see, mon chou. So Peter did not even ring the Gazza man about the granny flat this morning?”

    “No! I reminded him that the thingies were on his computer, and he said vaguely: ‘Oh, yes, of course. Well, possibly I’d better consult the Beatties before making any firm decision.’ And then Troy arrived and he said that his dad’s cousin Den had rung them up first thing, keen as mustard, and they didn’t have much on their books at the moment, they could start right away, and he just said it sounded quite appropriate and he was bearing it in mind!”

    Peter’s mother then produced the very French series of noises generally transcribed as “O, là, là”, splendidly expressive of dismay mixed with disapprobation, the proportions of each varying in accordance with the situation. In this case it was strong disapprobation, a certain amount of dismay, and a definite suggestion of “We’ll have to do something about this!”

    Lalla gave a doleful sniff. “Yeah. What can I do, Marie-Louise?”

    “Troy is not yet back from the city, non?”

    “Not yet, no. He’s been trying to make Peter buy a car, but he won’t make up his mind about that, either! It’ll mean I can take him on fulltime through RightSmart, you see.”

    “Yes, I understood that, Lalla. Now, when he gets back, you ask him to contact this cousin immediately, and get him to send you the information he sent to Peter, okay? To your own laptop, hein? Give him your email address. Then you look at the pictures, and select the one you prefer—just one bedroom is sensible, I think—and forward them to me. Then I ring you back immediately, okay? We decide on it, then you order it, my dear, and make sure they can start tout de suite. I think you already shose the site, hein?”

    “Um, ye-es… Well, me and Sam and Miss Starkie had a good look at the garden—I mean, there’s miles of it, Marie-Louise!—and worked out the best spot for a nice big veggie garden, Sam’s going to look after that and I’ll give him a bit of a hand, and the best place for the granny flat, not too far from the house. And well away from Miss Starkie’s cottage, of course: she values her privacy.”

    “Good, then you are all ready to go. This Gazza man, he will send you some contract papers, I think, or very possibly he will bring them for you to sign, but you must let me see them first, my dear, okay?”

    “Um, yes, but how?”

    “It can all be done through your computer, mon chéri. We discuss it later, okay? I am sure Troy will help: all the young people know about technology.”

    “That sounds wonderful, Marie-Louise: thank you!”

    “Nonsense, my dear. I am only too glad to help. Now, as to the rest… Hé bien: oui. Ecoute, mon chéri: naturellement you go if this Mrs Wainwright invites you to look at furniture—or antiques, yes,” she said firmly as Lalla objected dubiously that it might be antiques, “and you admire but you do not buy, hein? Say that you need to consult Peter—but of course you do not do so. It would not do to insult the woman by turning down her help, you see? And of course if there is anything you really like, you ask the shop to reserve it for you.”

    “Reserve it for me,” echoed Lalla obediently. “I see.”

    “Then I come and we sort it all out. I shall get Candida settled in the nice clinic I tell you of, and then I am with you at the end of the week!” she ended firmly.

    “The—the end of this week?” gasped Lalla.

    “Yes, mon chéri. I think you need me more than silly, spoilt Candida does. She is very well, but the clinic will help to recover her strength and fitness, and Michel Guimaud who runs it is most sensible. And he has a most excellent consultant, who had already seen Candida, and whom she likes very mush,” she ended, not adding that Candida’s liking seemed to be reciprocated and—well, one mustn’t be precipitate, but there was always the hope that something would come of it, he was an older man and divorced.

    “Yes, you—you said, before. The clinic sounds lovely… At the end of the week? It—it sounds too good to be true!” And she burst into tears.

    At the other side of the world, Marie-Louise Sale’s mouth firmed. Soit. If Guimaud did his best and Candida rejected his efforts, on her head be it! It was Lalla’s and Petey’s turn now.

Next chapter:

https://thelallaeffect.blogspot.com/2024/01/marie-louise-disposes.html