"And All Is Mended"

23

“And All Is Mended”

    Harriet sagged as the Drinkwaters’ station-waggon ground down the drive and disappeared, with a jaunty toot of the horn. “Thank goodness!”

    Crispin put his good arm around her, smiling. “I second that sentiment. Much though we love them, of course!”

    “Yeah,” she sighed, leaning heavily against him. “Now all we’ve got to look forward to is the moans about Jimbo either not concentrating on his swot and being about to fail Year Twelve, or doing too much swot and exhausting himself.”

    “Uh-huh. At least Kyla’s safe with nice Ellen Gilbert,” he murmured.

    “Mm. I wish we could’ve sent her some mangoes. Drat the blimmin’ weather!”

    “Yes. Well, there’s always next summer.”

    “Unless we get a ruddy cyclone at the beginning of their season instead of the end.”

    Ouch! “Is that likely?”

    “Well, not likely, but it’s possible,” replied Harriet glumly.

    Oh, Lor’. “Fingers crossed, then,” he said lightly.

    “Impossible!” she replied with a sudden laugh.

    “Huh?”

    “I’m gonna spend at least the next six months sleeping, in a state of complete relaxation: I won’t possibly be able to cross my fingers!”

    “Oh, Lor’; are you completely exhausted, sweetheart?”

    Harriet sighed. “Pretty much, to tell you the truth. It wasn’t that I had to do much, so I shouldn’t be—”

    “No, no, darling, I completely understand! It was the strain of all that matronly managing going on around you, wasn’t it?”

    “Too right,” she agreed gratefully. “I must say, Rosa was just the sort of rôle model that Trisha didn’t need!”

    Crispin shook all over. “Right!” he gasped.

    “It wasn’t funny, being trapped by it.”

    “No, of course not,” he agreed, wincing.

    “I think I might go in and get started,” Harriet admitted.

    “On what?” he croaked.

    “Sleeping, of course.”

    “Oh! Thank God! For an awful moment, there, I thought you meant get started on something matronly and managing! Um, spring-cleaning, or baking up a storm, or— No, okay, I’d momentarily lost it!”

    “You certainly had,” she agreed, yawning. She turned for the house. “I reckon if the flamin’ Bruce Highway’s clear and they only stop for a quick morning tea, they’ll be in Brizzie in time for lunch with Steve’s Aunty Daphne: what an awful thought.”

    Crispin glanced at his watch but of course it wasn’t going. “Absolutely! –What is the time?”

    Harriet yawned again. “Sevenish.”

    “Right. Back to bed, then.”

    “Yeah.”

    Gee, guess what they discovered in their bedroom?

    “That pooch is going to have to learn that this is not his bed,” noted Crispin, grabbing him by the collar. “Brindle! Down!”

    Nothing.

    “I don’t think he knows that word,” said Harriet, yawning again. She removed her cotton slacks, and embarked on a series of strange contortions which after a moment her semi-official fiancé realised were intended to remove the bra without taking the blouse off.

    He yawned widely. “Come on, Brindle! Down! Off!”

    Nothing.

    “The Hell with it,” said Harriet. She got onto the bed, said loudly, “Shove off, Brindle!” pushed him with her foot, lay down flat and closed her eyes. Horrible dark brown blouse with its khaki daisies—no, dahlias—an’ all.

    Crispin shrugged. He shucked his garments, inserted his form beside hers as best he could for the large fawnish heap taking up the space where his legs should be, and embarked upon a campaign of slow but firm pushing with the knees…

    When he came to, the sunlight was streaming through the gaps round the awful dark brown Holland blinds—they matched that blouse of hers, that was for sure—and as that was almost dead west it must be, well, late. But as his watch wasn’t working there was no way of telling unless he disturbed the snoring form next to him. Oh, well. At least the pooch seemed to have moved down a bit. Er, well, readjusted himself: he was kind of curled round so that he inconvenienced Crispin’s feet whilst at the same time preventing any contact between his legs and Harriet’s. Oh, well. Crispin closed his eyes again—just for forty winks…

    “Hullo,” said Harriet, peering blearily at him.

    “Hullo,” replied Crispin groggily. “What’s the time?”

    “Uh… That can’t be right. It says half-past five,” she reported, squinting at her watch. “What does yours say?”

    “Three hairs past a freckle: it’s stopped, remember?”

    “Oh, yeah.”

    “One could check by turning on the radio or the television,” he noted.

    “This is true,” Harriet agreed, getting out of bed.

    “Are you going to?” he croaked, wondering if everything he thought he knew and loved about Harriet Harrison was absolutely wrong, misguided and utterly mislead—

    “No, ya ning-nong! I’m only gonna have a pee!”

    Of course she only was! Crispin collapsed in happy sniggers as she staggered out.

    “Are you hungry?” she asked, coming back.

    “No. Are you?”

    “No, but I’m quite thirsty.”

    “Nice cup of dark orange tea?” he suggested meanly.

    “Drop dead,” replied his semi-official fiancée, scowling at him.

    “Um… Bottled water?”

    “They drank most of it.”

    “We may be reduced to consuming the contents of the cellar, then,” he warned, sitting up and stretching ever so slightly, just to show there was no ill fee— “Hang on: where’s the pooch?” he asked, registering the absence of something heavy impeding the movement of his lower limbs.

    “Dunno. Might be on his mat under the table, since the kitchen’s not infested by managing middle-class matrons any more.”

    “How delightfully alliterative: congratulations, Dr Harrison,” replied Crispin, managing to swing his legs off the bed. “There was a carton of orange juice in the fridge last night.”

    “Orange and pineapple. They took it,” said Harriet heavily.

    “Oh. That was my best shot, I’m afraid. Well, want to brave the kitchen?”

    “Like that?” replied Harriet weakly.

    “Eh? Oh!” he said with a loud laugh, looking down at himself. “That’s just a promise of better things to come!”

    Admitting to herself (a) that it had better be and (b) that actually, it wasn’t half bad like that: sort of showed it off nicely, as it were, though she quite admired it when it just dangled, too, Harriet replied: “Well, there’s always the chance that Hughie’ll walk in, but I don’t think Brindle’ll give a damn.” And wandered out.

    Crispin blinked, but followed her.

    There was a half-empty one-litre carton of low-fat milk in the fridge, but no other liquids.

    “Um, well, glass of well-boiled water?” he suggested, peering into the electric jug.

    “That’ll do,” Harriet agreed equably.

    Smiling, Crispin poured glasses of well-boiled water.

    Harriet drank thirstily. “That’s better! –I dunno what we could have for tea,” she admitted. “If it is gone five-thirty.”

    “Er—no.” Crispin inspected a cupboard. “Muesli bar?” he suggested weakly, holding it up.

    ‘Ugh! –Kyla must have forgotten about it.”

    “Indubitably. Er…” He inspected a biscuit tin. Nothing. There was also a large circular plastic container of the Tupperware variety in there but he knew that the cake it had contained, courtesy of Rosa—homemade, yes, in their oven, yes, in the streaming Queensland humidity, yes—was long gone. Nevertheless he opened it. Nothing. He tried another cupboard. Ranked tins of spaghetti and somewhat depleted—though not enough, he felt—other ranked tins of baked beans.

    “I’d only eat baked beans if I was literally starving,” noted Harriet, though apparently without animus.

    “Me, too.” He closed that cupboard and opened another. Ranked tins of dog food. Probably far more nutritious than the ruddy baked beans and certainly far more nutritious than the spaghetti, which as far as one could tell contained starch, water and orange food colouring.

    “I’d give up on those cupboards, if I was you,” Harriet advised. “Trisha expected us to hive off to the supermarket this morning, ’member?”

    “Er… Vaguely. Well, sounds like her,” he admitted.

    “Yeah. Barmy,” stated Trisha’s sister.

    “You said it. Any bread?”

    “No, Jimbo had the last of it this morning.”

    “Well, pub dinner?” he suggested.

    “That’d be good. I wonder if she’s doing chicken in a basket today?”

    “I’ll ring her! Um, supposing that it is nearly dinnertime?”

    “Ask her,” replied Harriet simply.

    Make a complete Pommy tit of himself by asking Laverne what the time was? Before or after he asked if the chicken in a basket was on, would this be? Oh, what the Hell! Smiling, he rang Laverne. No, it wasn’t too early to book for dinner. He asked, avoiding Harriet’s eye, what time she made it. Five to six. Right, well, there you were. Well, it was still very warm, would it be okay if they booked for seven-thirty? It would, and Laverne would see them then. The chicken in a basket? Well, it wasn’t on tonight, but she had plenty of chicken, she could easily do it, if they’d like it. He didn’t want to put her to any tr— This was rubbished and she rang off with the cheery “See ya!” that, he had now realised, was endemic to the country.

    “She’s got plenty of chicken, so she’ll do us chicken in a basket even though it’s not officially on. –I couldn’t stop her,” he bleated.

    “That’s all right, no-one can,” replied Harriet equably. “Yum, yum! –She’s one of them, ya know.”

    “Er… one of what?” he croaked.

    “Those managing middle-class matrons: no wonder Ben didn’t want to live with her!”

    “Oh!—Golly, was it on offer?—No, no wonder,” he agreed.

    “Um, if it’s only sixish now,” said Harriet, “I suppose I could iron a muumuu… Ooh! They’ll all be in the machine!” she gasped, just as he was going to point out that he had something entirely different in mind for the intervening period. “Trisha put them in with their sheets, first thing! I was supposed to hang everything up!” she gulped, heading for the bathroom.

    The bathroom was surprisingly roomy for a house this size, and this was because, it had been revealed, it had once held a big old bath. The competent Ben had removed it and efficiently installed a neat shower cabinet and a huge washing-machine which would have done service for a family of eight. There was room for a dryer on the wall above it, as had recently been pointed out, but Ben Rivers, clearly, had never considered one necessary.

    Sure enough, the machine was full of damp laundry. Damp and creased laundry.

    Crispin scratched his head. “Hang it damply on the lines in the back yard? Hang it damply on the verandah? Leave it in there till tomorrow to become even more creased?”

    “And mouldy,” added Harriet.

    He gulped. Hell’s teeth, would it? “Yes, I suppose it would, in this climate.”

    “Mm… Or we could send it round again,” she ventured on a guilty note.

    The thing’s big disadvantage was that it took well over an hour to complete its full cycle. But it had definite stars on it! Two large stickers which would not come off, no, as Jimbo had verified empirically. One for energy saving and one for water saving, but as these star systems worked in diametrically opposed ways the only result, as far as Crispin and Harriet were concerned, was complete confusion.

    “Um… that’d take it to about seven-thirty,” he conceded. “Then the stuff’d still have all night to get more creased and mouldy. Oh, bugger. I think we’d better hang it up.”

    “Yeah. Verandah or down the back?”

    “Verandah. Closer,” Crispin decided.

    Glumly they loaded up the huge plastic clothes basket and carted the stuff out to the verandah. Then having to go back for the pegs. But finally the things were all pegged up.

    “Uh—I’ve never seen so many sheets in my life! Help, did she strip and remake our bed, as well?” he croaked.

    “Um… It’d be par for the course,” Harriet admitted. Not noticing her semi-official fiancé biting his lip and trying not to laugh, she began to count. “One, two—is that a single or a double? Um, heck. They all had singles, actually, didn’t they? Shit, she must of. She was bustling around like anything, wasn’t she?”

    “Yes,” he said limply. “From crack of dawn.”

    Their eyes met. They laughed weakly.

    “Well,” he said, automatically looking at his watch— “Blast! What is the time?”

    “Going on six-forty. I don’t think we’re very fast peggers,” replied Harriet.

    “I know I’m not, one-handed,” he admitted with a grimace. “Bugger. We’ll have to shower and change for the pub…”

    “There is plenty of time. If we take the car we’ll be there in ten minutes.”

    “Yes, but I had other things in mind!”

    Harriet eyed him drily. “I thought you had at one stage, yeah.”

    “Pegging up damp and horribly creased laundry has a depressing, not to say deflating effect,” he replied.

    “Good word for it.”

    “Say I had a Cognac, and you had a Cognac, and you gave me a little encouragement…” he said plaintively.

    Harriet gave a smothered laugh and admitted: “You’re starting to get a bit encouraged already, actually!”

    “Cognac would encourage me more.”

    “In bed?”

    “Ah—certainly.”

    “Good, because if we get stains on the blimmin’ sofa, Trisha’ll be sure to notice, next time they come up,” replied Harriet, heading indoors.

    Grinning, Crispin hastened into the sitting-room for the Cognac. He was definitely less depressed! And he might even become fully inflated, so to speak, quite soon.

    ‘Very soon,” he said, getting in beside her. “Especially if you remove that garment.”

    “Forgot I was wearing it,” she admitted, struggling out of the blouse.

    “That is so much better,” he sighed. “Now, sip this.”

    Harriet sipped, and sighed. “Not bad.”

    “Mmm…” he agreed. He grabbed her free hand and put it in an interesting place. “Ooh!” he gasped.

    “Any time!” replied Harriet with a gurgle.

    “Uh—no!” he gasped, pushing her hand away.

    “Eh?”

    He pulled a horrible face. “I’m almost bursting with frustration, what with weeks and weeks of not being able to do it with the house full of relatives, and the horrors of the floods, not to mention the unmentionable tornado, which frankly put me off the thought of ever doing it again…”

    “Mm,” agreed Harriet, sipping Cognac.

    Crispin knocked his back and, since she seemed more interested in the booze than she was in him, wriggled down in the bed and—

    “OH!” she shrieked.  “I love it, I love it, Crispin!”

    Yes, he’d thought she did. With a inward grin, he got on with it. It didn’t take long, actually, before she let out a series of shrieks to wake the dead and mangled his good shoulder—she had trained herself not to mangle the bad one after one horrible incident—so he leapt up, had the usual fight with the bloody condom packet, and flung himself on her and plunged— “JESUS! GOD!” he articulated. Then he just yelled incoherently and exploded.

    “Boy, you did need that,” she said, some time later.

    “Mmf,” he agreed into her shoulder.

    “Um, Crispin,” she said, some time later.

    “Mm? ’M’I squash’ you?” he mumbled.

    “Yes. Not that. I think we’d better get ready for the pub.”

    Crispin groaned.

    “I could ring Laverne and say we’re too exhausted after the rellies,” she offered.

    “No,” he sighed. “I am hungry. Just not inclined—to— Oof!” He sat up painfully, heaving himself up with his good arm. “I’m gonna have muscles like an all-in wrestler in this arm, ya know,” he grumbled. “Not inclined to move,” he finished.

    “Nor am I. But I’ll have my shower first, if you like.”

    “Very well, darling. Er—don’t get back into that horrid blouse, will you?”

    “I won’t, but the others are almost as bad. –She put all the muumuus in the wash, drat her.” With this she exited to the bathroom.

    Crispin laughed weakly.

    Down at the pub the dining-room was almost empty—the locals weren’t late diners and nor, apparently were the motel guests. The latest report from Isabelle was that the motel wasn’t full, but they did have some more in, who’d booked yonks back. Naïvely assuming that these were working people who couldn’t change the date of their annual leave, Crispin had asked, not expecting the answer No, which was what he'd got. Grey nomads. Quite.

    The fried chicken was crisp, the chips were hot, and the baskets were definitely baskets. Harriet sighed deeply. “I think it’s probably the only place in Australia that still does chicken in a basket. Once upon a time they all used to… I could give Laverne a medal, honest!”

    Crispin looked at her smiling face as she dipped into her absurd basket for nicely cooked but rather tasteless battery-raised chicken and factory-processed chips which would remain edible for just about as long as it took to eat approximately one quarter of them, at which point they would reveal themselves as not even distantly related to the potato, but as fuzzy, null products which had been stored a long time in a deep-delvèd factory freezer before they ever reached the retailer, let alone the end client, and agreed fervently that he, too, would gladly award Laverne a medal.

    In fact, he felt so good that he would gladly have awarded the whole world a medal!

    Five months later, almost to the day, they stood together in the July sunshine of Bowen, looking up at It. The Holy of Holies. El Dorado—Xanadu! The Promised Land. The Grail.

    “You’re right, darling,” Crispin breathed. “It’s the apotheosis of the mango!”

    Harriet sighed deeply. “Yeah. I’m so glad we came!”

    His arm tightened round her waist. “Me, too.”

    True, many people might have considered—and some had frankly said—that a trip to the Big Mango in Bowen, QLD, bang on twenty degrees south of the equator an’ all as it was, would not have been everyone’s idea of the perfect honeymoon. But that was what Harriet had wanted, she’d revealed, very flushed, so it was okay with Crispin. And now that he was faced with the object of the quest, he fully realised why. It was… just so mango-ish!

    He sighed deeply and leaned his cheek on her gorgeous mop of unruly dark curls. “Happy, Lady Crispin?” he murmured.

    His Australian wife twisted in his grasp and gave him a filthy look. “Never say that again!”

    “On pain of?” he murmured.

    “On pain of having yer foot stamped on!” she snarled.

    Gosh. “Okay, then. But are you?”

    “Am I what?” replied Harriet with a suspicious frown.

    “Er—happy,” Crispin replied limply.

    “Yeah, ’course! Aren’t you?”

    “Very. Very, very, very happy,” he sighed. “Do you think I could give you a public kiss, Mrs Narrowmine?”

    “That’s better,” replied Harriet.

    “Uh— Oh! ‘Mrs Narrowmine!’ Yes, of course it is. Sorry, sweetheart: shouldn’t have teased you. But may I?”

    “Um, yeah,” replied Harriet, going bright red but holding up her face.

    Crispin kissed her lingeringly… “I love you so much,” he croaked.

    “Me, too,” said Harriet huskily.

    His arm tightened round her and he leaned his cheek on her curls again…

    After some time she said on a glum note into his shoulder: “Trisha rang up again and gave me another ear-bashing while you were in the shower this morning.”

    “Oh, God. Now what?”

    She looked up at him and reported indignantly: “She wanted to know when we were gonna do up the master bedroom!”

    The phrase “master bedroom” was to dignify it considerably, Crispin felt. Which was possibly Trisha’s feeling also. Well, used as a portent of things to come? Subliminal suggestion? Though he didn’t think that Trisha Drinkwater was capable of thinking of that one—not consciously. Though unconsciously—yes, very likely. Um, misplaced optimism? Yes, very likely that as well. “And what did you reply?” he murmured.

    “‘Never’,” said Harriet firmly.

    “Jolly good.”

    “She won’t give up, you know.”

    “Never mind: over the years other things will arise to distract her: Kyla’s getting engaged to the wrong chap, planning for Kyla’s wedding, wrong chap or no, Jimbo’s taking up with unsuitable girlfriends… Grandchildren,” he ended with relish.

    “Yeah!” she agreed eagerly. “Ooh, goody; I hadn’t thought of that! –I love our bedroom!”

    “Yes, me, too.”

    “She said it was scruffy and, um, eccentric!” Harriet revealed indignantly. “Um, and maybe you wouldn’t admit it but it’s not the sort of lifestyle you’re used to and, um, how could you be comfortable in it?”

    Ouch. “Then she doesn’t know me at all,” he said firmly. “I love it because it’s scruffy and eccentric. Because it suits us. As for lifestyle— Looking back, my so-called lifestyle, complete with that bloody town flat with its brown or green leather and its dark oak, was stifling me! I’ve never felt so…” He looked up into the glowing blue depths of an Australian sky in the tropical warmth of “winter” at twenty degrees south. “Free,” he decided.

    “Yeah,” said Harriet with a deep sigh, also looking up at the sky. “Me, too…” Her gaze returned to the Big Mango in all its glory.

    Crispin leaned his head on hers and contemplated this astounding product of the Aussie Big Things builder’s art. “I do love you, Harriet Narrowmine,” he said at last.

    Harriet slipped her arm around his waist and pulled him tightly into her side. “I love you, too, Crispin Narrowmine.”

    And they stayed like that, entwined, for ages and ages… Until Joanne Wright, a friendly grey nomad who was putting up at the same motel because she and Gordo had decided it’d be nice to sleep in a proper bed just for a change, with a nice big shower, popped up on the far right of the Big Mango and hooted: “Yoo-hoo, you lovebirds! Lunchtime!”

    “Drat,” muttered Harriet.

    Crispin smiled. “That’s life,” he murmured. “Isn’t it, Mrs Narrowmine?”

    Harriet laughed suddenly. “I suppose it is, Mr Narrowmine!”