Mr Morrison

8

Mr Morrison

    “Now don’t argue,” said Steve firmly. “We’ve worked it all out. We were gonna do the loft up anyway—well, we hadn’t said anything to her, but we thought Kyla might like to use it, now she’s left school. But you can have it instead, it’ll make up for the bloody kids getting the house. And it won’t make any difference to Madam, half the time she’s over at Melanie Satterthwaite’s place anyway.”

    Harriet did try to argue but was overborne—Steve had clearly come over today for the purpose. He assured her anxiously, several times, that it’d be quite private, but she’d already realised this: the so-called loft was the space in the garage roof. The garage was separate from the house, not one of those walk-through jobs, a long-standing grudge with Trisha, who was the one that had to cart the blimming shopping inside. Steve then plunged into a detailed description of the conversion project, and just when she was thinking with some relief it’d take a while and she might’ve found a cheap flat by then, it was revealed that him and Mike and Dean Barraclough and a few mates had already got the insulation and the wall linings in and Mike was due to do the plumbing—mates’ rates, of course—this very weekend. Harriet looked at him dazedly—not only because of the rapidity of the thing. Didn’t it weigh with macho men that were roped in to give a mate a hand with stuff that would take a tradie months as an official job that the person the result was intended for had given them both the brush-off? Well, a while back, but still!

    “And I’ve taken the place off that joker’s books, Jim Delafield knows a bloke that’s much more reliable and’ll really make an effort to sell at a good price, so he’s gonna handle it exclusively, okay? Here’s his card, he’s expecting you to pop in tomorrow morning. He’s not in the mall, but it’s just down the road from it.”

    “How far down the road?” asked Harriet cautiously—Steve, of course, was a driver, they had no true grasp of distances.

    “Next to the Red Rooster. Pretty little white building, sort of Federation style.”

    “Oh,” said Harriet in huge relief.

    “Here’s his card. Andy Morrison. You can check with Trisha if ya like,” he added on a sardonic note, “but she’ll tell ya Kika Delafield swears by him—he sold their last place and found that house they’re in now, it and its walk-through garage and free-form blue pool.”

    “Aren’t they all blue?” replied Harriet dazedly.

    Steve broke down and winked. “Nah. Turquoise. The Delafields’ is blue, see?”

    Harriet saw. She nodded limply.

    “Once he’s seen the place he’ll probably tell you to do this, that and the other to it, but just give me a bell, okay?” he added kindly, going.

    Harriet was left clutching the card of “Andy Morrison, Waratah Real Estate, Personal Service our Specialty”. Presumably he post-dated Waratah Grove, the shopping centre: he’d named his business after it. Well, if Kika Delafield approved of him he’d be efficient, all right, but the Harrison house with its semi-modernised bathroom and its floral Axminster body-carpet wasn’t at all likely to appeal to clients like the Delafields, she didn’t think that Mr Morrison who called himself Andy on his card was gonna be very pleased when he copped a gander at it. And why didn’t he just ring up and ask to come round? Wasn’t the whole point to see the house before you tried to flog it off? Oh, well. It’d be something to do tomorrow: it might take her mind off the fact that there were no jobs in the papers that she could even remotely envisage herself doing and the two employment agencies she’d tried to sign on with had told her that they didn’t handle job positions that were within her area of expertise.

    She’d seen the building that Waratah Real Estate was in loads of times but never really stopped to see what was in it as she passed: the good fish and chips shop was just a bit further down and she was always either anticipating what she’d have—they did good chicken and chips as well as fish, she never bothered with the Red Rooster, which was newer—or wondering hungrily whether to start eating out of the packet now or hurry home as fast as she could to enjoy them in comfort. Steve was right, the small two-storeyed building was Federation in style—fake, of course. Lots of wooden lace, dark green doors. There were three businesses in it downstairs: Waratah Real Estate, Glenysse Furnishing Fabrics—horribly up-market, the window alone was enough to put you off, if the spelling hadn’t already done it—and Consol Computer Supplies, it seemed to be mostly toners, and empty except for a young Chinese man behind the counter. The upstairs was occupied, according to the signs, by Harper Training Enterprises Pty Ltd and Aladdin IT Solutions. One of them must occupy the space over two shops, then. Or perhaps the third was empty?

    Waratah Real Estate’s door was closed but there was a sign on it saying “Please Enter”, so she entered. Oh, cripes! Well, presumably a real estate office had to make a good impression, but this one was so extra-tasteful you’d swear it had been done out by Kika Delafield and her mates in person! It was fully carpeted in a flecked pale fawn which must surely mark horribly, never mind all those improbable ads on TV with Pro Hart grinding spaghetti in tomato sauce and chocolate cake into the stuff to demonstrate it didn’t, and the two easy chairs and the sofa in the waiting area were the old-fashioned buttoned sort in dark green leather. Oh—fake Federation, of course! There were several graceful-looking palms in shiny brass pots and a big brass chandelier that Laverne Collins from the Big Rock Bay pub would have loved. There was no counter, but a very nice shiny wooden desk, you could see it was modern, but in a traditional style, personed by a very smart young lady with immaculate make-up and a flawless hairdo, or perhaps flawless make-up and an immaculate hairdo. Not exactly a French roll, but that sort of idea: swept back and coiled up. Light brown with paler streaks. Tasteful streaks. The dark green suit was tasteful, too, and after a dazed moment it dawned on Harriet that it wasn’t a coincidence: this was Waratah Real Estate’s corporate colour, and it was designed to tone with the lounge suite, and the dark crimson stripe in the immaculate and not fussy white blouse was designed to tone with the bowl of, gulp, waratahs and dark red and pale green kangaroo paws on the non-Federation coffee table in front of the sofa. Her desk also held some flowers, a much smaller bunch but rather taller, featuring those awful sheared-off flax leaves, dark green, one waratah—or possibly it was one of those South African thingos, never mind, it was bloody like a waratah—a few red kangaroo paws, and some unidentifiable lime green thingos. Possibly buds.

    Naturally the greeting was: “Good morning; may I help you?”

    “Um, yes,” stumbled Harriet. “Um, my brother-in-law—I mean, Mr Morrison told my brother-in-law to tell me to come round this morning. Um, it’s about my mother’s house. I mean, it was hers, she’s left it to the kids. Trisha’s and Steve’s, I mean.”

    Instead of saying coolly “Yes?” and looking down her perfectly made-up nose at her, the amazing receptionist responded nicely: “I see; wanting to sell, is it?”

    Harriet nodded hard. “Yes. Um, hang on, Steve gave me his card—Mr Morrison’s, I mean!” She fumbled in her handbag. “Um, he said Mr and Mrs Delafield recommended him,” she ended lamely, producing the card—God knew why, she knew she was in the right place and the receptionist obviously knew who her boss was, so—

    “Yes, of course, Mr and Mrs Delafield, we sold their previous home. Mrs Delafield was in just the other week to say they’re so pleased with the new place.”

    “Mm. They like the pool,” said Harriet idiotically. “She’s a friend of Trisha’s—my sister’s.”

    “Of course,” she smiled. “And may I ask your name?”

    “Oh—sorry. Harriet Harrison. Um, Miss.”

    “If you’ll just take a seat, Miss Harrison, I’ll let Mr Morrison know you’re here,” she said nicely.

    “Thank you,” said Harriet humbly. The easy chairs were, of course, far too deep for a female—they must make them to accommodate the long-legged Aussie male, the distaff side could go to Hell, never mind they were the ones that usually chose the ruddy things! The sofa was almost as bad—no cushions, of course. She perched uneasily on its edge.

    The receptionist tapped on the door in the back wall and vanished through it. Harriet eyed the flower arrangement thoughtfully, reflecting that she could easily nick that and run off with it, pity she’d given her real name... Cor, it and the Country Lifes mixed with the Woman’s Days and the Vogue Australias! She picked up a Country Life. The receptionist came back, smiled at her and said: “He won’t be long, Miss Harrison; he’s with another client,” and sat down again. After that nothing happened for some time except that the phone rang twice and the receptionist answered it, cooing: “Waratah Real Estate, Jordana speaking; may I help you?”

    Eventually the polyurethaned panelled door in the back wall opened and a very smart lady in what was pretty clearly casual wear for the well-off suburbanite emerged. Nicely-cut leather jacket in a charming shade of pale tan, ultra-smart tight black pants tucked into the knee-high, high-heeled black boots, and a thin jersey-knit top that was very definitely not a tee: it had a vee neck, not too low, with a sort of tailored edging to it, and clung very nicely, but not too tightly, to the very nicely dieted curves. A light turquoise; the single strand of beads on a narrow gold chain was mixed light and dark turquoise. She’d be about Harriet’s age but there was no way she, H. Harrison, would ever have got away with a get-up like that! Well, for one thing she’d have fallen over in the boots. They weren’t very high, like some of the silly girls and all of the dim models and celebs were wearing them these days, but high enough. The hair was perfect: a smooth helmet of a shade between gold and tan. Not a hair out of place. Just ear-length, the ends just curled under. Small gold studs in the said ears, ultra-taste. What in God’s name had made Kika Delafield imagine that a bloke with that sort of customer—she’d have been at home in Kika’s ultra-tasteful lounge-room, that was for sure—would want to sell the Harrison dump? Fervent thanks and good-byes were now being exchanged...

    The self-styled “Andy” Morrison was not the short, brisk, rubicund man that Harriet had unconsciously been expecting—a version, she now realised, of the man who’d let her her flat in Adelaide. Nothing like him. He was medium height, probably in his forties, maybe as much as fifty, but it was hard to tell because he’d shaved all his hair off. It didn’t look bad, however, because he was very tanned. And very good-looking: rather a square face that honestly could only have been characterised as manly. Not heavy, but— Yeah. Manly. Actually he looked a bit like Gary Sweet, except for the bald. Um, hang on, hadn’t the actor shaved his off, too? Harriet eyed the Gary Sweet clone gloomily. That light grey suit was a poem, it was so perfect it wasn’t clothes, it was— The only thing it came close to, it suddenly struck her with a sort of horrid thud, was dratted Crispin Narrowmine’s suit, but as she wasn’t gonna think about him ever again—

    The lady had gone and Mr Morrison now turned his attention to her. How odd: he had very dark brown, almost black, almond-shaped eyes, weren’t Gary Sweet’s blue? Harriet stumbled to her feet as he said nicely: “Miss Harrison? How are you? I’m Andy Morrison.”

    Numbly she shook hands. “How are you, Mr Morrison? Um, I’m sorry to take up your time, Steve shouldn’t have sent me, I don’t think the house is the sort of thing you sell.”

    “I’m sure we can handle it for you, Miss Harrison,” he replied easily, putting a hand under her elbow. “Come through to the office.”

    Numbly Harriet let herself be propelled through to his office. It was done out in the same style as his reception area, except that, wonder of wonders, he had several cushions, some on the two-seater sofa against one wall and two on the green leather easy chair in front of his desk.

    “What lovely cushions,” she said idiotically as he ushered her to this chair.

    “They are nice, aren’t they?” replied Mr Morrison cheerfully—he was as cheery as Mr Hadley from Adelaide, that was for sure. “They’re from Glenysse, next-door. They tone well, don’t they? This chair’s a one-off, I got the two armchairs and the three-seater sofa in reception as a set, and they had this two-seater sofa to match, but no matching spare chair. I picked this up at a sale, it was a shop-floor item that they were selling off cheap. It was a dirty yellow colour, really nasty, but I had it re-covered.”

    “It looks great: you’d never know they weren’t a set,” said Harriet shyly, since he seemed to be expecting a reply.

    “Yeah, they did a good job, eh? Our lady clients usually appreciate the cushions, too!”

    Harriet experienced a very odd feeling of familiarity as those very dark eyes twinkled at her, but as they weren’t in the least like Gary Sweet’s eyes it couldn’t be that. “Um, yes, um, you could put some in reception, too.”

    “We’re waiting until Glenysse has another sale!” replied Mr Morrison with a laugh. “Now, I understand the family wants to put your late mother’s house on the market: that right?”

    “Yes,” said Harriet with some relief that some sort of message seemed to have percolated through. “It’s very ordinary, though. Well, I suppose it could be done up to look quite nice.”

    “I’m sure it could; and this area is all becoming very desirable, you know.”

    Cripes, was it? Well, true, Wayne Macdonald’s place wasn’t far away, and then, several of the older bungalows in the street had been done up beautifully, but...

    Harriet took a deep breath. “Actually, Mr Morrison, to tell you the truth, we just want to get rid of the place. You see, Mum cashed in Dad’s insurance ages ago and then she took out a second mortgage, and, um, well, we don’t know where the money all went to, exactly—and there was Dad’s super as well, of course—well, some of it went on the trip to England, and she spent a lot on the new body-carpet, but it’s an awful floral Axminster, um, and she had the kitchen done up, actually it does look quite modern, I suppose it might appeal to modern ladies, but the thing is, she left everything to Steve and Trisha’s kids and there’s no cash to pay the mortgages off.”

    “That’s bad,” he said sympathetically. “Sounds like my Aunty Baby, to tell you the truth. Uncle Jim left her a fair amount, but she had the place recarpeted throughout—dark red with a Persian carpet design, not everybody’s choice these days, eh? And most of the rest went on a trip to India.”

    “Heck, that would’ve been expensive,” agreed Harriet.

    “You’re telling me! Well, you can understand wanting to see the Taj Mahal, but she insisted on visiting our Indian great-grandfather’s village and into the bargain our English great-grandfather’s villa up in the foothills of the Himalayas, that’s in the other direction entirely, and add on the Ganges trip to that—and the family’s not even Hindu, we’ve been Christian for generations!” He laughed. “The long and short of it was that Bruce and Ken and Emma, my cousins, ended up with the house and a huge mortgage, just like your family! That and the red carpet!”

    Harriet smiled. “Actually, I rather like those fake Persian designs, though I can see they wouldn’t be a selling point. I see, so your family’s Anglo-Indian, then, Mr Morrison?” –No wonder she’d had that weird feeling that he wasn’t only like Gary Sweet, he was like someone else. Ben Kingsley, that was who! It wasn’t the brown skin so much, though she could see now it wasn’t just tan: it was the eyes. But he didn’t look like him in any other way.

    “That’s right,” he said cheerfully. “Call me Andy, everyone does.”

    “Andy, then,” agreed Harriet, blushing. “I’m Harriet. Your family sounds really interesting. We’re just ordinary Aussies. Well, there’s a Spanish, um, great-grandmother, I think, on Dad’s side, but we don’t really know anything about her.”

    Andy Morrison looked at her with interest. “Is that right? That’d be where you get your dark hair and eyes from, then, Harriet.” He looked at his watch. “Look, I tell you what: what say we have lunch, and then you can show me the house.”

    “Um, if you were thinking of The Lunch Box in the mall, it’s too dear,” said Harriet awkwardly.

    “No, on me, Harriet!” he said quickly. “As a matter of fact I was thinking of Chez Gérard, up the road.” He grinned happily at her.

    Harriet gulped. This fancy establishment, relentlessly miscalled “the Cheese Gerrard” by Steve and his mates, to the annoyance of their helpmeets, was run by a rabid young Frenchman who was reputed to dictate what his customers should eat and to force his choice of wines upon them. Added to which it was ferociously expensive and not “up the road” at all, it was over at Trisha’s mall.

    “I don’t think— I mean, it’s far too dear, just for lunch!” she gasped. “And doesn’t he chuck you out if you’re not properly dressed?”

    “I could nip home and change, if you like,” he said meekly.

    “Not you, me,” said Harriet weakly.

    Andy Morrison looked at her with blatant admiration. “In the first place, you look great, that red tee-shirt suits you. And in the second place, Gerry won’t chuck us out, he’s my cousin.”

    Harriet was now about as red as the tee-shirt. “I thought he was French?” she croaked feebly.

    He winked. “He did his training in France, all right.”

    Ooh, heck! All the up-market suburban ladies like Kika Delafield and the smart lady who’d been in here believed— Not only that, the TV people believed he was French, she’d seen him on one of those everlasting cookery programmes! “But— Wasn’t he on TV?”

    “Yeah, he’s done several stints for the TV.” He shrugged. “If they wanna believe he’s French, let them. He speaks it like a native, he was there for years.”

    “Well, good on him!” decided Harriet. “Those TV cookery shows are full of pseuds, anyway! I’d love to go, Andy, if—if you’re sure?”

    “Sure I’m sure!” replied Mr Morrison breezily, getting up. “I quite often treat myself to a nice lunch since the divorce. Jordana’ll show you the Ladies’ if you’d like to freshen up.”

    “Um, yes, thanks,” said Harriet feebly, letting him once again take her elbow and steer her through the door.

    The up-market Jordana got quite chatty going down the passage—the facilities were shared, they were along at the end of the block—and as they both went to the loo and she repaired her flawless make-up imparted quite a lot of unsolicited information about the business, Andy himself, and his extended family. Not directly mentioning his mixed blood, and not saying in so many words that he’d done very well for himself, but mentioning that his family was from India way back and sort of managing to be kindly patronising, as from a great but benevolently tolerant height. It wasn’t an attitude that Harriet was unfamiliar with in the Anglo-Celtic Aussie majority, by no means, but it was really strange to encounter it so, well, full-blown, really, in a person who was only in her twenties.

    “See, what really finished the marriage—it was very sad, really, they both wanted children but she couldn’t, she’d had one of those awful ectopic pregnancies, y’know?—what finished it was he insisted on having his old Aunty Pretty to stay when her hubby died. She’s a lovely old lady, really, but not really used to Aussie ways. She’s his great-aunty, you see. On his dad’s side, of course.” Jordana produced little a brush and carefully brushed at her perfect lashes.

    “Mm,” agreed Harriet. It’d be the dad that was Anglo-Indian, then. “Um, but he said he often treats himself to a nice lunch, I sort of thought he must be baching.”

    Jordana’s mouth was slightly open as she applied more mascara. “U-uh,” she replied. “No,” she said, finishing the lashes. “He gets really sick of the old lady’s curries, ya see, only he’s too kind to tell her. That’s why he likes to have a decent lunch every now and then. That Gerrard, he’s his cousin, ya see. Me and Trent, we went there once for a treat—well, actually it was our six-months’ anniversary—and at first he was very sniffy, but Andy had warned me, ya see, so I said I worked for him and then he was all smiles and gave us a really good table.”

    “And was the food nice?” asked Harriet kindly.

    “Not bad. The crayfish was good, but a really mingy helping, Trent was a bit peeved. But then he had the rump steak for his main, he said it was extra. I had the fillet, it was a bit ordinary, I suppose, but nicely cooked. With bacon round it, I quite like it like that.”

    “That sounds all right!” said Harriet in relief. “I’d heard it was very fancy: you know, very French.’”

    Jordana looked dubious. “Yeah, well, I s’pose it was cordong blue, there were sauces and stuff, and he plated it up very fancy, it all looked lovely. But the meat was all right.”

    Gee, the great Aussie accolade! Harriet smiled at her. “Good. I might have the fillet, then.”

    “If he lets you. He’s a bit of a tartar,” she warned. “You’d never think he wasn’t really French.”

    Oh, boy, that said it all in one simple phrase, eh? Harriet followed her out, smiling. That super-cool, super-tasteful look of hers was just a façade, after all!

    The ritzy little restaurant was, of course, full of pseuds. Quite a few of them, especially the gays in the spiffy suits with the pallid shaven heads and the sunnies—inside, yes—looked as if they’d driven over from the CBD, too. The superior young woman who was on duty near the door looked down her nose at them and produced: “Good afternoon, sir. What name was the booking under?” Ouch! But Andy just said with his usual geniality: “No booking, I’m Gerry’s cousin and you can take that reserved notice off table four. –Andy Morrison. Let me give you my card.” Forthwith smoothly producing one, no fumbling around, you had to admire him! After that everything went swimmingly, of course, and Gerry himself emerged from the back regions to coo: “Bonjour, monsieur; bonjour, madame.” Which was as far as he got, because his cousin cut in with: “Yeah, bong-jewer and all that jazz to you, too. This here’s Harriet, and she’s a client but not one of the usual types, so don’t try yer flim-flam on with her, thanks.”

    Gerry gave the startled Harriet a wink that made him look very like his cousin—he didn't look any more Indian than Andy did, though he had finer features and a more oval face, more on the Ben Kingsley side, really, rather than the Gary Sweet—and cooed: “I am delighted to meet you, ’Arriette. Today I can recommend duh pork, we do eet bonne femme, you know? Or if you prefair somesing lightair, the chicken weeth tarragon is also excellent.” In what Harriet could hear was a fake French accent, though if she hadn’t been wised up she probably wouldn’t have realised.

    “He has to keep that up in public,” drawled Andy, not bothering to lower his voice—well, the foodies were hard at it, talking more than they were eating, no-one could have overheard him. “If that’s that pork thing you often do, it’s too heavy for lunch and not as good as Aunty Pretty’s pork vindaloo, anyway. Have the chicken, Harriet, it’s lovely. Though it has got cream in it.”

    “Um, yes, well, just for once!” gasped Harriet, very flustered.

    “All right, Gerry: for two. –Like fizz, do you, Harriet? Right,” he said as she nodded. “We’ll have a bottle of champagne to go with it. And don’t try to talk us into anything you’re trying to flog off this week, thanks all the same.”

    “Dhere is a vairy pleasant New Zealand Sauvignon Bl—”

    “No. Bubbles are fun,” replied Andy firmly.

    “Vairy good, monsieur,” he said smoothly, bowing. He winked at them—Harriet jumped—gathered up the giant menus the superior lady at the door had given them, and swanned off, pausing at selected tables here and there to coo: “Bonjour, monsieur, so nice to see you again,” and: “Ma chère! Delighted to see you back!”—kissing the air six inches from the lady’s cheek—or to squeal: “Mais non, mais non! Not the Riesling weeth the porc!”—whisking a bottle off that table—and eventually vanished through the swing door at the back.

    Harriet swallowed hard.

    “It’s an act,” said Andy detachedly.

    “Mm!” she gasped, suddenly clapping her hand over her mouth.

    He grinned. “Go on, laugh, this lot won’t notice. Wouldn’t notice if you did a strip-tease on the table, most of them are gays and the ladies are only interested in Gerry.”

    Harriet did laugh, though very weakly. “Oh, dear!”

    “Yep, oh, dear’s about right. But the food’ll be good.”

    He was right: the food was superb. Artfully presented in silly little piles, of course, but completely delicious.

    “He sometimes does it at home. It doesn’t look nearly so flash, but it tastes just as good,” said Andy cheerfully.

    Harriet broke down in giggles, nodding madly.

    “Yeah,” he agreed, looking at her with great satisfaction.

    The chicken had been so good that Harriet didn’t much fancy a pudding but let Andy persuade her into a so-called sorbet de framboises. When it came it was just a raspberry water-ice. Well, it had mint-leaf wings, an intricately curled piece of something dark orange, and one blueberry on top of it, but a water-ice was what it was. Made from real raspberries, though—simple but perfect.

    “Nice?” said Andy kindly.

    “Perfect!” sighed Harriet. “I suppose you quite often bring your clients here, do you?”

    Those lovely dark almond eyes twinkled. “Well, every now and then. The comfortably-off wives—you know the type. Well, your sister’s friend Mrs Delafield, for example. If they haven’t been before they’re bound to become clients, you see. Makes up for Gerry charging me mates’ rates.”

    Harriet had to bite her lip. “Mm.”

    Andy grinned. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, eh? Makes the world go round!”

    Yes, Harriet was beginning to realise it did.

    “What do you mean, you’re going away for a dirty weekend?” gasped Trisha, two weeks later. Two weeks which Harriet had spent almost entirely in the company of Andy Morrison. That first lunch had led, almost inevitably, to bed. In fact almost immediately. Okay, she wasn’t in the least in love with him and she was very sure he wasn’t with her, but he was nice, he was a cheerful companion, he was uncomplicated and he wanted her. Added to which, he looked like Gary Sweet with a touch of Ben Kingsley, she’d’ve been mad to turn him down!

    “Going away. For a dirty weekend,” she repeated calmly.

    “Who with?” gasped Trisha.

    “Andy Morrison, of course.”

     Trisha looked at her blankly. “Who?”

    “The land agent.” It still hadn’t sunk in. “Mr Morrison. Kika Delafield’s land agent.”

    “What?” she gasped.

    “Why not?” said Harriet airily. “If a cat can look at a king I suppose I can look at a land—”

    “I thought you were in love with Uncle Ben!” she gasped.

    “Um, no. I could’ve been, maybe, if he’d needed me, and if he was the sort that could commit to anything, but I felt like a spare part all the time. And he made it very clear he didn’t want any sort of commitment.”

    Trisha looked at her weakly. “Um—yeah. Well, I see where you’re coming from... But that doesn’t mean you have to go off with this Mr Morrison, Harrie!”

    “No, but the fact that he looks a bit like Gary Sweet does!” replied Harriet with a laugh. “Stop fussing. It’s just a weekend.”

    “Well, where are you going?” she said weakly.

    “Dunno. Some place in the hills. It’s an ecolodge or something. Well, he reckons it’s nice.”

    “He doesn’t expect you to rough it, does he?”

    “No, I said, he reckons it’s nice. Proper suites.”

    “Well, that sounds... But in the hills? Harrie, you’ll be car sick!”

    “In that case it’ll put him off and you can stop worrying. –I’ve told him I get sick in cars, so if he goes too fast he’ll only have himself to blame, won’t he?” she said detachedly.

    Trisha sighed, and gave up.

    Andy didn’t drive too fast, in fact he drove super-carefully, stopping a lot and fussing anxiously over her. It wasn’t as bad as being car sick, nothing could be, but Harriet began to get rather fed up with him. She found she was adopting a sort of calm, steady, reassuring tone—help, almost a motherly tone!—in response to his over-anxious fussing. Ugh, that wasn’t her at all! Why couldn’t he just accept the fact that she was prone to travel sickness and simply drive slowly? She wouldn’t have put him down, on his showing up to now, as a fusser, at all: he’d seemed super-competent, in fact. It was an unexpected side to his personality and rather disconcerting.

    They’d driven through several little townships, Andy stopping anxiously to let her get out each time, and deciding she’d better not have an ice cream or a Coke, or even a coffee, plain spring water’d be safest, and Harriet was beginning to feel if she was offered one more drink of spring water she’d scream, when he said with a sigh of relief: “This is it: Potters Road”, and they drove very slowly up an admittedly rather rough road, but not particularly winding. There were no houses in sight, just a lot of the rather untidy-looking scrub endemic to these New South Wales foothills, but on their left they passed some widely-scattered letterboxes with some signs advertising a horse-trekking place, a crafts centre and a B&B and then, long before Harriet was expecting it, he said: “This is it!” And they swung into a steep driveway on the right, between some tall gums and more scraggy bush.

    “Hang on, nearly there,” he said anxiously. “You are okay, are you?”

    “Yes, I’m fine,” Harriet found herself replying in that horridly calm, reassuring voice—help, she sounded like Trisha when a very small Jimbo had been having panics! Panics which he’d long since outgrown.

    The place was called Blue Gums Ecolodge—there were quite a few gum trees around but Harriet didn’t think they were Tasmanian blue gums. One of those big ones down the bottom of the drive was definitely a stringy-bark. Oh, well, maybe she was wrong, or maybe it was poetic licence. The ecolodge seemed to be composed of a series of low cabins, sort of joined together in, um, a sort of stepped pattern. All with lots of natural wood shutters and nice shady verandahs. The drive ended in a sweep outside the entrance of what must be the administration block, and there was the view! Harriet gasped.

    “Yes, lovely view, isn’t it?” said Andy on a proud note. –He seemed to be himself again, thank goodness. Or perhaps not himself, perhaps just his everyday persona?

    “Mm, gorgeous!” The stepped design of the ecolodge, Harriet now realised, was so that each cabin would have a view down the glorious deep blue inlet, faced with its towering blue-grey forested cliffs.

    “Potters Inlet; we’re right at the head of it, here: miles inland,” Andy explained, hooting his horn.

    Harriet jumped. “Yes!” she gasped. Should he have done that? She eyed him nervously but the cheerful, everyday Andy just grinned at her.

    A lanky, smiling, middle-aged man in jeans and a tee-shirt appeared and grabbed their bags, and soon they were registered and in their cabin.

    “It is okay, is it?” said Andy on an anxious note. “At least it’s not too near the drive or the main block, it won’t be noisy. I tried to book the cabana, it’s miles smarter, I thought you’d be more comfortable there, but it was booked solid for months.”

    It was lovely, what was he on about? There was a giant main room with a huge kingsize bed in it, facing the view, plus a table and chairs, also facing the view, and a sofa and two armchairs into the bargain, and though it wasn’t carpeted the floor was highly polished boards, possibly those floating-floor thingos that Steve had bent her ear about at one stage, and there were lovely fluffy white mats by the bed, sheepskin, most probably, and in short it was like the most luxurious kind of motel.

    “It’s lovely, Andy,” said Harriet weakly. “I’m afraid you must be paying far too much for it.”

    He cheered up visibly. “Rats! Hadda take you somewhere nice! I’ll just check the ensuite.” He disappeared into it. Harriet didn’t follow him, it might have been a euphemism for wanting to have a pee, and anyway, she didn’t care what it was like so long as it had a toilet and a shower: what more did an ensuite need?

    Andy reappeared, looking cross and rather flustered. “It hasn’t got a spa, I knew I should’ve booked the cabana!”

    Harriet had been in a spa pool once: Trisha had dragged her to a spa party at a friend’s place. Probably a move, looking back, in her campaign to get Steve to agree to having one put in at their place. She’d hated it: sitting in a bumpy bath, far too deep, with a load of morons drinking white wine in tepid bubbling water wasn’t her idea of fun. The only good thing about it was that no-one had suggested taking off their cozzies, which she’d been dreading from the moment the word “spa” was mentioned.

    “That’s okay, I’m not keen on spas anyway,” she said quickly—and reassuringly, oh, dear!

    He looked dubious. “So long as you’re not just saying that...”

    “No,” said Harriet on a tired note.

    “Well, good... I wanted it all to be nice for you.”

    “It is nice,” she said desperately. “I love it, truly. Let me see the ensuite.” She looked in. It was perfect, what was he on about? Dark green tiles, about the shade of his corporate green, in fact, a perfectly acceptable small vanity unit in plain white and a bog with a pale green seat. No fluffy things, very sensible, with guests coming and going all the time, it’d save on laundry. “It’s lovely,” she said with perfect sincerity. “Look, there’s even one of those slatted wooden thingos to stand on in the shower! That’s very ecological!”

    He didn’t get the joke, he said: “Well, yes, they are quite nice, and their website says they’ve used renewable timbers throughout... I did hear you can catch athlete’s foot off them, though.”

    Jesus, man, then don’t stand on the thing! “Well, we don’t have to use it,” said Harriet calmly and reassuringly.

    “No, I don’t think you better had, Harriet,” he said anxiously.

    “All right,” said Harriet glumly.

    It did get better after they’d unpacked—Andy seemed to think they should, and there was a nice little varnished wood lowboy, but left to her own devices Harriet wouldn’t have bothered, just for a weekend. They had a nice lunch, blessedly not cordon bleu or horrid little piles of anything, but buffet-style, with a choice of delicious sliced cold meats—real carved roast beef, not the horrid wafer-thin pressed sort you got at the supermarket’s delicatessen counter, real cold roast chicken, and real ham off the bone—plus hot quiche, and salads. None with balsamic vinegar dressing, thank goodness! The stuff tasted like cough syrup. The potato salad in particular was really yummy. After some thought Harriet identified the taste: Heinz salad cream, shades of Laverne and the Big Rock Bay pub! It had tiny pieces of chopped gherkin, not too acid, and a few capers in it, and in short was the best potato salad she’d ever had. Andy agreed, in fact he noted: “Hey, this potato salad’s extra!” It was that, all right. And so was the tabbouleh. Not wet, with a really generous amount of parsley, and not drowned in raw onion, thank goodness! “Think they’ve used red shallots,” discerned Andy, grinning. “Nice, eh? I must tell Gerry.”

    “Does he serve tabbouleh, though?”

    He winked. “Not as such. Grilled filet de boeuf à la Libanaise.”

    After a moment Harriet got it and collapsed in ecstatic giggles, gasping: “Doner kebabs by any other name!”

    “Yep!” he agreed. “Well, plus and a fancy sauce, think it’s mainly puréed dried tomatoes, with a splash of red wine, but it looks good.”

    Harriet was unable to speak: tears of ecstasy oozed out of her eyes.

    “Yeah!” he agreed with a grin, handing her a spare green paper serviette. “It’s all quite tasteful, isn’t it?” he added happily.

    Harriet mopped her eyes. “Mm? Oh, the décor! Yes, it’s lovely. These leaf-pattern tablecloths are attractive, aren’t they? I like this idea of having the smaller dark green ones on top, too. And have you noticed the chairs?” she beamed.

    Andy had noticed the dining chairs, yes. They were all old chairs, recycled. Stripped and polyurethaned, and they all had seat cushions in more of the leafy pattern, tied with jaunty bows, and the effect was quite nice, but none of them matched. There were about sixteen different styles: ladder-backs, Windsor chairs, a couple with cane backs, some plain, sturdy ones, some with turned legs... “Mm. Bit of a mishmash,” he said uneasily.

    “Yes, but that’s their charm!” she cried.

    He smiled a relieved smile.

    After the glorious towering pavlova for dessert—there was a choice, they could’ve just had fruit salad but they’d both been unable to resist—they went for a walk, discovering that over to the northern side of the ecolodge there was another miraculous view: this time ranks and ranks of blue-grey hills shading to indigo, marching away forever. Harriet just stood and gazed for ages and ages and ages...

    “Nice view, eh?” said Andy on an uneasy note, shifting from foot to foot.

    “It’s wonderful! Gee, that end cabin’s probably got a view of this as well, lucky them!” said Harriet without thinking.

    “Yeah, um, I s’pose it is the choicest cabin. It was booked, though.”

    “Mm? Never mind, we can enjoy it from here! I could look at it forever!” she said fervently.

    “Um, yeah. The Blue Mountains must be over that way. Be a bit of a drive from here, though. I did look it up on the map, but I think the drive’d be a bit too much for you. Their website says they do run tours, though, but they’re over two days, and you have to book.”

    “Mm? Yeah. Well, if you were staying for a week...” said Harriet vaguely. “I know people who’ve visited the Blue Mountains rave about them, but I don’t think you could beat this view!”

    “Um, no. Well, there’s more to do there, the Janolan Caves and so on. I’m afraid there’s not much to do round here.”

    Harriet looked round at him, smiling. “I don’t want to do anything! Well, I s’pose we could go down the Bush Ramble Track, it’s just over there, see the sign?”

   Andy looked uneasy. “Ye-ah. Their website says it crosses the neighbouring property, though.”

    So? If they advertised it as such, mustn’t the ramblers be supposed to cross it? “Does it? Well, we could just go as far as that,” she said kindly, suppressing a strong urge to shout at him.

    “Yeah, okay. It’s something to do, anyhow!” he said on a relieved note.

    You didn’t have to do anything: the view was sufficient in itself! However, Harriet let herself be led off down the self-styled Bush Ramble Track. Funnily enough, though the dining area had been quite full—judging by the crowd the cabins must all be taken—there were no other bush track ramblers in evidence. Or should that be bush ramble trackers? Harriet swallowed an hysterical giggle.

    “Gee, you can’t see much,” Andy discovered as they rambled.

    No? There were continual glimpses of the marvellous ranks of blue hills, and the bush itself was lovely: quite tall, the typical sketchy, sunlight-dappled shapes of the New South Wales native foliage. A poem in light and shade, really. Impossible to reproduce: Harriet had never seen any landscape painting that even came close. The colours were usually too muddy and the styles and, in fact, the shapes, far too European. And she knew: she’d scoured the Art Gallery of New South Wales in her time.

    “I think it’s wonderful,” she said dreamily, tipping her head back. “Mm, smell it!”

    He sniffed dubiously. “Um, yeah. Well, bush. Eucalypts, I s’pose.”

    That was pretty much it for the bush ramble track: bush, and the continual glimpses to their right of those glorious ranks of hills. “Cordilleras,” said Harriet dreamily as they came across a wide gap in the foliage and she stopped to stare.

    “Eh?”

    She jumped. “Nothing. I haven’t seen any boundary marker, have you? It must be quite a big property.”

    Brightening, he imparted all the useful facts he’d gleaned from Blue Gums Ecolodge’s website...

    After that they went back to their cabin and went to bed for the rest of the afternoon. Andy was an energetic and very generous lover, very concerned to make sure she enjoyed herself as much as he did. Which was not only nice, it was a relief: Harriet had been afraid, from that cheery manner of his, that he might be cheerily dismissive in bed. Well, at least they had sex in common, if very little else! Well, an enjoyment of real food, yes. But, it was becoming pretty clear, very little else.

    On the Saturday night they tried the restaurant attached to the B&B down the road—Andy had booked, and assured her anxiously that it had a very good reputation, it wasn’t a B&B sort of place, at all! Harriet rather thought, from occasional exposure to Getaway and similar programmes on the box, that these days B&Bs were horridly up-market, designed especially for the affluent baby-boomers with a taste for fancy guest soaps, super-luxurious beds, and roaring fires and air-con in every room, the gourmet nosh following as night the day, but didn’t say so. The food turned out to be superb—really solid, not served in little piles, but just as delicious and beautifully cooked as anything Chez Gérard served. Harriet concluded, finishing a helping of superb homemade bombe composed of wickedly rich chocolate ice cream on the outside and tremendously aromatic blackberry ice cream on the inside: “I could die happy right now! It even beats Gerry’s wonderful raspberry sorbet!”

    Andy beamed. “Yeah, this place was the right choice after all!”

    They didn’t really need much lunch next day but after some strenuous indoor exercise felt, oddly enough, quite ready for it. Sunday buffet lunch at Blue Gums Ecolodge featured more cold meats—this time including cold roast pork, and cold roast duck done en gêlée, Andy gulping a bit and admitting that Gerry sometimes did that in summer, he charged the earth for it. They voted against the terribly rich Black Forest Cake for pudding, because they had dinner to look forward to, not to say leave room for, but succumbed to the tropical fruit salad. They were sharing a table with two pleasant middle-aged couples. The rather older ones, Mr and Mrs Corcoran, had been on the ecolodge’s boat trip down the inlet this morning and urged them to try the afternoon trip, but Andy explained quickly that Harriet was a rotten traveller, she'd be no good in boats.

    “It sounds lovely, though, Andy. You go, why don’t you? I’ll stroll down and look at the crafts centre.”

    Mr and Mrs Corcoran joined eagerly in urging him, and Andy gave in—somewhat influenced, noted Harriet with amusement, by the fact that the other couple, Bob and Ellen Elliott, were going, and Bob had mentioned earlier that they were thinking of putting their house on the market.

    “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” he said anxiously as the boating party prepared to leave.

    “Yeah, of course. It’s only down the road!” said Harriet cheerfully. “Have fun! See ya!”

    He looked anxious but said: “See ya!” And went off with the rest.

    Harriet, alas, experienced a huge feeling of relief at seeing the back of him. Oh, dear! He was very nice, he was kind and considerate, but the over-anxious bit was really starting to get to her. He’d asked her at least five times today if she was sure she wasn’t bored—any other bloke would’ve had trouble fitting these enquiries in, surely, or simply realised they weren’t necessary! Of course she wasn’t bored, but if anything had been guaranteed to induce boredom, his continual fussing would have been it. Well, okay, the trip had been his idea and he wanted her to enjoy it—but she manifestly was enjoying it! At least he didn’t get over-anxious about sex, he must know he was good at that. But heck! She’d admired the room, she loved the view and the setting, the food was lovely and she’d told him so—what else could she say?

    Um, was it perhaps his Indian blood? wondered Harriet on a guilty note, setting off down the steep drive. Were they predisposed to fussing? Um, a bit over-excitable? Um, yes, it seemed prejudiced to say so, but perhaps they were. Though you couldn’t count the fact that their languages sounded like that: they were syllabic languages, like French, that was their natural rhythm. Um, was that perhaps significant in itself? But this was iconoclasm: the signe was aléatoire, linguistic structures had no meaning outside themselves, the uni linguistics type would’ve had her shot for even thinking such a thing! Swallowing a laugh, Harriet swung on down the drive, emptying her mind to everything but the pleasure of the moment. It was a lovely day, very mild, not too windy, the bush smelled great, and there wasn’t a single, solitary human being in sight!

    Oops, the road was so empty because they’d all come in their cars and were at the crafts centre. Baby-boomers and older, the ultra-nice sort, oh, heck! And the craft centre’s offerings most certainly catered to their tastes. Yikes. Luverly gum trees till they came out yer ears, all rather après Mr. Heysen. Not that she’d had any idea of buying anything, except maybe a small something for Andy, just as a thank-you for a lovely weekend, though she had no idea what. Well, small pocket notebook with a couple of pressed gum leaves on the front? Ooh, key-ring with a pressed gum leaf set in clear plastic! Ooh, even better, key-ring made of a gum nut! No, he was the sort of person that wouldn’t see these offerings as the delirious pieces of kitsch they were, he’d think they were awful. Well, yeah, they were, but good, too. She went back to the paintings but even the small ones, which Andy would probably like, were too ruddy dear... Harriet’s thoughts wandered off back into the byways of racial behavioural characteristics and the significance or otherwise of linguistic structures...

    “Penny for ’em,” said a voice in her ear.

    Harriet was so startled that she replied without thinking: “Le signe est aléatoire.”

    “Well, yes,” he said plaintively, “but not obligatoire, surely? I’ve deliberately refrained from painting any black swans, we don’t get them so much up here in the foothills.”

    She choked, failed to restrain herself and went off into a fit of choked hysterics, gasping: “Not—that,—you—clot!”

    “No,” agreed the knowledgeable punster with the flexible mind, grinning. He was a thin man of perhaps around fifty, with an unremarkable but very likeable sort of face. And an English accent that Harriet, even in the midst of hysterics, couldn’t help noticing was very nearly as plummy as ruddy Crispin Guess-Whose? Unlike Lord Crispin Narrowmine, however, he was dressed in faded jeans and a very ordinary grey tee.

    “Bernie Anderson,” he said, holding out his hand. “I run this place, for me sins. Responsible for these daubs, too, though I don’t think I’ve committed sins bad enough to justify—“

    “Shut up,” said Harriet weakly, going rather red. “They’re very—very workmanlike, Mr Anderson. Very, um, Heysenesque, really.”

    “Bernie,” he corrected, grinning, as they shook hands. “They’re that, all right.”

    “Bernie,” agreed Harriet, smiling at him. “I’m Harriet—Harriet Harrison. Cacophonous, isn’t it?”

    “Hardly that. Alliterative, possibly.”

    “Shut up, Bernie!” said a cross female voice. A round-faced, brown-haired woman of about Harriet’s age, dressed in unremarkable blue shorts and a faded pinkish tee, most unlike the ultra-nice garb of the baby-boomers surrounding them, came up to his side. “I’m sorry; is he pestering you? I’m afraid he does that: picks on some unfortunate and comes out with something guaranteed to put them on the rack.”

    “No!” said Harriet with a laugh. “I was enjoying the verbal persiflage, actually. It’s a nice change, to tell you the truth.”

    “For five minutes, yeah,” she conceded, giving him a hard look.

    “I will be good!” he said quickly. “’Tisn’t, though, it’s ‘t’voibals’, thought you’d know that?” he said to Harriet. “This is Harriet Harrison,” he added on a proud note.

    “Hi, Harriet, I’m Ann Anderson,” said the round-faced woman with a smile. “I hope you don’t want to buy something from us, ’cos he’ll of put you off, eh?’

    “Um, no, not quite! The thing is, it’s for someone who, um, doesn’t have the same tastes as me.”

    “No taste,” agreed Bernie, nodding. “We get a lot of that. Hence the Heysenesque.”

    “Ssh!” hissed his wife, looking frantically over her shoulder. “Um, well, we have got some really nice quilts, all handmade, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

    “Um, no, Ann, just something small, really, thanks,” said Harriet, blushing.

    “She was studying those dinky little key-rings of Deanna’s, earlier,” noted Bernie.

    “He wouldn’t think they were funny,” admitted Harriet glumly.

    “Then what in God’s name are you dong with him?” asked Bernie simply.

    “Bernie! That’s really beyond the pale!” gasped Ann, going very red.

    “No, he’s right, Ann, I was mad. Well, you know: a weekend away... I thought we might have more in common than we have, really. Well, didn’t think, to be honest. Hoped, I suppose. No, more kidded myself I was hoping.”

    “Aw, right: I’ve been on a few of those,” agreed Ann, nodding wisely.

    “Not with me, I hope!” said Bernie in horror.

    “Actually I was thinking of that first time in Queensland. –How it wasn’t one of those, you nit!” she said loudly as his jaw sagged.

    “Oh. Thank God for that,” he said limply.

    “Gee, that got to him, eh?” said Ann happily to Harriet. “Never meant it to, either. Well, they’re not as tough as they like you to think, are they?”

    “No,” she agreed, smiling at her. “I don’t think they are, on the whole, Ann.”

    “No,” she said, looking at Bernie affectionately. “I must say it serves you right for accosting a perfect stranger with your ruddy garbage, Bernie.”

    “Darling,” he said, biting his lip, “I merely said ‘Penny for ’em’ and she came out with a phrase that I hadn’t heard since my Oxbridge days. I’m sorry, Harriet. Did go a bit overboard, I’m afraid.”

    “That’s okay!” beamed Harriet. “I wasn’t upset, honest, Ann! So was it Oxford or Cambridge, Bernie?’

    “Mm? Well, Oxford, but I came down without my degree—gave it away when I inherited a bit of dough, went to art school instead, duly breaking the Aged Ps’ ’earts.”

    Ann looked anxiously at Harriet, but as she was nodding and smiling, relaxed and said: “That’s one of his favourite lines. I eventually got it out of him that they were annoyed, but not that upset. Anyway, he didn’t go and starve in an attic, he ended up as a film designer, but he’s given it away to scrape along here on a shoestring.”

    “On a shoestring with Ann. Le paradis terrestre, in short!” said Bernie with a laugh, putting an arm round her waist.

    Lucky, lucky Ann. Harriet swallowed a sigh of pure envy. Though the gadfly bit might be rather hard to take, fulltime. But Ann Anderson, even on very short acquaintance, seemed stable enough to take it in her stride.

    “I’ve got a few small sketches that we haven’t put out yet,” offered Bernie. “Small clumps of acacia, that sort of thing. Trial runs, mostly, but Ann insisted on framing them.”

    “He can do real botanical drawings, only that’s a very limited market,” explained Ann.

    “Mm, especially as compared to the market for the fake botanical drawings,” he agreed.

    “Come through,” suggested Ann. “He can look after this lot, they’re always thrilled to discover he’s the artist.”

    “Ooh!” gasped Harriet as Ann led her through the door in the back wall. They were in a large family-room, the kitchen area being over at the back, with a wide windowsill featuring a row of scarlet geraniums. The tiling at the bench was bright emerald green, the walls were a bright watermelon pink, the doors pale varnished wood, and the rest of the woodwork sparkling white. It was completely unexpected, after the neutral oatmeal of the big studio cum shop.

    “The house was a kitset but we changed the layout, sort of cut it in half, really. The bedroom’s on that side, it’s only small. What do you think of the sofa?” asked Ann on an anxious note.

    The room contained quite a mixture of furniture, mostly upholstered in a dark emerald linen which toned with, but wasn’t nearly as bright as, the kitchen tiles, but the big three-seater sofa, an old-fashioned, heavy-looking thing, was done in an incredibly bright Paisley-style print, in which watermelon pink was possibly predominant, but mingled with orange, reds, blues, turquoise and bright yellow.

    “It’s glorious, Ann,” said Harriet sincerely.

    Ann sagged in relief. “Good. I love it, but I’ve got no taste, I wouldn’t know if it works or not. Bernie chose it, you see. He goes overboard sometimes, and one of our neighbours, he laughed.”

    “He’s a twit, then,” said Harriet firmly, wishing the room was hers. She found she was telling Ann all about Ben Rivers’s wonderful kitchen with its higgledy-piggledy windows and its mixture of salmon pink, dark brown and clear-varnished wood.

    “Yeah, sounds great,” agreed Ann. “Wanna see the bedroom?” she offered eagerly.

    Happily Harriet agreed. Gosh! It wasn’t a big room, as Ann had said, and it was a king-size bed. It was covered in a stretch of shiny black brocaded silk—quite thin, the sort sold as dress material, not a real bedspread, you could see it had several long seams all the way down it. The walls were completely covered in what looked like the stuff those funny little mats that were sold for rolling sushi were made of—minutely narrow fawnish strips of some natural substance, Harriet didn't have a clue if it was bamboo or cane or what. This effect, clearly, was designed to show off the wall opposite the big bed, which was half-hidden by an enormous red lacquer screen: six panels featuring elaborate depictions of birds and flowers. It was completely wonderful: Harriet just stood and gaped.

    “Um, is it mad?’ said Ann on a nervous note.

    “No, it’s wonderful!” she gasped. “Is it an antique, Ann?”

    Ann made a face. “Nah. I’d of called it quite old, but Bernie says it’s not a proper antique. Chinese: he reckons they churned them out by the truckload around 1900. For the European market, mostly. If it was a real antique it’d cost more than our income for ten years, but it was only about eight hundred dollars. Well, I say ‘only’, but the bed was a ruddy sight more.”

    “Yes, of course, they charge the earth for decent beds these days, don’t they?”

    “Yeah,” she agreed on a grateful note. “Most of our friends do like the effect, but, um, some of them have said it’s extreme.”

    “If you love it and it makes you happy, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” replied Harriet, smiling at her.

    “Yep! Well, Bernie makes me happy, to tell you the truth, Harriet, and if he wanted it, I wasn’t gonna stop him, but actually, I do really love the effect. See, the drawers and robes are all kind of hidden.” She went over to the side wall and slid back what Harriet had thought was just a panel in the wall, to reveal a wardrobe and a set of drawers. “Nifty, eh?” she said on a proud note.

    “I’ll say! Heck, is it just one of those built-in sets?” she croaked, as the dreaded white Melamine of the drawers registered.

    “Yep, standard. Didn’t cost us any extra. Bernie and a mate, they just covered it with this stuff, see?”

    Harriet nodded dazedly. “Um, what it is it, Ann?” she croaked, hoping that didn’t sound rude.

    “Rattan. They make it by the metre for blinds, ya see, so once he’d copped a gander at some in a shop, he tracked down the suppliers and they sold him as much as he wanted.”

    Cripes, so it was! Rattan. Just like the blinds that mingy landlords sometimes supplied. They were completely useless at night: the street lights shone right through them. “Gee, he’s clever,” she said in awe.

    “Yeah, well,” said Ann, looking really pleased, “he’s used to having to improvise, ya see, when he hadda design film sets. And there’s a big mirror in the ensuite and anyway, I’m not the sort of dame that wants a blimmin’ dressing-table!”

    This last was said rather feelingly, so Harriet concluded that a friend or relation must have made pointed comments and said quickly: “No, ’course not, nobody needs a dressing-table as well as an ensuite.”

    “Yeah,” she agreed gratefully. “It’s this end, something about the plumbing, it's cheaper if they put it all in at the same end or something.” She crossed to the far end of the room and opened that door, to reveal a very ordinary little white tiled and laminated ensuite—the decorating hand of the inspired Bernie had evidently not reached that far. “Came standard with the house kitset, ya see, so we said, it’ll do!”

    “Yes, I would of, too,” agreed Harriet quite sincerely, even though the vanity top did have those horrid sparkly flecks in it. “I never realised you could buy kitset houses.”

    “Aw, Hell, yeah!” Happily Ann led the way back into the main room, telling her all about the kitset houses that they, the owners of the B&B, the B&B’s chef, and the chef’s sister had all bought, and, possibly under the impression that she was a guest rather than a potential client, pouring her a glass of juice and sitting her down on the fabulous sofa.

    “These are the sketches, only you don’t have to buy one if you don’t like them,” she said, sorting through a pile of small framed pictures on the beaten-up old coffee table—help, it looked like a cut-down kitchen table—which clearly Bernie hadn't yet got round to doing up. “Hey, whaddaya think we oughta do about this coffee table? He likes the shape, ya see, only we can’t decide whether to varnish it or paint it or what.”

    “Um, well, I’ve never decorated a house, Ann, and I could never afford to do anything to my flat—I used to plan these fabulous schemes out in my head, y’know?” said Harriet with a little sigh. “Only they were unrealistic, really. And my horrible landlord would never of let me do anything to the walls, anyway. I dunno that I’ve got any taste, really: my sister always criticises my clothes—only if a thing’s on sale and it fits, it seems stupid not to buy it, even if you know blue’s not your colour!”

    “Yeah, I know whatcha mean. I can wear blue, but I had this kinda mauvey-lilacy top, it made me look yellow as a lemon, but it was a really good buy, at a DJ’s sale, y’know? Bernie usually doesn’t mind what I wear but after a bit he broke down and asked me to throw the thing out.”

    “And did you?” asked Harriet in fascination. Ann had a naturally pale skin, lightly tanned, with grey eyes and mid-brown hair: the sort of colouring that could normally wear anything, but she could see that mauvey-lilac wouldn't be her colour, you had to be really pink and white to get away with that, didn’t you?

    “Actually I gave it to Deanna for her patchwork, same diff’!” she said cheerfully. “Well, tell us what you think, anyway, Harriet!”

    Harriet swallowed. “The coffee table? Um, well, I sort of see it in scarlet paint—the shiny sort. Um, to match the geraniums,” she ended, swallowing.

    Ann grinned. “Awesome! I’ll suggest it! –Mind you, knowing him, it won’t be paint, it’ll be sixteen coats sanded down lovingly till it’s smooth as a baby’s bottom, topped with another sixteen coats of polyurethane to make it shiny like lacquer and stop the coffee mugs ruining its irreplaceable surface—but yeah!”

    “Good,” said Harriet, smiling. She looked slowly through the framed pictures.

    “We thought we’d give that one to Mum,” said Ann as she paused at a pen-and-ink drawing of the B&B. “Looks real ye-olde, eh?”

    Harriet bit her lip. “Mm.” It did, too: the B&B was an old bungalow, probably dating back to Federation, but its colour scheme, which she rather thought must be down to the artistic Bernie, definitely wasn’t. Reduced to its essential lines in the sketch, however— She met Ann’s eyes and burst out laughing. To her relief, Ann immediately joined in.

    “See,” said Ann, wiping her eyes, “these are the ones he calls small clumps. Like that bloke that did the praying hands, eh?”

    “That’s right,” agreed Harriet. “I see, not full-grown acacia bushes: these’d be seedlings.”

    “Yep, and weeds,” replied Ann cheerfully.

    Exactly. The pencil sketches were lovely, actually. Swallowing, Harriet asked in a small voice: “Well, how much would you want for them, Ann?” –The smallest paintings, that would’ve only been about twelve centimetres across, had all been around the fifty-dollar mark. She’d’ve been happy to buy one for Andy if she could’ve afforded it, specially in view of what this weekend must be setting him back, but with no job, that was a Helluva bite out of her rapidly dwindling savings.

    “Dunno,” said Ann vaguely. “Well, ten dollars? That too much?’

    “It’s not nearly enough!” gasped Harriet.

    “They’re not paintings; I mean, it’s a bit of paper and some pencil. And we do the frames ourselves. Well, not me, I’m too cack-handed, but Bernie and Deanna, and Bob, that’s her husband, he helps out if he’s got the time, and Jack, he quite often does some. –Sorry. Bob and Deanna Springer, they run the B&B, they’re our business partners,” she said to Harriet’s blank face. “Aren’t you staying there?”

    “No, at Blue Gums Ecolodge.”

    “Oh, right. You’d get more privacy there, that’s for sure. Comfy, is it?”

    “Very. And the food’s lovely!”

    “Yeah, they’ve got a good cook,” agreed Ann. “Good solid nosh, eh? And you can’t beat her pav!”

    “No, it was extra. Um, well, you’d still have to pay for the material in the frames, wouldn’t you?”

    “All right, twelve bucks,” said Ann on a firm note.

    Harriet still thought it was far too little, but she agreed, and chose a nice pencil sketch of a tea-tree plantlet, some scattered fallen gum nuts, and a small clump of pretty flowers that Ann identified as oxalis, and a noxious weed, but if she didn’t mention it, no-one’d ever know! It had a lovely frame in slightly speckled wood. It looked unvarnished but Ann assured her it was sealed. It’d look just the thing on Andy’s office wall.

    After that she thought, reluctantly, that she’d better go, but Ann got out of her that Andy had gone off on the ecolodge’s boat trip, assured her happily that it lasted for hours, they wouldn’t be back until nearly dinnertime, and proceeded to kidnap her for the rest of the afternoon.

    It was one of the happiest afternoons of Harriet’s life. She helped Ann and Bernie in the crafts centre for a little while, until the mob thinned out—mostly heading off to afternoon tea at the B&B, Bernie explained, even though most of them would’ve already stuffed themselves on the restaurant’s lunch—and then Bernie thought he could manage if stayed with a cuppa and a scone, so they brought those through and had theirs companionably with him, what time a middle-aged Mr and Mrs Gledhill who’d driven up from Sydney for the day dithered over whether one of Deanna Springer’s glorious hand-stitched quilts would be right for a wedding present for Nevil and Carol’s Karen, eventually deciding that it might be safer not to: they’d go to DJ’s and check her list.

    After that Ann and Harriet tottered out with the crockery to the wonderful emerald-tiled bench and Ann explained: “They’re mostly like that. The ones that aren’t ruddy quilters themselves. We really only sell the quilts to the occasional passing Yank or Canadian tourist lady. Though we have had a few younger customers from Jardine Holiday Horse Treks. Not into quilting themselves, ya see, but got enough of an eye to spot a good thing when they see it, and still doing up their flats or their houses. No, well,” she admitted, looking at Harriet’s appalled face, “most of the baby-boomers buy the everlasting real oils of gum trees, ya see. Mind you—” She plunged into an account of how having to do the things unendingly had really got Bernie down at one point, only then their neighbour at the horse trekking place had had an inspiration and got him onto the small clumpy things—

    The rest of the afternoon passed happily in gossiping with Ann, being shown Ann’s veggie garden, chook run, and ducks, going up the back of Ann’s place to view the hills from up there, and returning to the crafts centre to rescue Bernie, close the shop, and sit down with a few beers and some cheese and crackers. A new cheese that Ann was trying: the supermarket had had it on special, it had herbs in it.

    Finally Harriet looked at her watch and reluctantly dragged herself away. Taking Bernie’s advice and enjoying the view by going along the track that ran along the cliff top at the back of their place and joined up with the bush ramble track proper, rather than panting up the dusty, stony, unpaved road.

    “Where have you been?” cried Andy shrilly as she went into the cabin. “I’ve been going mad, wondering what happened to you!”

    “Um, I’ve been to the crafts centre, I said I would.”

    “I went down there and they said you left ages ago!” he cried.

    “Oh.” Harriet looked at her watch. “I think it’s stopped,” she discovered. “Um, sorry. I went along the track. I wasn’t hurrying, I thought it was only five o’clock. I did stop to look at the view, I suppose.”

    “Look at the view? They said you left at quarter to six!” he cried.

    “Um, well, what is the time?’

    “It’s gone SEVEN-THIRTY!” he shouted.

    “Um, my watch has stopped... Well, I’m sorry, Andy, but I’m in plenty of time for dinner, I can’t see why you were worrying—”

    “I thought something had happened to you! Anything could have happened!” he cried, tears in his eyes. “I’ve been frantic!”

    Apparently—yeah. Harriet took a deep breath. No way was she gonna do the sensibly reassuring thing. “Then you’re nuts,” she said flatly. “The only danger a person can possibly run round here is being buttonholed by a baby-boomer that wants to buy a lovely real oil painting of a gum tree.”

    “What are you talking about, Harriet?” he screamed. “You go out for hours all by yourself at the back of beyond, anything could have happened, a rapist or a serial killer or a horrible accident, and then you start making silly jokes? You were putting yourself at risk!”

    “Bullshit. Grow up, Andy. You’re getting hysterical. And don’t expect me to do the reassuring motherly bit and calm you down, I’m not into that stupid sort of rôle playing, and if you want another Parent and Child performance you’re gonna be disappointed,” replied Harriet with a horrible scowl, walking past him and into the ensuite and firmly locking the door. Well, she did need to go, but if she’d stayed in the same room with him for another instant she’d have—well, something drastic. Slapped his silly face for him, maybe.

    When she came out he was sitting on the edge of the bed looking sulky.

    “I’m sorry, but I think I’d better go home,” said Harriet firmly. Help, that came out a lot grimmer than she’d meant! Oh, well, too bad, she’d made up her mind, so that was that.

    “But I’ve paid for the room and everything!” he cried.

    “Um, yeah. Well, if you could drop me at the nearest bus stop, then.”

    “There isn’t a bus, it’ll of gone.”

    There was no way she was gonna stand there arguing with him. The Andersons had given her several copies of their card. She fished one out of her handbag and picked up the phone.

    “You can’t take a taxi from here, Harriet, it’ll cost the earth!” he gasped. “Look, I forgive you; just—just don’t let it happen again, eh?”

    “Don’t be ludicrous, you can’t forgive me, I didn’t do anything wrong. Um, yeah, hullo, Reception, sorry, I was trying to dial out. Um, actually I just want the crafts centre down the road. Oh—right. Thanks.” Carefully she redialled. Phew, it was Ann! “Hi, Ann, it’s Harriet Harrison.”

    “What’s up? Is he doing his nut?” replied Ann immediately.

    “Um, yeah. Well, hysterical, really. Um, he came down there, did he? –Mm. Um, I was wondering if I could possibly just spend the night, Ann, and—and then I could catch the bus home tomorrow.”

    “Hell, yes, come to us, no worries! –Eh?” she said, not to Harriet. “Yeah, he’s been having hysterics all over her, apparently. –Yeah, all right, Bernie, good idea. –We’ll come up and fetch you. Be quicker,” she said, ringing off.

    “Look, Harriet,” began Andy: “you can’t stay with people you hardly—”

    “I may hardly know them but I do know I’ve got miles more in common with them than I could ever have with you. I’m sorry, Andy: it isn’t just the hysterical bit, it’s because you’ve been trying to force me into a rôle that isn’t me ever since we got here. No, before that, really: all the way up here.”

    “What are you talking about?” he cried, tears starting to his eyes again. “I’ve only tried to give you a lovely time and—and take care of you!”

    “Ostensibly, yes. And I do appreciate the, um, forethought.” Harriet went over to the nice little lowboy and removed the contents of the drawer that he’d decided should be hers. “But underneath that, what you’ve actually been doing is trying to force me into playing the rôle of the reassuring, calm, down-to-earth partner to your fussing and flapping.”

    “I do not fuss and flap!”

    “Yes, you do. I wouldn’t mind that so much—well, I would,” she admitted honestly, “it’s very irritating when there’s nothing to fuss over—but there’s no way I’m going to play the immensely calm, reassuring mother figure to your febrile little boy act. –Earth Mother, really,” she said thoughtfully, cramming the things into her case and zipping it up.

    “Look, this is silly, Harriet! I was legitimately worried: you’d been out for hours and the craft centre people said—”

    “Yeah, yeah.” Harriet picked up her case. “I’ll wait outside, it’s a beautiful evening. It was a nice idea, Andy, but it didn’t work out, I haven’t got the right temperament for you. I’ll pay you back my half, don’t worry.” With this she walked out.

    “What’s this?” said Trisha numbly as she was presented with a small, hard package tastefully wrapped in what looked like recycled paper hand-printed with a design of gum leaves in a soft sage shade, tied with a perky twist of matching sage ribbon.

    “It’s nothing. Just a little sketch, there’s a nice crafts centre near the ecolodge. It’ll do for your guest bog.”

    Trisha opened it cautiously. “Ooh! It’s lovely! Much too good for the toilet, don’t be mad, Harrie! I’ll put it by the front door, it’ll just match the new wallpaper! You shouldn’t of!”

    “It only cost a few dollars. I did think of giving it to Andy, but then I decided he didn’t deserve it.’

    “Oh, heck. What went wrong?”

    Harriet made a face, but told her.

    Trisha looked at her limply. “Harrie, every relationship has its—its ups and downs, and sometimes one partner just has to—to be the steady one, if the other person’s upset.”

    “I do know that. But it was more than that. It’s his essential nature. He apparently needs a woman who can do the Earth Mother thing—I mean, who wants and needs to. But I can’t. I felt...” Harriet frowned over it. “Untrue to myself,” she said finally.

    “Oh. Well, in that case... But heck, it was only one weekend: couldn’t you of made an effort?”

    “No, it would have been hypocritical, and I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, it wouldn’t have been fair on him. Um, have you still got those emergency toothbrushes? Could I have one, do you think?”

    “Uh—yeah, sure, they’re in the cupboard in the guest bog,” said Trisha limply, leading the way. She found a toothbrush for her and said feebly: “Harrie, I don't mean to pry, but you could’ve bought one down the mall, couldn’t you? I mean, how broke are you?’

    Harriet bit her lip. “I’m okay. It’s not that. The supermarket hasn’t got these nice short ones, you see, with the softer bristles. Well, it’s got some of those new ones with the tongue thingos, but I don’t think they’re hygienic.”

    “Ugh, those detachable ones? No!” agreed Trisha, shuddering. “I mean, I took one look at the blimmin’ things and thought Jimbo? No way!”

    “Yeah,” agreed Harriet gratefully. “Um, the chemist has got the nice ones, but, um, I’m kind of avoiding Wayne Macdonald.”

    Trisha eyed her with a sort of wild resignation. “Does this mean you’re avoiding the fish and chips shop as well, because of Andy Whatsisface practically next-door?”

    “Um, yeah.”

    Her sister took a deep breath. “Then you’d better move into the loft straight away. It’ll work out good, actually: we can just give the house the once-over, and you won’t have to worry about tidying it up every time he wants to show someone round.”

    “Um, great. Thanks, Trisha. Um, what about the keys?” said Harriet in a small voice.

    “I’ll go round there myself and drop off a key and explain the house’ll be empty,” said Trisha firmly.

    “Thanks. –I suppose I’m doing it myself,” said Harriet on a wan note.

    “What?”

    “Letting you be the calm, capable one.”

    Trisha gave her a dry look. “So what’s new? You’ve always been hopeless!”

    Their eyes met and they both broke down in helpless giggles.

    ... “All the same!” concluded Trisha, when Harriet had been installed in the loft, and she and Steve were alone.

    “Yeah—no, she’s right in a way, darl’. I mean, if ya can’t be yourself with the other person, it’s no go, eh?” He scratched his short, fawnish hair. “Mind you, being yourself means being pretty odd, in her case, I gotta admit.”

    Trisha frowned and opened her mouth. She met his eye. “Um, yes,” she conceded, swallowing.

Next chapter:

https://trialsofharrietharrison.blogspot.com/2023/09/temping.html