Winter Of Discontent

17

Winter Of Discontent

    A miserable winter had closed in on Sydney. Trisha reported sourly that Miss Melanie Satterthwaite, having refused point-blank to have a flu shot in spite of everything her benighted parents (her expression) could say, had duly come down with it and Kyla was sulking because she hadn’t been able to go with her on some dratted up-market holiday to some stupid place (her expression) where the Satterthwaites had stupid friends (hers again) with their own rotten values (ditto).

    Meaning the Satterthwaites’ values—right. Harriet nodded groggily at the phone, though as it was just a cheapo one that didn’t have pictures and bells and whistles and lots of crap that was always going wrong or coming on at the wrong time or needing another piece of Internet crap to make it go, her sister couldn’t see her doing it.

    “Are you listening?”

    “Um—yes! Sorry, Trisha! Of course I’m listening. So did she just have to stay at home?”

    “Yes, driving us all crazy. Steve got so fed up he threatened to let the loft, and of course that made it worse, the idiot: she burst into tears and said he didn’t love her and she’d always known that Jimbo was his favourite,” Trisha reported dully.

    Oh, help. “Um, she is just a kid still, really,” said Harriet awkwardly.

    “She’s twenty now,” Trisha reminded her dully.

    “Mm, I know.”

    “The next thing she’ll be demanding a frightful twenty-first like bloody Melanie!” she burst out.

    Ugh, heck! “Is she? In this day and age?” Harriet croaked.

    “Of course she is, the greedy little creep! Not that they can’t afford it, but still! Entitlement, isn’t that the word? Like the spoilt American kids from Beverly Hills and that!”

    “Entitlement?” she groped.

    “Yes: I s’pose it means they think they’re entitled.”

    Harriet swallowed. “Right. Goddit. Um, well, I suppose it is awful, but heck, Trisha, you’re only young once. And ’member how mean Mum was when Dad wanted to give you a twenty-first?”

    Silence. Finally Trisha said in a very small voice: “Mm. I’d forgotten… Well, it’s psychological, isn’t it? You forget some things because they’re too awful to remember… Not that I was living at home by then, anyway.”

    Nevertheless. Harriet made a ferocious face at her kitchen, causing Hughie, who incidentally was sitting at the kitchen table with Brindle at his knee, to ask in alarm: “What’s up?”

    “Nothing,” she said, smiling at him. “Trisha was just remembering how awful Mum was.”

    “Was that Hughie?” said Trisha, as the sound of his rich snort reached her all the way from Sandy Cove through the power of modern technology.

    “Mm. I’ve told him all about Mum.”

    “Good. That was probably— Um, I’ve forgotten the word. Well, it means it would of done you good psychologically! Anyway, you’re right. We’ll rethink the blimmin’ twenty-first.”

    “Great. Um, why not have it up here? I could contribute,” said Harriet cautiously.

    “We couldn’t do that!”

    “Why not? She is my only niece,” said Harriet with a smile in her voice.

    Trisha was about to veto this generous suggestion definitively, but paused. Poor Harrie had nothing in her life, did she? Well, that dumb dog, yeah: you couldn’t count it! And what with flaming Hughie inflicting himself on her all the time… “Um, look, we’ll think about it. Steve might not wear it. Um, and it’ll be pretty humid up there at that time of year, you know.”

    “Beach party?” Harriet suggested. “Unsuitable bikinis with thongs?”

    “Thongs?” echoed Trisha in bewilderment. Everybody wore thongs in summer in Australia! Actually you had to at the beach, or your feet’d burn on the sand.

    “Rude thongs. Bikini thongs,” elaborated Harriet, her eyes twinkling.

    Trisha didn’t need the echo of Hughie’s “Flamin’ disgustin’,” to enlighten her. “Oh! Those! Heck, Steve’d do his nut if he caught Kyla in one of those!”

    This was true.

    “Yes. Well, there’s no hope of finding any bathers these days that aren’t horribly cutaway, but if you move Heaven and Earth and pray to the god that gave Miss Melanie Satterthwaite the flu, you might be able to keep her out of a thongy one.”

    “Don’t,” said Trisha faintly.

    “Sorry. Well, we could just have an outdoor party under the mango trees. With a marquee, I think. Isabelle Bell knows of a very reliable firm that’ll supply them at a very good rate.”

    Isabelle Bell would. Nevertheless Trisha replied in relief: “That sounds all right! Well, I’ll talk it over with Steve. Um, though if we come up for that, I dunno that we’ll be able to swing it this year for Christmas, Harrie.”

    Harriet took a deep breath. “Considering the times you brought me up here, not to mention all the times collecting me from this and that and lifts in your car when I was in Sydney, I’ll pay your fares. Or the petrol if Steve wants to drive.”

    “We can’t let you do that,” said Trisha, but very weakly.

    “Yes, you can. I’d like some company for Christmas,” said Harriet firmly, if not entirely truthfully. “We’ll have a big turkey, I’ll plan it properly this time, and Hughie and Joel can come over for it!” She beamed at Hughie.

    “Bonzer!” floated through to Trisha by the power of modern technology.

    “Um, well, it does sound nice… You’d better ask Isabelle’s advice, she’ll know how to make sure of getting a decent turkey in time. Um, well, I’ll talk to Steve!” she added quickly.

    “Yes, do that. And listen, if Kyla’s unbearable, send her up here, the weather’s really mild, it’s very pleasant.”

    “What about Cape York?” asked Hughie, sounding aggrieved even way down in Sydney.

    “It’s too far, and you said yourself the roads are terrible and half the time they aren’t even roads, I’d be car-sick,” replied Harriet very firmly.

    “Harrie, if this’d upset your plans—”

    “No, of course not! I told Hughie before that I don’t fancy those awful roads. I’d love to have her! And some of Isabelle’s friends are having a B&S ball quite soon—well, just a party, really, but they’ve got kids about Kyla’s age, and they decided to have a bit of fun with everybody in tuxes and so on.”

    “Yeah. It’ll of been that Charlene’s idea,” noted Hughie with a sniff.

    “That’s right,” Harriet agreed, smiling. “Charlene and Ken Wong, Trisha.”

    “Avocados, mainly. Does all right with ’is mangoes in a good year,” noted Hughie.

    “Mm. Everybody seems to be going, it’s not just for the kids,” Harriet explained. “But there’ll definitely be dancing.”

    “Harrie: young farmers?” she croaked.

    “Not really, I don’t think, Trisha. Well, their eldest son, Pete, he’s an agricultural scientist with the Queensland DPI, but I don’t think that counts. He spends most of his time hunched over his computer compiling stats, according to Charlene!” said Harriet with a laugh. “He’ll probably bring a couple of his mates, but they’re just like him. Um, I really don’t think there’ll be anybody she can get a crush on.”

    “I dunno if that’s good or bad!” admitted Kyla’s mother with a mad laugh. “Um, what’s the daughter like?”

    “Help, at that age it’s hard to tell, isn’t it? Um, well, she’s not a right little madam like Miss M. Satterthwaite. Just an ordinary girl, I’d say. Giggly; um, mad on clothes and shoes?” she offered.

    “Normal,” concluded Kyla’s mother drily.

    “Mm!” squeaked Harriet, collapsing in giggles.

    “Yeah. Um, well, thanks very much, Harrie, I’ll try and persuade her to go. It does sound like fun, actually,” said Trisha on a wistful note.

    “Why not come up, too?” replied her sister eagerly.

    “Now? We can’t get away just like that! We’d have to apply for leave, and then what about next year? –Hang on, would that be the next financial year, or what? Blast! It’s so flaming complicated! Um, no, it ends on the 30th of June, eh? Blast, that’s the same financial year. We can’t possibly, Harrie, we’re not living off a giant share portfolio like you, you know. And the ruddy car’s started making awful noises. Steve’s decided we better trade it in for a station-waggon, but we won’t get much for it.”

    “Oh, heck. Look, I’d be really happy to pay your fares, Trisha! Um, couldn’t you even take leave without pay?”

    “No,” said Trisha heavily.

    Harriet bit her lip. “Blow.”

    “Never mind,” she said bravely. “We’ll send Kyla. She’s finished that last contract for RightSmart—actually I think that’s partly why she’s in such a mood. Well, that and the dratted bloke there that never looked twice at her, by my calculations he must of been fifty if a day, but she reckoned he looked like Daniel Craig!”

    “Who?” said Harriet blankly.

    “Uh—never mind. A blimmin’ film star. Personally I reckon they colourised his eyes in every shot, that or made him wear coloured contacts, no-one’s eyes are that colour!” said Trisha on a vicious note.

    Harriet blinked. “Oh. Well,” she ventured, hoping it was the right thing to say, “it’ll do her good to get away and socialise with some young people.”

    “Yes, ’course it will. Thanks very much, Harrie! I’ll get her up there if it kills me! And listen, Marg from work has given me a recipe for a faked-up filo pie thing that’s as easy as anythink! I’ll send it to you! See ya!” With this she rang off.

    “She seems to have cheered up,” said Harriet dazedly to Hughie, pressing the phone’s red button. “Blast! Go off, ya stupid thing! Off!”

    “Prolly turned it off for good,” he noted mildly.

    Sighing, Harriet pressed the red button again until the blimmin’ thing deigned to show its stupid display that meant it was momentarily live. Until the flaming battery gave out, of course.

    “Plug it in,” he prompted.

    Obediently Harriet plugged it in to its charger and—

    “Turn it on at the wall.”

    —turned it on at the wall, right. “Mind you, the flaming car’s started making weird noises,” she reported. “They’re gonna have to replace it.”

    “Pile of junk in the first place,” he noted.

    “I dare say, but it’s all they’ve got. Trisha doesn’t think they’ll get much for it if they trade it in for a station-waggon.”

    “Nah. Go for a second-hand waggon, will they?”

    “Um, it’d have to be, I should think.”

    “Yeah. So are ya gonna give the kid a twenny-first?” he asked.

    “I will if they’ll let me. But I think Trisha’s come round to it.”

    He sniffed slightly. “Yeah. They gonna come up for Christmas, or not?”

    “I’m not sure. She sounded keen, though. And it’s only August, there’s plenty of time for her to talk Steve round!”

    “Yeah. –You wanna look out for that marquee bloke, if ya want a stripey one he’ll charge through the nose for it,” he warned. Too late, it dawned that this was the wrong thing to say entirely: her face had lit up.

    “Ooh, a stripey one?”

    “Not worth the dough,” he warned firmly, heaving himself up. “I’ll boil up the jug again.”

    “Okay,” Harriet agreed, sitting down at the table. “Yes, Brindle, good boy!” she cooed as he came up and rested his chin on her knee. “Good boy! Aren’t you a lovely boy!”

    “The kid hasn’t seen ’im yet, right?” said Hughie, filling the electric jug.

    “Um, Kyla? Um, no, I s’pose she hasn’t. Why?”

    “Well, does she like whippets?”

    How could she possibly fail to like lovely Brindle? Harriet gaped at him. “She will!” she promised with a laugh.

    “Yeah. Well, yeah, she likes dogs, eh? She was keen on them pups at the Fergusons’. Thing is, that whippet bitch has just had another litter, and—”

    “Hughie, for Pete’s sake don’t try to persuade Kyla to take a pup!” she gasped.

    “Yeah, but the breeder reckons it was the same ruddy dog got at ’er, this lot are even weirder looking—”

    “He’s not weird!”

    “Uh—no, well, pretty whippety except for round the ears. Only this time there’s one with a kind of hairy tail—”

    Harriet clapped her hands over her own ears. “I’m not listening. She’s still living at home—well, she’s got the loft over the garage, but same diff’. Trisha and Steve’d end up having to feed and walk it!”

    “Said yourself, they’re decent dogs,” he returned with a scowl.

    Harriet put her hands down, sighing. “They’re both working—well, Trisha’s only part-time, they had cut-backs or something a few years back, but it’s still twenty hours a week. And what with the mortgage and the flaming car! And the rates have gone up, including, I may add, the blimmin’ water rates—when I think of that time ya hadda boil Sydney water for months and months—!”

    “Eh? Aw, that time it got contaminated: yeah. All right, they can’t afford to feed a whippet.”

    “No,” said Harriet firmly.

    “Well, do ya know anyone that can?”

    “And wants one? No.”

    “Young Jimbo seemed keen,” he noted sadly.

    “His parents’d definitely have to subsidise that!” replied Harriet with feeling. “You realise he’ll be in Year Twelve next year?”

    “Um, no. Thought that was this year, actually: wasn’t he going on about extra homework?”

    “Yes, that’s kind of preparation. But next year’ll be sheer Hell, he’s got to do well in his exams if he wants to get into a decent uni course: they don’t need something else to worry about. Not to mention the amount a teenage boy eats.”

    “Yeah, well, have ’im up here for the Christmas holidays, eh? Give ’im some hard yacker round the place, Joel’d be glad of the help.”

     Er—Jimbo’d be more like a hindrance, really. But Harriet agreed anyway, very relieved that the topic of extraneous and undesired part-whippet pups seemed to have been dropped.

    However, perhaps her refusal to consider the pups had got to Hughie, because when the phone rang before they’d got even halfway through the fresh mugs of tea, he bounded up to answer it and snarled into it: “No! She doesn’t want no more flamin’ paying guests or no ruddy grey nomads, hasn’t that sunk in YET? She’s getting too tired, she can’t cope with the buggers! –She doesn’t NEED the dough, Isabelle, will ya just DROP IT?” And hung up with a crash.

    “Help!” gulped Harriet.

    Hughie glared defiantly. “Well, ya don’t need the dough, do ya? You’ve got all of Ben’s flamin’ shares in BHP and that!”

    “Y— Um— Huh-how do you know, Hughie?” she faltered.

    “He told me. Well, didn’t tell me ’e was gonna go bush and top ’imself, silly bugger—no. But ’e told me about the shares and that ’e’d decided to leave you the lot. Don’t worry, I haven’t spread it around.”

    Harriet gaped at him. Finally she managed to quaver: “Thuh-thank you for not mentioning it.”

    “Nobody’s business but yours, is it? –And that bossy cow doesn’t need to know.”

    “No. Thanks for telling her off.”

    “No worries! Ya told me you’d got real tired after the last lot, eh?”

    “Mm. It’s… I dunno. It’s not the work, really: I mean, the house is very small… It’s the—the impact of their personalities, I think, Hughie. I just—I just end up feeling bombarded.”

    He sniffed. “Yeah. Too right.”

    After he’d gone Harriet had a think about it and finally rang Isabelle to apologise. The unfortunate Mrs Bell was quite overcome, and apologised right back.

    “Um, that’s all right, Isabelle. A very energetic person like you can’t really understand. But I—I really can’t cope.”

    “No. I do understand,” she said, swallowing hard.

    Ooh, heck, she was really upset! “Um, all I meant is I’m the sort of person that—that tends to run out of, um, nervous energy or something, and—and needs some time to themselves. Whereas you’re very gregarious, aren’t you?”

    This threw her for a moment. “Um… Yeah!” she gasped. “I suppose I am, really! Well, um, I like being busy and—and having people around, if that’s what you mean.”

    “Yes. It doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate the extra income,” Harriet ventured. “But I’m good, now.”

    “Um, yes,” said Isabelle, sounding rather squashed. “I promise I won’t ask you to take any more.”

    “Thanks,” said Harriet in huge relief. “That last lot of grey nomads, the ones that were headed on up to Townsville, they came and sat in the kitchen and talked at me all the time. It was a bit much, really.”

    A miracle then occurred and the energetic Mrs Bell didn’t tell her she should have told them the kitchen was off-limits, or any such thing. She just said yes, she understood, reassured herself that Harriet was still up for the Wongs’ B&S party, and rang off.

    Harriet just sat down weakly and sagged.

    Kyla duly arrived, done up to the nines in a flash raincoat that must’ve set her back megabucks. Harriet didn’t dare to look at the label or ask her about it, she had an awful feeling that it might say “Burberry” on it. She'd seen one of their boutiques at the airport when she was catching her flight to Britain. Horrendously up-market.

    “Heck, the weather’s much nicer here!” Kyla announced, as Hughie manhandled her huge suitcase into the back of his four-wheel-drive.

    “Yeah, it’s the Dry,” he grunted. “We oughta get up to Cape York while it lasts.”

    Harriet swallowed a sigh. “I don’t think awful roads and miles of bush are Kyla’s bag, Hughie.”

    “Heck, no!” she agreed blithely. “That trip to see the Big Mango, it was pretty bad, really.”

    “Eh? Only up the Bruce Highway—”

    “Yes. Trisha was in a bad mood,” Harriet explained. “But I looked the route up on the Internet and I must say it didn’t look that exciting.”

    “No, it wasn’t,” Kyla agreed. “Mind you, the actual Big Mango was pretty good.”

    Hughie brightened. “Yeah. Well, ya seen the Big Pineapple, too—”

    “And Aunty Harrie’s seen the Big Bench!” she put in with a giggle.

    “Barmy,” he stated definitively. “But whaddabout the Big Macadamia?”

    “Ooh, you mean there really is one?” she squeaked.

    “Surely not,” said Harriet faintly.

    “’Course there is!”

    “Hughie,” she said uneasily, “even if we go and see it, Joel still won’t want you to plant more macadamias. Didn’t he say the property won’t support them?”

    Scowling, Hughie plunged into it. That patch of land over wherever-it-was could be brought on— Blah, blah. Harriet already knew that Joel had checked out that patch and it was too rocky and dry. Nothing had grown on it for years except low scrub. It didn’t support anything except lizards. Finally she was driven to say: “If you bring that stretch of land on, what’ll happen to the lizards?”

    “Ugh!”

    “Shut up, Kyla,” she ordered firmly. “It’s a prime lizard habitat, isn’t it? You told me they like to warm themselves up on the rocks in the morning.”

    At this point Kyla clapped her hands over her ears and got into the car.

    “Thought it was ’er mum that couldn’t stand lizards?” groped Hughie.

    “Yes. She’s putting it on: doing the young lady of sensibility thing,” sighed her aunt.

    He sniffed. “Right. Yeah—no, ya right, actually, I wouldn’t wanna destroy the lizards’ habitat… No, all right. It was just a thought.” He brightened. “But we could go and look at the Big Macadamia, no trouble!”

    “Lovely,” Harriet agreed, smiling at him.

    “Good-oh! Hey, can this thingo go in the back?”

    They looked at it dubiously. What the Hell was it? Finally Harriet decided weakly: “I think it must be what they call a vanity case. I thought they went out in the Fifties. Um, for ladies to keep their make-up and stuff in. Um, you’d better give it to her.”

    “Righto.” He opened the front passenger door and noted loudly: “You can get out of there and go in the back seat: yer aunty’s gonna ride in front. Even if she wasn’t a rotten traveller, kids don’t go in the front when there’s an older lady that needs a seat. Want this bag thingo?”

    Frowning, Kyla replied: “Yes,” grabbed it off him and got into the back.

    “Geddin,” Hughie ordered Harriet.

    Limply she got in.

    … “You haven’t done anything to the spare room,” Kyla discovered sadly.

    “Um, no. But you slept okay in here before, didn’t you? I mean, the beds are quite comfortable.”

    “Yes, ’course they are. Not that.”

    “Oh! Home décor!” said Harriet with a loud laugh.

    “It’s not funny,” returned Kyla with dignity. “Don’t you want your immediate environment to be attractive?”

    (No.) “Um…” Inspiration struck. “I know! You could do it up, I’m hopeless at that sort of thing! Would you like to?”

    “Ooh, yes! Um, what are the shops like, though?”

    Harriet had no idea. None whatsoever. She’d only been to the supermarket, a couple of coffee shops and the fish and chips shop. Oh, and the place that sold giant freezers and stuff. “Um, well, we could suss them out.”

    “What if he doesn’t wanna take us?”

    “Hughie? We’ll bribe him with the promise of a lamb roast!” replied Harriet with a laugh. “Don’t worry, he won’t mind. And Joel’ll be pleased: anything that stops him trying to do too much round the place is good!”

    “Um, yes. Um, how is Joel?” she asked carelessly, turning away and unnecessarily adjusting the faded candlewick coverlet on one of the beds.

    Oops. “Just the same. What do you fancy for lunch?” asked Harriet quickly.

    This diverted her, though possibly not definitively, her aunt recognised clearly. “I’ll just have a wash and then I’ll come and see what there is.”

    “Righto.” Harriet ambled out to the kitchen and looked in the fridge. Yes, well.

    … “We’ll make a shopping list,” Kyla decided firmly. “Cottage cheese is something you oughta have in the fridge all the time, it’s very good for you.”

    “Okay,” Harriet agreed meekly. She had no objection to cottage cheese, apart from the fact that it didn’t keep very well. And once you’d eaten it that was that. There was nowhere local that sold it. The servo had a good line in Coke, milk, one brand of marg, sliced white bread and junk food, but that was about it. Oh, well.

    Kyla surveyed the so-called Boutique Furnishings with deep suspicion. Finally she announced: “I dunno where Mrs Ferguson would of shopped, but it couldn’t of been anywhere like this!”

    “Who?”

    “Aunty Harrie! Mrs Ferguson! The lady at the Outback cattle station that had the lovely spare room!”

    “Oh! Nicole Ferguson. Um, yes. Um, it was lovely, wasn’t it?” Harriet had a sneaking feeling that the obviously comfortably-off Fergusons would make regular trips in to Brizzie, or, depending on just how far that Cessna of his would fly, even Sydney. Unfortunately she also had a much stronger feeling that if she gave in and took her niece to Brisbane just to shop at the expensive home décor places there, Trisha would do her nut. Not on account of she didn’t feel the place needed doing up, no. On account of she’d be positive Kyla had talked her into it.

    “Well, um, we don’t have to buy anything here if the stuff doesn’t appeal, Kyla.”

    Kyla wasn’t listening. She was going through the choice of duna covers and matching pillowcases with a horrible scowl on her face. Oh, dear.

    After a very long time Harriet agreed: “Um, yes, that’s a pretty pattern, Kyla, but, um, isn’t that a queen size? Those beds are only sing—”

    No! ’Cos see, in the mags—Harriet swallowed a sigh—what they did, they always showed them on a single bed but with a much bigger duna ’cos see, it draped, it looked really smart!

    Yeah. There was the fact that the two beds in the spare room had to go against the walls, wouldn’t it be ruddy tricky getting giant dunas onto them? Considering that it’d be her that had to look after the place the eleven months of the year when her niece wasn’t up here. On the other hand, she wouldn’t need to use that room at all, with no overflow from the motel any more, would she? Harriet gave in.

    Kyla’s eyes narrowed. “Before I decide, I’ll just check out their curtaining materials.”

    Oh, God. Resignedly Harriet followed her over to what were sure to be totally unsuitable curtaining fabrics…

    She couldn’t understand why they didn’t stock toning curtain material! Well, no, nor could Harriet, really, but perhaps those yellow duna covers with an admittedly very pretty pattern of white acacia flowers and light brown foliage were the end of a line? True, there was the point that Australia was full of acacias, wattles to those who lacked the nayce gene, and absolutely none of them had white flowers, they were all yellow—by and large not the cheery yellow of the duna covers, no: rather more lemony shades. However, in home décor anything was possible, Harriet quite realised that.

    “Hey, maybe if we buy three duna covers an’…”

    This project, admittedly brill’ in theory, would depend on their having access to a sewing machine and being able to sew on it. Trying not to sigh, Harriet pointed this out.

    “I thought you could—”

    “No. I know your flaming grandmother had a sewing machine, but ya don’t imagine she ever let me or Trisha near it, do ya?”

    “Oh. No. Um, well, I know Laverne’s got one: she made all those ace curtains she’s got in her lounge-room and bedroom, maybe she—”

    “No, Kyla. Laverne’s a working woman, she’s got more than enough on her plate with the pub, we can’t possibly ask her.”

    The eyes narrowed. “Maybe if we just stapled the material!”

    Oh, God. “That’d show,” said Harriet flatly.

    “Blow. Um, well, maybe a plain fawn’d tone with the dunas?”

    Crikey, was she asking instead of telling? “Um, yes, that sounds nice,” said Harriet feebly.

    Every fabric that could possibly, with a great stretch of the imagination, come within the definition of plain fawn then had to be scrutinised narrowly… In the end she decided on one that was more of a tan shade, it was warmer; but by then Harriet was certainly past caring and pretty much past taking anything in, frankly. The woman at the counter, a motherly-looking person who’d initially seemed very willing to tell them what they should have—hah, hah—was then told that the time she proposed coming to measure up for the curtains would not be convenient, and— Etcetera. No, they’d take the duna sets with them, thank you.

    Harriet let her stalk out with them, emanating “Mrs Satterthwaite” from every pore, and said limply to the woman: “I’m afraid my niece gets carried away.”

    “That’s all right, dear, they’re all like that at that age, aren’t they?”

    “Yes. Well, her frightful friend in Sydney’s much worse, I gotta admit. And, um, the friend’s mother’s one of those up-market dames that thinks she’s better than everybody else and, um, I’m afraid Kyla thinks she’s the cat’s whiskers. I’m sorry if she came over as rude.”

    “Heavens, that’s all right, dear! Now, let me just make sure I’ve got the right address and phone number. –Oh, Sandy Cove! You’ll be Harriet, then? Laverne’s told me all about you! We’ve known each other since school, of course, she was Laverne Matthews back then, and actually, her brother Bri married my cousin Val!” she beamed.

    This was precisely the sort of intel, extremely typical of its socio-economic group, in other words most of Australia, rural or urban, didn’t matter, to which Harriet could never respond appropriately. “Um, really?” she produced feebly.

    Apparently the woman didn’t notice anything lacking in this weak offering. Happily introducing herself as Maureen, she favoured Harriet with a lot of further information about herself, her hubby, Ron, not in evidence, perhaps because, as Maureen readily revealed, he was on a disability pension, their three kids, names forgotten as soon as heard, and their extended family, plus Laverne’s and the other Matthewses’. One of six kids, really? Not even Catholic, Maureen revealed. What could you say? Fortunately there was no need to say anything, because while she talked she had sorted out “some lovely sheets and pillowcases” and “a couple of little extra cushions that’ll look—”

    Weakly Harriet gave in and bought them. She felt she owed her that much after Madam Kyla’s performance.

    … Very, very luckily the effect of the too-large duna covers—and the innards that had had to be purchased for them, of course—was pronounced “ace”. Harriet had had it. She smiled weakly, managed to say “Lovely” and staggered off for a lie-down.

    Less than ten minutes later an anxious little voice said: “Are you okay, Aunty Harrie?” and Kyla appeared at her bedroom door, looking scared. “I’ve brought you a cup of tea.”

    Harriet roused against her pillows, blinking. “I’m fine. Just a bit tired. I can't remember when I was last on my feet for so long. A cup of tea’d be lovely, thanks.”

    “Good. You’d better have a biscuit, too. These are only those Arnott’s Scotch Fingers, but they’re quite nice.”

    “Good. Um, Hughie went home, did he?”

    “Yuh-yes!” she gulped, looking frightened again. “When we got here. He just dropped us off, ’member?”

    Uh… “Yes, of course,” she lied.

    “Are you sure you’re all right?”

    “Mm. That woman in the shop went on at me for ages after you went out to the car,” she offered by way of feeble explanation.

    Brightening amazingly, Kyla retorted: “Huh! You shouldn’t let them get away with  that! It’s her job to serve, you know, not to earbash the customers!”

    Possibly if she was being properly auntly Harriet should have said that we were all human and one needed to cut other people some slack, or words to that effect, but alas, she only murmured: “Mm”, and ate a piece of biscuit.

    Joel looked round the refurbished spare room with a twinkle in his eye. “Right. Lee style, is it?”

    Harriet gulped. “Yeah.”

    “This lot from Maureen Shelby at Boutique Furnishings?”

    “Mm.”

    “Right. Biggest gossip for miles around. Hope you didn’t open your mouth.”

    “I didn’t get the chance!” replied Harriet with feeling.

    Joel collapsed in horrible sniggers.

    “All right, now you’ve seen it, for God’s sake think of something nice to say to Kyla about it,” she sighed when he seemed to have recovered.

    “Don’t worry, I’ve got female rellies, too,” he replied drily.

    Harriet smiled weakly. “Mm. Um, Maureen said something about Hughie…”

    Joel winced. “She would of, yeah. She’s a bit of a man-eater, see, and at one stage she thought she might dump ole Ron Shelby—that neck-brace of his comes and goes at will, the whole thing’s a rort, he’s a damn sight fitter than Uncle Hughie: dunno how these types get away with it—anyway, she thought she might dump him and grab Uncle Hughie instead.”

    Harriet looked at him with a wild surmise.

    “She turned up at his place with a lovely casserole, since he’s a poor lonely bachelor.”

    He’d stopped, so she was forced to croak: “What happened?”

    “Got out a tin of dog food and banged it with the tin-opener and before you could say knife ole Foster—”

    Harriet collapsed in horrible sniggers.

    “Yeah. Wish I’d been a fly on the wall! Uncle Hughie reckons he could smell the perfume coming off ’er at twenny paces, and a dog’s nose—”

    “Stop—it!” she howled, collapsing again.

    “Yep, it was good,” Joel concluded, grinning. “Talking of dogs, she allowed to give Brindle biscuits?”

    “Um, just a dog biscuit every now and then, I told her.”

    “Yeah, well, this was an Arnott’s. Mind you, some people maintain that’s all they’re fit for, think they bake ’em for fourteen days solid and then let ’em dry out in the Great Sandy Desert for six months—”

    Gasping: “He’s not allowed sweet biscuits!” Harriet made a dash for the kitchen.

    Joel strolled in her wake. “Gone out: she was gonna take him up to the mango trees, don’t ask me why.”

    “Look, next time you catch her giving him biscuits, for Pete’s sake stop her!”

    “Yes, ma’am!” he agreed, saluting her.

    Harriet sat down, sighing. “She’ll of gone up there to suss the place out for the marquee.”

    “Eh?”

    “Hasn’t Hughie told you about that? He’s warned me not to pay megabucks for a stripey one. For her twenty-first, next year. I thought they might like to have it here. Kind of an outdoor party.”

    “When?”

    “Um, middle of February, I think. I’ve got it written down somewhere.”

    “You’ll need a marquee,” he noted. “Not to mention one of those great long canvas tunnels they link up to them to get you there in bad weather: it’ll still be the Wet.”

    Oh, heck! Next he’d be telling her it’d still be the cyclone season. “I thought it might be drying out by then.”

    “Well, ya might be lucky.”

    Harriet sighed. “I suppose we could always have it in the house, but it’s not very big.”

    “Don’t invite loads of people,” he drawled.

    “Very logical! I suppose you couldn’t tell me intelligibly where Nambour is, could you?”

    “Eh?”

    “I didn’t think so.”

    “Look, calm down, Harriet, don’t get yer dander up. Of course I can explain where Nambour is,” he said, going over to the bench. “Want tea or coffee?”

    “Whatever you wanna make,” said Harriet tiredly.

    “You invited her,” he noted to the subtext.

    “Go on, rub it in.”

    “Sofas next, is it?”

    “Shut up,” she sighed. “She’s vetoed everything from Maureen’s shop and if she can suborn Hughie into taking us to the airport we’re gonna go to Brizzie and look at proper sofa shops.”

    Alas, Joel collapsed in sniggers.

    “Yeah, hah, hah,” she sighed.

    “I’ll settle her hash, if ya like,” he offered.

    Harriet winced. “No, don’t, Joel, thanks all the same. She’s been very good, she's been getting tea for us and everything…”

    “Right: very good, just hard to take,” he murmured, inspecting Ben’s coffee-pot. “I’ll scald this,” he announced.

    Harriet watched in a lacklustre way as he proceeded to do so, using the water he’d just boiled in the jug. There was some actual ground coffee: oddly enough it was sitting in a sealed packet in the cupboard, because she hadn’t had the energy to  make real coffee.

    Competently Joel filled the pot and put it on the heat. He wasn’t using Ben’s dratted camping-gas burner, but the stove, having turned the element on first, before doing anything else. Harriet absorbed this activity with a lacklustre eye, reflecting that that’d be the way to go, all right, if so be she ever worked up the energy to make real coffee at all…

    “Right: Nambour,” he said, sitting down at the table. “It’s about a hundred K north of Brizzie, on the Sunshine Coast. If your relations have seen the Big Pineapple they’ll have been there.”

    Harriet goggled at him. “No—um—Hughie said it’s where the Big Macadamia is!”

    “Yeah, that’s right, it’s there, too. Woombye, the area’s called. Be about five K south of the town.”

    “Why on earth didn’t they go there when they had the chance?” she said weakly.

    “Um—maybe they didn’t know. They’re not together.”

    “That’d be right,” she said feebly. “Oh, dear, how long will it take to get there? I mean, they were pretty late getting back after the Big Pineapple. Will Hughie want to drive all that way?”

    “It’s not that far,” replied the Queenslander kindly. “Be about three hours from here, on the Bruce Highway.”

    Harriet winced: not again! “Right.”

    “It’ll make a nice trip: you could have lunch there.”

    “I think we’ll have to.”

    He winked. “I’ll put the hard word on Uncle Hughie not to suggest fish and chips.”

    “Yes,” said Harriet dully. “Will you? Thanks, Joel.”

    Joel sprang up to rescue the hissing coffee-pot, his eyes twinkling. “Get this down you,” he said, filling a mug for her and sugaring it liberally without asking if she wanted it. “You’ll feel better.”

    Well, she’d feel as if she’d had a caffeine shot, yeah. Harriet thanked him nicely.

    She did feel a bit better. Well, brighter. As if she’d had a large mug of strong, sugary coffee: yeah. More or less able to face the thought of Kyla’s slimming and very healthy lunch, which doubtless would incorporate that cottage cheese that was lurking in the fridge, its friends the very tasty and extremely healthful sun-dried tomatoes, impossible to chew as they were, and really null frilly lettuce, on horrible gritty wholegrain bread chosen by Guess Who. At this precise moment a hefty chunk of greasy battered fish, the batter outweighing the fish by at least two to one, and a mountain of chips slathered in beef fat and salt seemed like a wonderful dream, frankly.

    “Brisbane?” gasped Trisha.

    “Um, there wasn’t any choice locally.”

    “But good grief! How long did it take?”

    “Well, just a couple of days.”

    “You mean ya hadda stay overnight at a hotel?”

    “No, Kyla rung Steve’s parents. They were very decent to us,” said Harriet dully. “But I’m afraid Kyla told her gran that her lounge-room’s hopelessly out of date.”

    Trisha gulped. “What did she say?” she croaked.

    “Well, luckily she just laughed and said so was she,” Harriet admitted. “Um, later on Kyla started complaining to me that she was treating her like a little kid, but I must say I felt like offering up a prayer of thanks for it.”

    “I’ll say!” agreed Mrs Drinkwater’s daughter-in-law. “Honestly! That girl’s the blimmin’ limit!”

    “Well, she wasn’t wrong in this instance, all those flowery linens and stuff, but actually, I think it’s very pretty,” said Harriet with a smile in her voice.

    “Well, yeah, but imagine living with it, Harrie!”

    “Um, ye-ah…” said Harriet dubiously.

    Down in Sydney Trisha rolled her eyes to High Heaven. Harriet never had had any taste, and she’d never been able to imagine anything either in your home or being worn. It was completely pointless going shopping with her in the hopes she might have some ideas. Just as well, really, that Kyla didn’t want other people to have ideas, eh? “Well, what did you end up with?” she asked.

    ‘It hasn’t come yet. Something about having to order it in… Which was funny, because it was right there in the shop.”

    Trisha didn’t bother to explain, she just said briskly: “They do that. What colour is it?”

    “Sort of blue. Um, pale. Um, plain.”

    It’d mark like crazy! Well, at least whippets weren’t supposed to shed. Without hope Trisha warned: “Don’t let the dog on it.”

    “It’ll smell new,” she said vaguely. “He probably won’t like it…”

    Trisha sighed. “Any idea what kind of fabric?”

    “I said. Pale blue.”

    “No. Linen, wool, what?”

    Predictably the answer was that she didn’t know.

    “Well, didja buy anything else?”

    Besides all that bodily adornment for Miss Drinkwater? Least said, soonest mended. “Um, she chose some curtain material and then they said they didn’t do rural, um, fittings, was it? Um, no. Well, what it meant was they wouldn’t come and measure up so as they could make them the right size.”

    “So didn’t you get it after all?”

    “Not there, no. We went to some more shops and she found the same material, well, almost, I think—it looked the same to me—and told them not to bother about making it up, she’d arrange that. Um, she had worked out how much we’d need, so we got that; she reckoned if there was a bit left over it could be for cushions.”

    “But Harrie, who’s gonna make it up?”

    Harriet swallowed hard. “Well, after that first shop that wouldn’t do it she rang Maureen—you know, at the shop where we got the stuff for the spare room—and asked her if she’d make the curtains if we could supply the material, and she actually agreed. It seemed completely on the nose to me, but Kyla reckoned that in a small town like that she should be grateful for the custom.” She swallowed again.

    “Um, well, yes, she probably would be. So what colour is it?”

    “Pale blue as well. She reckons they tone,” reported Harriet dubiously.

    Well, at least the kid hadn’t gone and and foisted purple or—or bright pink or something on her! Or black, there’d been a frightful kid at school—her parents musta been mad—who’d painted her bedroom black. “That sounds all right,” said Trisha firmly.

    “Mm. Well, I don’t mind, I quite like blue.”

    Grimly making up her mind that they would be up for Christmas and she’d take a good hard look at it all and see what she could do to make Harrie feel comfortable with it, Trisha said brightly that that was good, and had Harriet tried the filo pastry thing she’d sent her the recipe for?

    “I didn’t, but Kyla did, and it ran all over the oven and she burst into tears.”

    “She put too much of the egg mixture into it,” Trisha spotted unerringly.

    “Mm. Well, we salvaged it—I mean, we hadda take it out and clean the oven, it was starting to burn, it smelled horrible—but then we turned it on again and had it for tea. It didn’t go slightly puffy like you said, it was quite firm, but it tasted fine.”

    Right. It was supposed to be the consistency of a very light quiche. Oh, well. Briskly Trisha informed her that they’d do better next time, ordered her to send Madam back if it was getting too much for her, and rang off. With the threat of a new carrot cake recipe that Kika Delafield’s mum swore by.

    Now they had to go off to see the Big Macadamia immediately, because if they waited the sofa would be delivered and they wouldn’t be— Fortunately Hughie agreed happily to leave as soon as they liked. Yep, do it easy in a day! Yeah, ’course they could have lunch there. Eagerly Kyla purveyed the intel that Isabelle Bell warmly recommended the “Nambour Social”, it was right downtown, it was very popular, they did really lovey brunches— No. Hughie had mates that always went to the Nambour RSL.

    His audience gaped at him in dismay. Giant ranks of pokies, blaring noise from the enormous wide-screen TVs showing God-knew-what, probably the races, giant, bellowing, beefy, red-faced vets downing huge amounts of beer, their hugely floral-frocked, lipsticked and hair-sprayed helpmeets screeching happily as they downed the piña coladas and Bundies and Cokes, and giant helpings of steak and chips danced before their dazed minds…

    Finally Kyla ventured: “Won’t it be very expensive?”

    “Nah! Noddif if ya don’t chuck it away on the flamin’ pokies. Do you a bonzer steak an’ chips. Or snitzles, lots of the ladies have them,” he offered kindly.

    Harriet and Kyla had both experienced the culinary delight of “snitzles”, possibly Wiener schnitzels to the rest of the world, in Hughie’s company. It had been a very pleasant pub somewhere on their way home from the Alice. Not all that long before they made it back, but neither of them could have said what town it had been in. The dinner plates must have been at least twenty-five centimetres in diameter and the enormous crumbed pieces of meat had overlapped the edge. Only lengthwise, true, but neither of them had managed to get through the things.

    “They’ll do you a salad, if ya fancy it,” he offered.

    “By itself?” asked Harriet without hope.

    “Dunno. Comes with the meat, far’s I remember.”

    Quite.

    “I’ll look it up on the Internet!” Kyla decided.

    This resulted in what was presumably the place’s own glowing encomium of itself, oddly enough.

    “He really wants to go there: I think we’d better let him, he’s been so decent to us,” Harriet ventured.

    Kyla sighed. “Yeah. Oh, well, we don’t have to eat it all.”

    “I shouldn’t think we’d be able to, if we tried,” Harriet admitted.

    “No. ’Member those snitzles?”

    Harriet laughed. “Yes! I was just thinking of them!”

    “Yeah, they were huge. They were nice, though. Well-cooked.”

    “Yes, but what size animal must they of come off? I mean, Wiener schnitzels are traditionally veal! I mean, envisage it, Kyla! A calf that size?”

    Evidently she was: she gulped.

    “Yeah,” said Harriet with satisfaction.

    So they went. They had lunch as soon as they got there, which was possibly just as well. Sustaining, it was. Fancier than they’d assumed, but—yeah. Sustaining.

    … “Help,” said Kyla numbly, looking up at the object of the exercise.

    “Looks like a macadamia, eh?” said Hughie on a proud note.

    Well, yeah. Brown, fairly shiny, and pointed at the top. Not all of the nuts were that pointed, but yeah. Like a huge macadamia in its impossible-to-open shell. The thought did spring to mind, Why?, but then, all of the Big things were mad and this was no madder than most. And not as mad, thinking of Broken Hill, as some!

    “Think they been using it for some sort of an exhibition or somethink, but maybe that’s closed, now, don’t think it did that well. Nah, we won’t bother,” Hughie decided unilaterally. “But it’s nobbad, eh?”

    “Yeah, it looks like a real nut!” Kyla agreed.

    It sure did.

    “It’s not as artistic as the Big Pineapple, I suppose,” she added thoughtfully, “and the shading on the Big Mango’s really realistic, you shoulda come with us, Aunty Harrie—”

    “Kyla,” warned Harriet unsteadily, “stop now.”

    “What?” she asked blankly.

    Alas, Harriet dissolved in a helpless gale of giggles.

    “Yeah, well,” Hughie allowed on an uncertain note, “’tis dumb, I s’pose. Only it does look like a real macadamia.”

    “Yes!” she gasped. “It’s deliriously like a real macadamia! I love it!”

    “Good,” he concluded.

    After that, since Hughie had a cobber that was doing really well with macadamias locally they had to go and inspect his nut farm. Some might have expected a cosy afternoon tea with the farmer’s wife, but sadly, this mate was another bachelor. So all they did was look at endless rows of macadamia trees. Which in Harriet’s case was probably just what she deserved, she recognised ruefully.

    Well, one good thing: at the back of her mind had been a feeling that Kyla might go all lofty and sophisticated and decide that a Big Macadamia was childish and boring. Phew! What a relief!

    It was Steve who picked up when Kyla rang them to report, so he got the full earful. He did manage not to collapse in sniggers on the spot, just, but when he’d handed the phone to Trisha he staggered into the lounge-room and laughed himself silly.

    “Were you laughing?” asked his helpmeet, having hung up with the same feeling of relief that Harriet had had.

    Steve wiped his eyes. “Yeah, too right!”

    Trisha sat down with a sigh. “Personally I was just relieved that she didn’t look down her nose at the idea of a Big thing.”

    “Eh? Aw. Yeah.”

    “Far from it, apparently.”

    “Don’t start me off again, love,” he warned.

    “Eh?”

    “It’s been a real round of excitement,” said Steve with relish. “One thrill after another: duna covers, sofas, and the Big Macadamia!”

    At the end of that week a miracle occurred and the sofa was delivered. Maureen Shelby was already on the job and had the curtains ready to hang. No, no, of course she’d come and see to it herself! Kyla concluded darkly and possibly not altogether incorrectly that she was spying on them, but never mind. Given that the woman arrived at eleven-thirty they were more or less forced to give her lunch, but Harriet had been expecting that. She admired the sofa extravagantly, and loudly approved the choice of the curtain fabric with it, so that was all right. She eventually pushed off around two-thirty with the declared intention of popping in on Laverne at the pub.

    “She’ll be telling her everything,” noted Kyla grimly. “I said you should have had that sitting-room floor properly sanded and stained!”

    “Never mind, it doesn’t look too bad, given that I don’t think Ben ever let a lick of polish near it after he put it in. And that rug she brought’s, um, quite pretty,” Harriet ended very weakly indeed.

    “It’ll of been the most expensive one in the shop! She’s suckered you, Aunty Harrie!”

    “Never mind. I quite like it.”

    Kyla glared: the rug was an admittedly very pretty fake Persian effort in shades of pale blue, grey, navy, pink and fawn. “It’s ruining the décor! I was going for a smart modern look! It’s all wrong with the sofa and the curtains! It’s the sort of thing Granny’d choose!”

    Except that Mrs Drinkwater’s rugs had undoubtedly been much more expensive. “Yes. Well, it might do for my bedroom, she’ll never know.”

    “She will if Laverne comes up on a spying expedition!”

    “We’ll tell her that I liked it so much that I decided to have it in my room!”

    “Yeah!” she gasped. “Hey, good one, Aunty Harrie! It won’t matter if you go all trad in there. I’ll just have a look—” Forthwith she rushed in there.

    Oh, cripes. Harriet sat down limply on her very new sofa.

    Kyla now had the bit well between her teeth and embarked on an Internet quest for some really nice bedroom furnishings and curtains for Harriet’s room. Possibly this was aimed at spiting the amiable Maureen, but never mind, Harriet hadn’t particularly liked any of her duna covers anyway. Actually, Kyla pointed out, there was no point in buying new stuff with those shabby walls. What about wallpaper? Maybe just one feature wall? Mrs Satterthwaite said—

    Oh, God.

    Very, very fortunately Joel turned up shortly after this proposition had been floated and pointed out that those walls had been whitewashed and only needed a bit of a wipe down. But a bit of new whitewash couldn’t hurt. All right, then, Kyla would re-whitewash them! Where did you buy it? This query was answered by a disconcerted silence and Joel then admitted, grimacing, that he sort of thought you didn’t, these days, but he’d ask Uncle Hughie.

    Grimly Kyla decided she’d make a start by washing the things down! But those awful dark brown blinds could go: they were a disgrace!

    They were quite useful, though, in that they kept the afternoon sun out. Uneasily Harriet pointed out that the room would get very hot— Kyla leapt on the computer again. Oh, cripes.

    She did try pointing out very feebly that all these places, if they delivered at all, would charge regional rates—no, for a rural delivery, Kyla, not just meaning in Queensland. Never mind: it was (apparently) worth it! Harriet gave in, reflecting that it’d be a relatively short agony: Steve had rung up the other day pointing out that his only daughter oughta be earning a crust and if nothing else she could do house-cleaning for RightSmart’s lady clients. Anyway, it couldn’t get worse, she actually liked Ben’s kitchen and Harriet had already refused point-blank to have the bathroom redone.

    But it could get worse, ’cos guess what? The very next day Miss Melanie Satterthwaite arrived, complete with a mountain of Named luggage and a huge taxi bill. Settled by her waving her flaming credit card at it, what else?

    “Is this it?” were her first words.

    Then she just took it from there. She approved Kyla’s colour scheme in the spare room but noted that that cheap material didn’t wash well. Harriet’s room rated: “Just as well you’re gonna do something about this!” And the lounge-room got a gasp and: “This hardware floor’s been ruined!”

    She did marginally approve the lunch, although cottage cheese was rather down-market and ricotta was much nicer—rather pricey, of course, pitying smile.

    “Kyla,” said Harriet weakly when they were in the kitchen trying to decide what to make for tea and Miss Satterthwaite was lying down exhausted after the journey, “what on earth has she come for?”

    “The B&S ball, of course,” returned Kyla in genuine surprise. “I did say she might make it.”

    Yes, but Harriet hadn’t believed her for an instant. “It won’t be like one of those genuine big Outback balls: it’s just a family do,” she croaked.

    Kyla tossed the hair. “We know!”

    Theoretically, yeah.

    It was, of course, little more than a family party. Naturally Melanie and Kyla were done up to the nines, but then so were all the girls, and many of the older women too, actually. Laverne for one was a whole party on her own. Glowing in purple and gold was the least of it. She even had a sparkly clip in her hair to match the giant sparkly earrings, necklace, brooch, and—a nice touch, this—shoe ornaments. Evidently Tom Watkins, her part-time pot-man, whose usual job was manhandling the barrels, was holding the fort at the pub. Harriet had to swallow: he was, to put it kindly, not very bright. “Most people are here, anyway,” Laverne assured her comfortably.

    This was true. Even Hughie had made an effort, blossoming in a frilled evening shirt in the style of, approximately, 1972—though he’d probably have been a lot, lot slimmer back then. And pale blue trousers. With—dig this—a black satin cummerbund!

    “That’s Uncle Hughie’s get-up for the Macadamia Farmers’ Association dinners,” said Joel quietly in her ear at this point.

    Harriet jumped. “I see!” she gasped. “Um, you look very elegant, Joel,” she added feebly.

    He winked. “Me best evening clobber.”

    Well, yes. Harriet had a feeling, though maybe she was extrapolating, that B&S balls were traditionally B&W, and Joel’s outfit was certainly that: a white tux, black evening trou, a white shirt with the thinnest of black stripes in it, quite widely spaced, not overdone, and an excruciatingly narrow black bowtie. He looked wonderful, actually, and in less than two minutes Melanie was gonna take one look at him and fall all over herse— Oops! She had.

    Alas, Joel wasn’t impressed. Even though that outfit had cost more than Harriet had ever earned in six months, no kidding. The shoes alone would have fed a family of five for a fortnight. Easily.

    Harriet had sort of hoped that Kyla and Melanie were still at the age where you shared a crush on the adored object. No such luck. The two girls competed grimly for his attention, the whole gamut of silly laughs, airy hair-tossing, horrid eye-batting, gushing, cooing, and a nasty sort of wriggling of the far too exposed busts was gone through. Melanie into the bargain indulging in a sort of pelvic thrusting which very possibly wasn’t intended to be as revoltingly suggestive as it looked.

    None of it worked. Joel danced with Isabelle. He danced with Laverne. He really rubbed their noses in it by dancing with Lisa Wong, who was their age. He danced with Charlene, Lisa’s mum, who giggled even more during the exercise than her daughter had done. He danced with Harriet—possibly the final insult. The more so as, as she was the first to admit, she had two left feet and had never learned to dance anyway, Mum had refused to let Dad pay for lessons for her.

    Harriet of course also danced with lesser lights such as a grinning Hughie—the Lancers, she had no idea what she was doing, but he cheerfully pushed her hither and yon; with Scott Bell, who admitted he only shuffled, which was good, because then they just shuffled; with Ken Wong, the host, who was a superb dancer, so good that he made Harriet feel as if she could actually do it; with his son Pete, God knew why he asked her, at her age, to the accompaniment of glares from Kyla and Melanie—Pete was tall for a Chinese lad, and very, very handsome, chiselled looks, really; and with an assortment of local identities ranging from a well-off orchardist who told her a lot about the lime “export” trade (largely to New South Wales, it turned out), to a friendly joker called Bert who was a truckie who often delivered to the motel, and another friendly joker called Gordo who drove the big beer lorry that delivered supplies to Laverne.

    And, rather unexpectedly, with a very up-market pleasant Englishman called Mark, who admitted to staying at Big Rock Bay Ecolodge, which he described as “eco-friendly to the point of chi-chi”, causing Harriet to collapse in giggles, and to having sought refuge at the pub, where Laverne had warmly invited him to the hop.

    “B&S ball,” corrected Harriet sternly.

    “Of course. –I don’t know why, exactly,” he said on a plaintive note, “but I keep feeling it’s indelicate: like S and M, you know?”

    “I thought they were those little coloured chocolate sweets?” she fumbled.

    Promptly Mark collapsed in agonising splutters, having to hang on very tight to her as she did so. He was finally able to gasp: “No! Sado-masochism! Buzz word of the idiot fringe.”

    “I see. But why ‘and’?”

    “I’ve always wondered that,” said Mark smoothly, leading her to a couple of chairs. “Have a seat, Harriet. Can I get you a glass of heavily spiked punch?”

    “No, thanks. I think those silly mates of Pete Wong’s from the agricultural research place have been putting vodka in it.”

    “Oh, and tequila,” he assured her.

    “On top of the Bundy Charlene was telling me she made it from?” she croaked.

    “Yes,” said Mark succinctly.

    Alas, Harriet collapsed in unladylike sniggers.

    After that they simply spent the rest of the evening in each other’s pockets. Until Hughie claimed her for the Grand Old Duke of York, the final dance of the evening. It seemed incongruous, when you thought about it, given the Wongs were Chinese, but then, most of Australia seemed so, too, when you thought about it.

    “You enjoyed yourself, didn’t you, Harriet?” said Isabelle as she competently drove them home.

    “Yes, ’course she did!” cried Scott drunkenly. “Ya had a great time, eh?”

    “Yes, I did,” Harriet agreed happily.

    “Personally I think you made a spectacle of yourself with that man in the Armani dinner suit,” stated Kyla grimly.

    “In the what?” choked Scott.

    Melanie had appeared to have gone into a silent sulk but at this she roused to snap: “Armani! You won’t of heard of it! It’s one of the very best brands!”

    “Are you sure it was? He apologised for not having brought his good dinner clothes,” said Harriet dubiously.

    “’E was pulling your leg,” decided Scott happily.

    “It was definitely Armani,” stated Melanie grimly. “Uncle Brett’s got one just like it.”

    “Um, I’m sure that’s right, Melanie,” said Isabelle on what for her was an uneasy note. “Um, did he tell you what he does, Harriet? Or did, I suppose should say.”

    “No. He just said he was staying at the ecolodge and it’s eco-friendly to the point of chi-chi!” replied Harriet with a giggle.

    Blank silence.

    “Um, yes, well, there you are,” Isabelle managed valiantly. “Um, well, their manager reckons he’s a retired ambassador.” She swallowed. “Sir Mark Somethink.”

    “Australia doesn’t have sirs any more!” Kyla objected, very puzzled.

    “No: British.”

    “They do get that sorta type staying there. Costs a bomb,” Scott offered. “Laverne reckons he’s okay, though.”

    “With his looks? You do surprise me!” returned his spouse vigorously.

    “Can’t help ’is looks!” he returned jauntily. “Anyway, ya had a good time, eh, Harriet?”

    “Yes,” replied Harriet on a sour note. “I dare say he is a retired ambassador, if that was a very expensive dinner suit and it wasn’t even his best. And he certainly had a plum in his mouth. I might have known!”

    This time there was a very disconcerted silence. Eventually the valiant Scott offered: “Well, after all, a bloke’s just a bloke, never mind what la-de-da job ’e mighta had. No reason it should make a difference.”

    “It always does,” replied Harriet heavily.

    “Look, drop it, Scott,” said his spouse tiredly. “You’re drunk.”

    Harriet bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Scott. The thing is, I once knew another English bloke— Never mind. I did have a really nice time, and it’s very good of you both to give us a lift.”

    “No worries!” replied the Bells with one voice. One very relieved voice.

    The Fates then smiled upon them, because no-one made the further mistake of asking the two girls if they’d enjoyed themselves.

    “She can come home right away!” declared Trisha angrily.

    “Um, well, it might be as well. I mean, they both threw themselves at Joel, and that didn’t work, he brushed them off like flies, and then they threw themselves at Pete Wong—he’s very good-looking—and he sort of treated them with kind tolerance; and then Bert, he’s a truckie, he made the mistake of asking Melanie for the last dance—it was only the Grand old Duke of York. It was the final straw. She went into a terrific sulk.”

    “Stupid little bimbo! Look, if I’d known she was gonna inflict herself on you—”

    “I know. It’s all right,” said Harriet with a smile in her voice. “Did you ever see that old film, Darling?”

    “Um, no,” Trisha replied blankly.

    “The uni film society showed it. Well, it’s about a dumb girl who’s completely resourceless. More than just intellectually: mentally, I think’d put it better. That’s what Melanie’s like, Trisha. No values beyond the acquisition of the next pointless consumable. I can’t help feeling sorry for her, actually.”

    Trisha sighed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. But it’s a bit hard when Kyla starts copying her.”

    “Actually, they’ve had a row. I think Melanie criticised her home décor once too often.”

    “Good, perhaps she’ll start to see her for what she really is. Well, send them home.”

    “I won’t have to send Melanie: she ordered, if ya please, a flaming limo as soon she got up today. Not offering Kyla a lift.”

    “Well, that’ll really drive it home! Is she there?”

    “Which?

    “Kyla.”

    “No, she’s taken Brindle for a walk.”

    “Tell her to ring us as soon as she’s back, wouldja, Harrie? Steve wants to have a word with her.”

    Wincing sightly, Harriet agreed she’d do that.

    She tactfully absented herself while Steve had the word: in fact she and Brindle went into the lounge-room, where she sat on the sofa and he sniffed around suspiciously.

    “Um, that funny rug’s gonna go in my room, Brindle,” said Harriet on a weak note. “Um, I suppose you won’t want it in there, either. Oh, dear.”

    After quite some time Kyla came in looking chastened. “Dad says I haveta go home.”

    “I think he feels you should get used to having to support yourself, that’s all, Kyla. I mean, you won’t be living with them all your life, will you? And it’s nice to have some money of your own.”

    “Yeah, only they keep giving me these short-term contracts!” she wailed.

    “Um, well, that is what RightSmart specialises in. But they have had people on their books who’ve landed longer contracts.”

    “Not many, I’ll bet. I’ve tried applying for other jobs but the last one, the horrid lady said it looked as if I can’t keep a job! And I tried to explain it was all just short-term, it wasn’t my faut!”

    “No, well, there are some real bitches out there in the workforce. You just have to say to yourself thank God you’re not like that and they’re not like that at RightSmart and your mum and dad aren’t like that.”

    Suddenly Kyla beamed at her. “Nor your aunty! Hey, whaddif Grandma had gone into an office?”

    “Jesus!” gulped Harriet, caught unawares. Their eyes met and they both gave shrieks of laughter and collapsed in hysterics.

    “Oh, dear,” said Harriet, wiping her eyes. “At least the workers of Sydney were spared that! Anyway, you’re lucky: you’re living at home with really decent parents. It’s really hard trying to afford a flat these days.”

    “Yeah. –I haven’t got enough qualifications,” she said glumly.

    This was true. “I think your best bet is just to keep on plugging on with the office jobs for RightSmart. You may find some place that’ll decide to take you on fulltime. And at least you’re getting some variety.”

    “Um, yeah. Um, you know Gail?”

    “Gail at RightSmart, the boss? Yes; what about her?”

    “She was saying she knows a lady that works from home: like, it’s a proper home office. She does design stuff and makes things that she sells on the Internet.”

    “Kyla, she’ll have done an art school course if she’s into design.”

    “I know. Only Gail said she wants to take on someone to help out with like filing and the office records and stuff.”

    “Bookkeeping?” said Harriet in a hollow voice. Kyla couldn’t add two and two without it coming out five or three.

    “Not really, because the computer does it all. You just have to input the figures. I’ve done data input.”

    “That sounds okay.”

    “Yes, but it has to be someone she could bear around the house,” she reported.

    Harriet smiled at her. “You’re pretty bearable!”

    “It’s a long way, though: the other side of Sydney.”

    Harriet took a deep breath. “It’s still a job, isn’t it?”

    “Mm. Okay. So ya think I should ring Gail?”

    “Yes. Now.”

    “Um, it’s Sunday,” she said in a small voice .

    Good grief, so it was—still. What with the giant limo arriving for Miss S. and failing to negotiate their drive… It kind of seemed like the Thursday after next. “So it is. Tomorrow morning, then.”

    “Mm. I will. Um, Dad’s gonna email me a plane ticket.”

    Harriet sighed. “I told them I’d pay!”

    “He said you mustn’t do too much for us.”

    ”Why not? You’re my family, aren’t you?”

    “Ye-ah… Well, he’s been going on again about mean ole Grandma not leaving you the house.”

    Harriet sighed. “It’s become an obsession. No, well, he’s probably worried about the ruddy car playing up.”

    “But that’s got nothing to do with it.”

    “No. Human nature,” she said heavily.

    “Um, yeah,” Kyla agreed blankly.

    “Tell ya what, shall we be hopelessly down-market and go down the pub for tea?”

    “Yeah!” she beamed. “Just for once. Hey, I wonder if Laverne’ll be doing her Apricot Chicken tonight?”

    “Ring her and ask her.”

    “I will!”

    The report was that she was, and brown rice with it. That was full of roughage, much better for you than white, wasn’t it? Harriet didn’t point out that this’d be because Laverne, who knew the value of a buck, would have found some that was on special, she just agreed.

    “I’m really looking forward to it!” Kyla beamed.

    “Yeah, me, too!”

    But they never did get to eat the Apricot Chicken, and Kyla didn’t ring Gail next day, after all.

    The phone rang just as Harriet, who of course was ready long before her niece, was coming back from taking Brindle for a walk in case he needed to pee before being shut in while they were out.

    She was met at the back door by a very shaken little girl. “Aunty Harrie, it’s a man on the phone who says his dad’s an old friend of yours and he’s in hospital and he’s been shot!”

    “What? Shot? Are you sure it’s for me?”

    “He suh-said Harriet Harrison that was in England about five years ago. In Oxford.”

    “Oxf— Give me the phone.” She still didn’t really believe it was for her, let alone that it could be anything to do with— “Hullo? This is Harriet Harrison.”

    “Miss Harrison, it’s Josh Narrowmine here. I think you met my father, Crispin, when you were in Oxford about five years ago,” said a very English voice. Very young—how she knew that, she couldn’t have said, but in spite of the posh accent that was how he sounded.

    “Yes,” she gulped, staggering over to the table with the phone and sitting down heavily.

    “Dad’s here, in Australia, he’s in Sydney. He’s been shot up, and he’s asking for you.” Harriet was incapable of replying to this and after a moment he added: “I’m terribly sorry if this is an imposition—”

    “No! Of course I’ll come! Is—is it bad, Josh?” she asked in a trembling voice.

    “Yes,” he said bleakly. “He keeps sliding in and out of consciousness. They were expecting him to have come round properly by this time. Um, one of the bullets creased his skull.” Harriet could hear him swallowing hard. “He’s been out of it for two weeks.”

    Oh, God. “I’ll come right away, Josh. Um, I’m up in Queensland on the north Fraser Coast, I’ll have to get to Brisbane and take a plane from there. What hospital is it?”

    It was St Vincent’s. Harriet sagged slightly. It had a really excellent reputation, Crispin couldn’t be in better hands. “Good. Um, is there a number where I can contact you, Josh?”

    He gave her the number but by this time she wasn’t at all sure she was hearing him correctly, let alone writing it down right. “Um, look, could you just repeat that to my niece? –The phone number, Kyla: can you check it?”

    Nodding hard, Kyla took the phone. “It’s Kyla. Go on,” she said in a small voice.

    Harriet had got it wrong: she was often dyslexic with numbers, and when she was upset she got worse. Kyla checked it twice, checked what hospital it was, reassured Josh that they’d come down as soon as possible, and rang off. “You better have some of that brandy of Uncle Ben’s.”

    “Mm.”

    Kyla fetched the brandy and poured. “Drink this; I’m gonna ring Dad.”

    Surprisingly enough, Harriet registered through a sort of dazed fog, her report to Steve was quite clear. It took a while for him to take it in, however, and Trisha had to get in on the act. Then he leapt to it.

    “It’s okay,” Kyla reported: “Dad’ll book us on the same flight and meet us at the airport and drive us straight to the hospital. It’s a really good hospital, Aunty Harrie: Dad says it’s the best in the country.”

    Harriet nodded mutely.

    “Finish that brandy.”

    It was far too much, but she drank it anyway.

    “Don’t worry, St Vincent’s’ll be looking after him!” Kyla declared on a militant note. “And you’ve got us, ya know!”

    “Mm.” A tear slid down Harriet’s cheek. “I thought he’d have forgotten me by now.”

    “He can’t of done. Does he live in England? Josh sounded very up-market.”

    “Mm. Posh. He must’ve finished his degree,” she said dully.

    “Um, yeah, never mind that. You better have something to eat. Cheese toasties, eh?”

    With that she really had taken over. Well, her and Steve between them. Harriet didn’t have to do anything. Which was just as well, she wasn’t capable of anything. She was pretty sure Josh Narrowmine would never have contacted her unless Crispin was actually dying.

Next chapter:

https://trialsofharrietharrison.blogspot.com/2023/09/saints-preserve-us.html