Coping

12

Coping

    “If that Basildon-Pugh’s told you we were impertinent—” began Jack Biddle in a threatening tone.

    “Dunno: wasn’t listening,” said Ran.

    Rog White choked.

    Stopped in his flow, Mr Biddle had to swallow. “Good on ya,” he conceded on a weak note.

    “Anyway, I was just gonna say, ignore him,” Ran advised. “See, it’s the Hospitality side of YDI that employed him, and they’ve got nothing to do with the construction: in fact if they knew he was trying to give you orders, they’d probably tear a strip off.”

    “Right,” agreed the two patio-layers.

    “It’s looking really good,” said Ran with approval, surveying the work so far, and refraining from mentioning that it wasn’t observedly much farther on than it had been back before Christmas.

    Brightening, Mr Biddle mentioned the difficulty of laying these sods of recycled bricks. Mr White, agreeing with him, explained in some detail the fact that the bricks hadn’t been cleaned properly, and chose one to show her.

    “Comes of buying the cheapest ones,” said Ran. “See, old Sir Maurice back in London who’s the head honcho, he’s an old skinflint. I told Jim Thompson it was making a rod for our backs, but he said it wasn’t down to him, Head Office had made the decision. If you like I could get you one of those students that are planting the seedlings over on the wilderness bit to come and chip the mortar off for you, Jack.”

    Mr Biddle and Mr White had to consult on this one and finally decided a student’d be more trouble than he was worth. Ran didn’t entirely agree with them but didn’t argue: they needed to get on with it, and if deciding that they could work more efficiently without a student helper would get them to do so, well and good. Besides, once they’d decided for themselves they didn’t need help, they couldn’t whinge because they didn’t have any, could they?

    “Did Jim explain about the bonuses?” she asked.

    “Not to us, eh, Rog?” replied Jack on a sour note. Sourly Rog agreed with him.

    Gee, that was funny: could it be because Ran had just made them up? But Jim had said whatever it took, because Sir Maurice had taken it into his head to come out in person for the opening.

    “Yeah: hundred dollars if ya get it all done before the first of February,” she said cheerfully.

    They both brightened tremendously, though valiantly trying to hide the fact.

    “Each?” asked Mr White cautiously after a moment.

    “Yeah, ’course each!”

    “Sounds all right, Rog,” conceded Mr Biddle.

    “I’ll say! ’Specially with the kids growing out of their ruddy school uniforms: now she’s saying they’re gonna haveta have new winter ones this year as well!” he said with feeling.

    Mr White’s kids were all galumphing teenagers, Mr White himself being in his early forties. Mr Biddle, technically his boss, was older: Ran’s dad’s age, and in fact his son Keith had been in Ran’s class at school. Which didn’t mean either of them was old enough to know better than to go slow on the job because a ponce of an interfering Pom who had no authority over them had got up their noses.

    Mr Biddle concluding they might as well get on with it, then, Ran left them to it.

    Jack Biddle, she reflected idly as she went inside, was actually a sub-contractor, because that was how the building industry worked in New Zealand, so exactly how Jim was gonna put this so-called “bonus” through on the books, goodness only knew, but too bad. At this precise moment he himself was in Queensland, looking at a possible site for a second ecolodge over there, and if that was what he called prioritising his tasks, so be it.

    Simon Basildon-Pugh was discovered in the kitchen conferring with the ultra-refined lady whom he’d taken on as housekeeper. She was an Australian, but you could forget all those easy-going Aussie myths: she was as ladylike as he was and if possible even more superior. She didn’t look in the least like a housekeeper, she was thin, and wore those excruciatingly neat black modern suits that lady execs went in for. They both duly looked down their noses at her.

    “I’ve sorted out the blokes on the patio,” said Ran cheerfully, not bothering to moderate her tone or her choice of phrase for their benefit, “and I think they’ll get on with it, so long as they’re left alone.”

    Basildon-Pugh went very red and glared. “Their idea of getting on with it appears to be leaning on their shovels all day!”

    “Yeah. See, they’re not our employees, they’re sub-contractors, and they didn’t like you telling them to get on with it, Simon. You might not have realised that all the construction workers are responsible to Development, not to Hospitality.”

    “Someone had to tell them what to do, since Development had apparently sent all of you elsewhere!” he snapped.

    Okay, he’d asked for it, and he was gonna get it. “No, someone didn’t,” said Ran flatly. “I know you meant well, but please don’t interfere with our workers again. Oh, and by the way, did you refuse to let them boil their jug in here?”

    “They were filthy!” he gasped.

    “Well, yeah, workmen usually are. I dunno how it works in Britain but out here you’ll find that everyone lets working blokes boil up their jug—plumbers, too, and they can be really filthy. I expect it’s the same over in Oz, too, eh, Gillian?” she added cheerfully.

    The neatly-suited Ms Prendergast blinked. “Well, yes,” she admitted reluctantly.

    “Really?” said Basildon-Pugh coldly. “Then perhaps you’d care to clarify exactly whose budget will be responsible for cleaning the floors after the filthy creatures?”

    Fortunately Ran already knew that one, though if she hadn’t she’d’ve made it up. “The final clean-up’s Development’s responsibility. Just write us a memo listing everything that needs to be done.”

    “The kitchen will need to be scrubbed,” he warned.

    “Well, yes,” agreed Ms Prendergast, shuddering slightly. “That stove’s disgusting!”

    “Yeah,” agreed Ran. “The minute the electricians installed it, all the blokes working on the bottle cabins and the paving started using it for fry-ups. The thing is, the site’s miles from any place that sells food. But we couldn’t lock them out of the kitchen, there’d have been a strike.”

    “I see. And the lavatories?” said Basildon-Pugh coldly.

    “They aren’t supposed to use those, they’ve got their own Portaloos. But like I say, just let us know what needs to be cleaned. How’s it going with the inside staff?” she added kindly.

    That went over like a bucket of lead; they both looked down their noses at her again. Though he did admit they’d hired a chef.

    “Oh, good!” said Ran cheerfully, wondering who was gonna make the beds, wash the floors, clean the ensuites and chop the veges into the minute slivers the chef would no doubt demand.

    “He’s worked in several Auckland hotels and some very well thought of restaurants in Australia—all offering a fresh, multicultural approach to cuisine, of course,” added Ms Prendergast, still looking down the nose. “He’s looking forward to working with organic ingredients.”

    “So I do hope those local people will be able to supply as promised,” noted Basildon-Pugh.

    The situation at Taupo Organic Produce had been explained to the sod in words of one syllable, so Ran replied grimly: “Yes: they’re coping very well, considering the strain they’re under. I’ll leave ya to it, then. Just ring me if you’ve got any problems with the blokes or the buildings. See ya.” She shot out before she could start shouting at the pair of them.

    “What is a fresh, multicultural approach to cuisine?” she asked Jan sourly, some twenty minutes later.

    “Dunno; sounds like a mishmash!” she replied with a laugh.

    “Chop everything up very small, pile up in little layers, add chilli?” drawled Alex.

    Ran winced. “Sounds horribly likely. Why are you here?”

    “In my function as deliverer of organic produce, Ran,” he replied with a mocking look. “Why are you?”

    “First, so as not to go insane: have you met bloody Simon Basildon-Pugh? Second, for a decent lunch: I’ve been on the go for hours. The stupid sod’s got up the noses of the blokes working on the second and third bottle cabins as well, wouldja believe?”

    “Judging solely by your and Shannon’s reports of him, yes.”

    “Yes,” agreed Jan. “You might as well stay for lunch, too, Alex, but it won’t be fancy.”

    “Not ’alf!” he said with laugh. “Thanks, Jan, I’d love to.”

    “Isn’t Shannon expecting you back?” asked Ran suspiciously.

    “No: she and that terrifying little Katie Maureen Carrano have taken the older kids shopping for new school uniforms.”

    “She is rather terrifying: very like her father, isn’t she? Though that red hair’s from Polly’s mum’s side of the family,” said Jan placidly. “Polly’s twins are putting their backs into it, I hope? –Oh, Hell! Sorry Alex, that wasn’t a hit at you!” she gasped as he looked wry and rubbed the small of his back.

    Alex smiled at her. “No, of course it wasn’t, Jan. The Carrano twins are working like stink, I’m glad to say. It’s interesting: they’re fraternal, of course, not identical, and at first we all assumed Davey was the dominant twin: he’s very like his father in looks, with a similar manner. But he hasn’t got Jake’s brains, and in fact Johnny, who’s much quieter and more intellectual, seems to make the significant decisions for both of them.”

    Jan smiled and nodded but Ran asked: “What significant decisions?”

    “Things like whether to let their father pack them off to Grammar. Johnny evidently told Davey that it was no skin off their noses because school was school wherever you went and going would at least shut Jake up, and he’d get a chance to play first-class rugby!” he said with a laugh.

    “It is a better school,” said Jan cautiously.

    “Much, but Johnny’s bright enough to get Schol. without its benefit! And also bright enough,” he said thoughtfully, “—and I admit this surprised me—to see that school’s but a brief, passing phase in life. Whereas Davey’s the type that’s in it boots and all with the peer group.”

    “Help, they are different,” said Ran in some awe. “I don’t think anybody at school with me got that: they were all in it boots and all.”

    “Except you, presumably, Ran!” said Alex with his charming smile.

    “Well, yeah!” admitted Ran with a laugh. “Varsity wasn’t that much different: full of morons that thought student politics actually mattered. Shannon was into that for a while—did she tell you? –No,” she recognised as Alex shook his head, looking terrified. “It didn’t last long: she decided they were all short-sighted idiots just following the latest trends without stopping to think whether maybe Greenpeace was wrong and genetically modified soybeans that can feed the entire world are preferable to world hunger, and that human beings have been genetically modifying food by selective breeding since we first settled on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and that in fact, selective breeding ruddy well is genetic modification, because what else are you selecting for but genetic traits?”

    “Yes! Calm down!” said Alex with a laugh. “I entirely agree! Whilst not being opposed to Greenpeace’s stance on other topics, such as whaling and so forth!”

    “Um, yeah,” said Ran sheepishly. “Not only them, of course. –Sorry.”

    Jan, though most of her mind was on the lunch, had been listening with a little smile to this exchange. Now, as the oven pinged, she bent and withdrew the pies.

    “Wow!” said Alex. “They smell delicious! Unfortunately Polly didn’t manage to teach Shannon to cook before she shot over to the other side of the lake to hold that Livia dame’s hand,” he explained.

    “Livia’s husband’s oldest grandson’s just died, whaddareya?” retorted Ran, scowling.

    Jan leaned against the bench and sighed. “Yes, but it isn’t just that: Livia was coping very well until Stewart came home with his younger boy and he and Wal both plunged themselves into some fundraising scheme. They’re gonna build a medical centre or something in Thailand—well, I suppose it’s a worthy cause, but Wal’s pushing seventy and supposed to be retired, and he’s working at this fundraising stuff twenty hours out of the twenty-four and staying up in Auckland in that ghastly flat of theirs and refusing to listen to a word the poor woman says.”

    “I see,” said Alex nicely, since Ran was just scowling. “Why hasn’t she gone up too?”

    “Because he’s forbidden her to, Alex,” said Jan heavily. “The flat’s been turned into the HQ for the fundraising and they’ve got web designers and all sorts hard at it, and two dozen volunteers with mobile phones and computers. And I admit Livia can’t cook, but— Oh, well. That’s life, eh?”

    “Right: nowt so quare as fowk.”

    “Yes. They’ve been married for—how old’s Katie Maureen, again? Fifteen? About twelve or thirteen years, then: she was around two the year Livia came out. But it’s the first time Livia’s come slap up against that obstinacy of Wal’s: up to now he’s just done anything she wanted: he was pretty besotted and most of that stuff, choosing where to go on the trip or decorating the house and so forth, didn’t matter a damn to him. And Stewart never could stand her,” she admitted with a sigh. “Not that she supplanted his mother, eh, Ran?”

    “Eh? Uh—dunno. Don’t think so. Aren’t the boys all the first wife’s?”

    “I’ve long since lost track,” admitted Jan. “Anyway, that’s why Polly’s over there, Alex.”

    “So shut up about it,” concluded Ran.

    He nodded fervently. “I was merely admiring the pies, Jan,” he said meekly.

    “Yeah,” said Jan wryly. “That and trailing your coat, Alex. Well, it’s a really easy recipe from a vegetarian book I’ve had for years, but when I’ve got a crowd in I usually do one with some chicken mixed into it. –That one,” she explained.

    “With the bird shape on top, of course!” he agreed. “And the two with the leaves are all veg!”

    “I thought they were all leaves,” said Ran, peering at them.

    “No, this one’s a sort of seagull, though it’s chook inside it. This is wholemeal pastry: it goes like a rock if ya try to mould it into anything, so I didn’t do a proper bird, just a cut-out. Er—sorry, blahing on about your own subject regardless is one of the hazards of advancing age. It does come to us all, you’ll see,” Jan added wryly, as they were both politely trying to look as if they believed her. “Since I’ve gone this far I might as well admit the recipe’s got cabbage in it, but don’t worry, Alex, no-one’s gonna ask you to stand out against Jake in the matter of cabbages: it’s one of the very few recipes that can make cabbage taste really good, and Pete can grow more than enough for it! In fact holding him back’s the problem—not that he’ll volunteer to eat cabbage as cabbage, mind you!”

    Alex’s eyes twinkled. “Yes: funny, isn’t it? Poor Tim’s been glooming over the cabbage veto ever since Jake pronounced it, muttering about how the cows like the outer leaves and how good they are for the compost and even that the chooks and ducks like them! It seems to have hit home much harder than the lettuce veto. But when I put him under interrogation he admitted that he doesn’t like the stuff cooked, either!”

    “Yeah, hah, hah,” said Ran feebly, since Jan had broken down in a spluttering fit and was nodding madly. “That way ya do it with butter or oil and those funny seeds is good, Jan.”

    Jan mopped her eyes. “Caraway seeds. –Most people feel like that,” she said as Alex shuddered. “Actually it’s a delicious recipe—vaguely Hungarian in origin, I think—so long as the cabbage is really fresh. Well, it’s pies, potato salad, and lettuce and tomato salad, with fruit salad with their choice of cream, ice cream or yoghurt for pudding, and that’s their lot.”

    “Paradise on earth, in short!” concluded Alex gaily.

    “Um, yeah, Max said something like that, too,” admitted Ran.

    “The natural male reaction to Jan’s cooking, Ran! Shall we take stuff through, Jan, or are you holding out for a proper waitress in a uniform, like your neighbours?”

    “Eh? Oh! That mad Simon Whatsisname over at Fern Gully! Well, Wendy Pohaka’d be up for a uniform if I was mad enough to let her. –She’s not here,” she explained redundantly: “she’s gone off with the latest boyfriend. I’ve laid the tables: put one vegetarian pie and the chicken pie on the big table, thanks, Alex, and the others on the two smaller tables.”

    “Right! Wilco!” he said cheerfully, taking them out.

    After a moment Ran admitted: “I suppose he’s all right, really.”

    “Well, yeah: as the male side goes he’s not such a bad specimen, Ran,” agreed Jan, handing her a large Tupperware container of potato salad. “Find a couple of pottery bowls and bung this in them, wouldja?”

    “Two or three?”

    “Eh? Oh—two, there’s more,” she said, getting a smaller Tupperware container out of the fridge.

    “Heck, how long did it take you to make all this?” asked Ran in some awe.

    “Mm? Well, I just chopped and mixed it, Janet cooked the potatoes. –I’ve given up trying to make her do them in their skins and then just slip the skins off,” she admitted with a sigh. “The peelings go to the compost, so I suppose they’re not wasted. Well, um, dunno: she was standing there peeling for ages, but unlike some I don’t put stop-watches on people.”

    “Right. Is that wanker still over at Taupo Organic Produce timing poor old Tim?”

    “No; he and his stop-watch and his laptop went back to report to Jake yesterday, Alex was saying. The minute his poncy Porsche vanished down the driveway the kids on the stall downed tools and Tim wandered out of the undergrowth looking vague and suggested it was time for smoko, but—” She stopped, as Ran had collapsed in helpless giggles. “Yeah,” she concluded drily. “I dare say Jake’s got enough nous to knock off five percent on account of it. Did Shannon tell you they’ve found Terry’s body?”

    “Mm,” said Ran, making a face. “Just as well Bettany managed to get the doc to come out to see Sabrina, by the sounds of it.”

    “Well, yes, though he gave her the same knock-out stuff as good old Sylvia Silverstone prescribed.”

    “Um, how long will it take her to get over it, Jan, do you think?”

    Jan swallowed a sigh. Bright though she was, Ran was too young to understand that you never really got over something like that. Sabrina had lived with the creep for twenty years, after all. “I’d give her a couple of months before she can be expected to cope at all, and even then I doubt that she’ll be up to contributing what she used to.”

    “Two months?” said Ran in a shaken voice.

    “At least. Oh, shit, I suppose Shannon ought to be looking for a job!” she realized.

    “Um, yeah: she was gonna apply at Fern Gully,” said Ran numbly.

    “Ye-ah. Ran, she hasn’t got the qualifications they’re looking for.”

    “I know; I tried to tell her that. But on the other hand, are they gonna find anybody that’ll stay?”

    “Remains to be seen,” said Jan, rapidly tearing up lettuce and adding it to the chopped tomatoes in three large salad bowls. “That’ll do: shaken but not stirred,” she said, bunging the salad servers into the bowls. “Uh—sorry, Ran, I meant the dressing’s already in with the tomatoes. Take this lot through and then you can bang the going.”

    Alex came in, grinning. “I don’t think you’ll need to, Ran, they’re all in there with their tongues hanging out!”

    “Bang it anyway,” said Jan kindly to Ran’s fallen face.

    “Did I put my foot in it?” asked Alex as she brightened and hurried out.

    “Yeah: she loves banging that gong—has done ever since she was as high as my knee—though back then it was a race between her and Pete,” said Jan with a little sigh.

    Alex hesitated. All of these people were, really, strangers to him: he was just passing through. But Jan was a very decent woman and he found himself saying: “Had enough, has he?”

    “Pretty much, yes.” Jan winced and covered her ears as the gong boomed out its summons.

    “What is it?” gasped Alex, taking his hands away from his ears.

    “Mm?” Jan shook her head slightly. “Crikey, it makes your ears ring, doesn’t it? It’s a genuine something-or-other that Pete’s barmy second wife picked up at one of those bloody ethnic shops, Alex.”

    “Oxfam?” he groped.

    “No, this was back in the Seventies. A commercial ethnic shop. Jake reckons it’s solid bronze, but as he hasn’t offered to buy it we’ve concluded it’s the junk Pete always maintained it was! Anyway,” she said with a grimace, “once upon a time I had to haul him off it every mealtime. Now he has to be reminded to bang it.”

    “Mm. If you were looking for someone who might eventually take over from him, Jan, I had the impression that young Sean might be interested.”

    Jan’s jaw dropped.

    “I wouldn’t mention it to his father, but I think he’s had enough of fish genetics.”

    “Uh—right.” Jan gave him a warning look as Ran came back wearing the wide grin that banging the gong always produced in her, but then realized she hadn’t needed to, as he was giving her one.

    “Um, right, we’re ready. Oh: no, the butter!” she remembered. “It’s ready: Janet’s done it: that’s right,” as she said as Ran bent to the fridge and produced a little tray holding six matching pottery butter dishes, swathed in Gladwrap. “She likes doing the dainty touches,” she said on a dull note.

    “Yes; you’re lucky to have her,” said Alex kindly, taking her elbow. “Come on, then.”

    Jan jumped. “Uh—yeah. Well, uh,”—she glanced cautiously after Ran, who had hurried out with the butter—“it’s food for thought, Alex.”

    Nokomis sidled into the sitting-room where Alex, with a rolled-up cushion stuffed against the lumbar region, was grimly stencilling cartons. All he was fit for—quite. “C’n you read wriding?”

    “Uh—handwriting, Nokomis? Grown-up writing? Yes; why?”

    Nokomis produced something crumpled from behind her back.

    “This isn’t— Oh, yes, this bit’s handwriting,” he said, unfolding the crumpled attachment. “Where did you get this from?”

    “Sabrina. She tole me to give it to ya!” she said loudly.

    “Yes, okay,” said Alex in an absent voice, his eyes bolting from his head as he took in what was written on the two sheets. “Jesus,” he muttered.

    “Is it a bill?”

    “Uh—no, not a bill, lovey,” he said feebly. “I’d better speak to Sabrina. She on deck, is she?”

    “Um, she’s awake,” said the little girl cautiously.

    “Mm. Look, I’m going to talk to her, and then I’ll see if she wants a cuppa, and then what say you and me go down the dairy and get an ice-cream, eh?”

    “Just for us?” she asked suspiciously.

    “Yes, just for us!” said Alex with a smile. “We’ll take my car, okay?”

    “Yeah. We won’d tell Shannon, eh?” she replied.

    Gee, was he that transparent to a child of six? Evidently—yes. “No, ’course not,” said Alex, going off to Sabrina’s room.

    Surprisingly, though she was in her nightie—or rather, one of the elaborate lace-trimmed ones Bettany had donated—and one could only be thankful they weren’t the semi-transparent nylon variety—she was sitting up, and not bawling.

    “Did you read them, Alex?”

    “Mm.” Alex came and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Look, you can fight this in the courts, Sabrina!”

    “No, I don’t really want to,” she said tiredly. “I don’t want any of it, now.”

    He bit his lip. Understandable. Terry had left all his property, including Taupo Organic Produce, which he apparently owned outright, no cooperatives need apply, to Mrs Grace Alison Mortimer: his mother. The typed letter was a copy of the lawyer’s letter apprising Mrs Mortimer of the fact and the handwritten attachment, purple ink on pale mauve paper, was a note from Mrs Mortimer to Sabrina, whom she had never met, letting her know how things stood and reminding her that one, Kathleen, was a Catholic and had always refused to divorce Terry. Whether or not this last was a deliberate rubbing of salt in the wound Alex couldn’t have said, but the purple handwriting inclined him to think it was.

    “She hates us,” said Sabrina dully.

    “Mm, I’d pretty much concluded that, Sabrina. Jesus, the kids are her grandchildren— Oh, forget it. Women like that are as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar and about as intelligent.”

    “Um, yes!” she said with a startled giggle. “Her and Terry weren’t Catholics, mind you, and she was wild with him when Kathleen wanted a Catholic wedding.”

    Alex wasn’t surprised. “Mm. Look, seriously, Sabrina, this leaves his children with nothing. I think you should fight it for their sakes, if not for yours. I understand you may want to shake the dust of this place,”—she shuddered and nodded, poor cow—“yeah, but if it was sold at least the money could be put away for the kids. Kamala’s as well as yours.”

    “I don’t think I can,” she said faintly.

    Right. He knew exactly how she felt, actually. “Mm. Um, I’m pretty sure Jake Carrano will handle it all for you. You might have to testify before the judge, but I think that’d be all.”

    A tear stole down her faded cheek. “I can’t. I mean, he’s been very kind… He’s too… exhausting,” she said faintly.

    Yeah, Jake was that, all right. It was like having a cheery hurricane in the house. Alex patted her hand kindly. “I know. But it wouldn’t be him in person, it’d be his lawyer.”

    Sabrina’s dampish hand clung desperately onto his. “Couldn’t you do it, Alex? Tuh-talk to him?”

    “But I—” Oh, God. At some time in the not-too-distant future he was supposed to hand in all his botanical drawings and a huge number of photographs to the idiots who were proposing publishing a giant coloured tome on ecosystems of the volcanic plateau world-wide: words to that effect. He hadn’t mentioned it to Shannon or, indeed, to Rick Weaver: in the first place it was nobody’s business but his and in the second place it was very much a one-off. And in the third place he’d have done his drawings whether or no; they hadn’t hired him to do it, they’d found out from the types at the Botany Department what he was doing and latched onto him after the fact. And in any case it was nothing that could be described as a career.

    “Um, I have got some stuff I have to do, but, um, I could do it most of it here, I suppose. But I don’t know that I know enough about the set-up to be really useful,” he ended limply.

    Sabrina just looked at him blankly and pathetically. Alex was aware that this was a standard survival tactic of the weak—not necessarily deliberate, and certainly not in her case; but being aware of it didn’t help you to deal with it. He found himself elaborating: “Um, well, I haven’t known any of you long enough to, um, attest to the fact that you and Terry were living together as man and wife, or, um, that sort of thing.”

    “No, but you know about those things,” she said, looking up at him hopefully.

    “Uh—oh! Know that you might need witnesses? Well, yes, but most people could tell you that.”

    “I think Sean and Shannon are too young,” she said dolefully. “And Tim can’t—can’t cope with that sort of stuff any more, Alex.”

    No; and what, after all, were a few months out of his life, if she and the kids got something out of the mess in the end? “Yeah, okay, I’ll do my best. But listen,” he said as her face brightened: “if I do it, I’ll fight for your rights as well as the kids’, Sabrina.”

    “I— Yes. All right,” she said faintly.

    Alex squeezed her hand comfortingly. “You’ll spend it on them anyway, I know, but you might as well get something out of twenty years slaving for the bastard.”

    Her lips trembled. “Don’t say that,” she whispered.

    “Sorry. But he was. Listen, me and Nokomis are popping down the dairy for an ice-cream: you wouldn’t like to come, would you?”

    “No, I— Thank you, but it’s too soon,” she said faintly.

    “Okay, then. Anything you’d like us to bring you back? A Coke? Crunchie Bar? Milkybar?”

    Sabrina gave a startled little laugh. “They don’t still have those, do they?”

    “Milkybars? Apparently! I’ll get you one!” he said cheerfully, going out before she could martyr herself and refuse.

    On the following day he rounded up Bettany and Sean and bearded Shannon in the kitchen. “Council of war time,” he said briefly. “Leave that, Shannon. Come into the sitting-room.”

    “Okay, now listen,” he said, once they’d sat down. Briskly he updated them, not omitting the fact that he’d have to work on his stuff for the publishers.

    “That’s wonderful of you, Alex!” cried Bettany, clapping her hands.

    “No, it isn’t, I can work as well here as anywhere.”

    “Better: you could use the dining table, it’d be a good flat working surface for you,” said Sean thoughtfully.

    “Thanks for that, Jackson. I do have a decent drawing-board in my car, actually.”

    “You will speak to Jake, though, won’t you?” added Bettany.

    “Good God, yes, I’m not inclined to martyrdom! Why look a gift-horse like the legal power of the Carrano Group in the mouth? I think there’s no doubt we’ll win. My main task,” he said with a grimace, “will probably be holding them back and making sure they don’t exhaust poor Sabrina.”

    “Yes. What about Babette?” demanded Shannon abruptly.

    Alex of course had never met her, and in fact he’d forgotten all about her existence. “Uh—well, she’s got her family to support her, Shannon. I suppose if they want to get involved in a lawsuit they will. But they may decide to shove the whole thing under the carpet. Well, she was the third concubine, for God’s sake, there’s not many Christian Fundamentalist families that’d want that sort of dirty linen washed in public.”

    “Mm. I was just thinking of the kids’ rights. Only come to think of it, Wilhelm isn’t Terry’s,” she admitted, swallowing.

    “What?”

    Shannon and Bettany exchanged glances, what time Sean croaked: “You’re not telling us old Tim—?”

    “No!” snapped his sibling. “Don’t be absurd! He’s like a grandfather to those kids! Um, no, he’s Terry’s oldest son’s. Jan told us, eh, Bettany?” The two males were just staring at them so they explained further. Alas, Alex and Sean both promptly collapsed in hysterics.

    “The biter bit!” gasped Alex finally, groping for his handkerchief.

    “Well, yes, darling, one does feel that!” agreed Bettany brightly.

    “Too right,” said Sean weakly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Boy, that done me good! Hey, listen, there’s no way Babette’ll want that little lot hauled out into the light of day, eh?”

    Several scenarios could be envisaged under which she might, but— “Exactly,” agreed Alex smoothly. “Well, that’s it for that side of it. I imagine the property will be sold, and whether or no Jake Carrano will buy it and put Tim in as agricultural manager without financial responsibility”—he was aware that Shannon was glaring but ignored her—“will be up to him.”

    “Alex,” said Sean awkwardly, “we can’t just—just dispose of poor old Tim like that.”

    Bugger: he’d had an idea Sean was too young to see it any other way. “We’re not disposing of him, Sean: Fate, or life, or accident, or whatever you like to call it is disposing of him. Just think about it rationally: between us, what can we offer him?”

    There was a sour silence.

    “Nothing, darlings, unless one of you is a secret millionaire,” concluded Bettany with a sigh.

    “No,” agreed Alex firmly. “Well, that’s me sorted for the next few months. What about the rest of you?”

    There was a short silence. Those who had plunged themselves into the present crisis while more or less wilfully ignoring all other considerations looked at reality, and judging by the frowns, didn’t like what they saw.

    “Um, I’ll stay on as long as Tim needs me,” said Sean at last. “Um, well, I have mentioned this to Shannon and Alex, Bettany, but I haven’t asked Pete and Jan yet, and Dad doesn't know, of course. Um, well, I was thinking of working for Pete, you see, and, um, maybe eventually taking the place over from them. Well, um, hadn’t really thought about the financial basis, but…”

    “That sounds lovely, Sean, but you do know that Pete’s got two grown-up daughters, do you, dear? Well, yes: Livia told me,” she said as the young man gaped at her. “She never met them: they’re his first wife’s, but Wal knew them and in fact gave us a feeling description of the lemon crocheted toilet-roll holders the wife used to make! –Sorry, dears: introducing irrelevancies, as dear Polly and Jake would say,” she ended lamely.

    “Right: so if Sean imagines he’s gonna take over Taupo Shores lock, stock and barrel he’s gonna end up in a lawsuit, too!” said Shannon crossly.

    “It is possible, Shannon,” said Bettany meekly.

    “I’m quite sure that Jan’s got far too much sense to let that happen,” said Alex firmly. “It wouldn’t hurt to discuss it with them as soon as you feel ready, though, Sean. Er—and I hate to sound like a Pommy dweeb in a safari suit, but I’d say if you want to manage the place some sort of hospitality management qualification would be in order.”

    “He’s right, actually,” admitted Shannon. “Only, see, Sean doesn’t really wanna be an entrepreneur, do ya?”

    Sean was now very red. “Not really,” he growled.

    Bettany looked from his red face to his sister’s frowning one to Alex’s, which was beginning to take on that awful detached look of his which drove poor little Shannon mad—well, it was the sort of look that was calculated to drive any sensible woman insane in a very short space of time.

    “Darlings, sensible though that all is, I think possibly we’re rushing our fences,” she said quickly. “Just—just take it slow, Sean, dear. See how you like it working for Pete and Jan fulltime rather than as a holiday job. One doesn’t need to rush into the management thing: I know it does seem to be the thing for today’s young people, but, um, traditionally many people would start off just—just doing the practical work and gradually take on more, and then when they started managing they’d find they liked it!”

    “Yeah,” said Sean, grinning suddenly. “I get it. Start off as a labourer, get to be foreman, graduate to a bit of paperwork, and end up as managing director, eh? Well, yeah: ta, Bettany, that’s really sensible.”

    “Oh, good!” said Bettany, sitting back with a sigh of relief and wondering why on earth it was that one could give other people good advice and then be hopeless—completely hopeless—at running one’s own life!

    “Your turn, Shannon,” said Alex. He could see she was angry with him for not having let her know about the book, but too bad.

    Shannon gave him a glare. “I can’t desert Sabrina.”

    “No, but part of my point was that Sabrina’s deserting this place and everything and everyone attached to it. I strongly doubt that she’ll want to stay on if Jake does buy it and turn it into a viable financial proposition.”

    “What if she’s allowed to do all the cooking?” she returned, glaring at him.

    He sighed. “Look, put yourself in her place for a minute. The bastard let her slave for him for twenty years—or however many they were here,” he said as she opened her mouth, “but I’m sure it wasn’t that much different before they came—and not only made her put up with a polygamous arrangement, but deliberately left her nothing at the end of it!”

    “Alex, that will could have been made ages ago,” said Bettany faintly. “He wasn’t old; I dare say he hadn’t thought about changing it.”

    “Possibly not, but that doesn’t alter the facts. At the moment she doesn’t want anything more to do with him or any of his works, and who can blame her? I dare say she might change her mind, but if she’s well enough to think about it rationally she won’t need you, Shannon, will she? Look, let’s say even the might of the Carrano Group can’t force the lawsuit through in under six months—and I have to say it, it may take longer. This place can feed you, but apart from that can you afford to stay on for six months with no money coming in?”

    “Um, well, like you say, Sabrina will get better, won’t she? Even if it takes a while… I thought if I was here fulltime for maybe another month and, um, well, there might be a position at the ecolodge. And,” she said, sticking her chin out, “if there isn’t I was gonna go back to Auckland and start a tech course in hospitality management, see!”

    “Term will’ve started, though,” said Sean dubiously.

    “They run a second lot in the second semester, dirt-brain!” she snarled.

    “That sounds like a good plan,” said Alex temperately, “but tech courses cost money, don’t they? And you’ll have to find somewhere to live.”

    “Ran said I can share with them.”

    “They’re renting a house, Alex, it’s a deceased estate or something,” explained Sean. “It’s got four bedrooms: there’d be room for her as well as for Max’s half-brother and Moyra.”

    Moyra was still in Taupo: at the moment she had plunged herself into coordination of the tsunami relief effort tins that had appeared on all the shopkeepers’ counters locally. She was doing it quite professionally, giving them a proper accounting of each day’s takings and banking it for them, and nobody seemed to object: possibly they saw the good intentions under the expensive holiday clothes, the flawless makeup and the accent. Not to say the manner.

    “Yeah. Well, when they build Ran thought Moyra might like a granny flat with them, but actually she wants to stay down here,” admitted Shannon. “Though Dad reckons that one winter’ll put the kybosh on that one. Anyway, the house is big enough for all of us.”

    “Good,” said Alex on a firm note. “Bettany?”

    Bettany tried to smile. “Darlings, I haven’t any real plans. Well, officially I’m not a visitor any more, I’m an immigrant and darling Wal is sponsoring me, but, um, I suppose they could still throw me out,” she ended sadly.

    “Yeah: don’tcha have to have a job?” asked Sean baldly.

    “I think this counts as tsunami relief, and if it comes down to it Jake’ll put her on the payroll,” said Alex as firmly as he could. “But can you stay on here?”

    “Of course, Alex!” she replied, brightening. “I wouldn’t dream of deserting the poor darlings!”

    “Um, there won’t be stuff to pick for the stall in a couple of months, it’s only a summer thing,” warned Shannon. “And, um, I know you could do more in the vege patches, but Tim’d have to show you.”

    “He runs for the hills at the mere sight of me, darlings,” she said heavily. “I know I come on too strong for him, but— Oh, well.”

    “He’s pretty scared of Shannon, too,” said Sean fairly. “But anyway, it might work out quite well, ’cos Sabrina should gradually be on deck more, and you can take over more from Shannon, and then she’ll be able to go and do her course!”

    Bettany smiled and nodded valiantly.

    “Well, that seems to be us sorted for the next few months,” said Alex. “But I ought to warn you: I’ve got to get my drawings done, so I’ll need a room with a lock on the door to keep the bloody kids out.”

    “They will be at school during the day, Alex,” said Sean.

    “Not while I’m working, so much: while I’m not in there guarding the work with my life, not to mention my pens and paints!”

    “Aw—right. Yeah. Look, you better have the dining-room, and we can eat in the kitchen. I’ll get a second-hand table off Ben Reilly; he can bloody well donate it, what’s more. You want a solid second-hand table or the dining table?”

    “The dining table is a good size. Um, well, could it be stabilized, Sean?”

    “Yeah, sure. Gimme a few blocks of wood and some PVA: she’ll be like a brick shit-house! You’ll never get it out of that room again, mind you.”

    “It can stay in there,” said Shannon firmly. “Okay, that’s PVA glue, you might need some screws, and a lock for the door, Sean. You can borrow Dad’s electric drill, and one of his saws, if ya need one, or Pete’s. And Ben can donate any wood ya need. Got enough money?”

    Sean sorted through his change, looking rueful. “Not for petrol as well, no.”

    Alex suppressed a sigh: he’d thought it might come to this. “Look, never mind if Tim has hysterics, we’ll use the takings from the bloody stall. Get that cash box off Jonathan.”

    “There’ll only be today’s in it, Tim’s locked the rest in that ruddy sideboard drawer,” Sean warned.

    “All right, plan B!” Alex produced his wallet and withdrew a credit card from it.

    “Darling, that’s yours, you mustn’t!” gasped Bettany.

    He eyed her wryly. “Thanks for the compliment, Bettany. But it isn’t mine, though it is my signature on it. This account contains five thousand smackaroos from Jake Carrano’s personal fortune—immense, granted—and I have to admit I was hoping we wouldn’t have to draw on it. The PIN number’s twenty-six twelve, Sean. Take out two hundred in cash, get whatever you need, and for Pete’s sake buy us all fish and chips for lunch on your way home!”

    “Uh—yeah! Right!” he agreed, though with a wary glance at his sister.

    “The good fish and chips shop,” she prompted.

    “What am I, mad?” replied Sean amiably, hurrying out.

    In his wake silence fell.

    “Oh, dear,” said Bettany lamely at last. “Not that Jake can’t afford, it, darlings, but...”

    Alex grimaced. “But. Quite.”

    “We’re bloody lucky he’s involved,” said Shannon grimly, getting up. “I’d better get on with those flaming strawberries, since Jan’s volunteered to make jam.” She went out, scowling.

    Bettany looked fearfully at Alex.

    He shrugged. “‘Peeved because I didn’t let on about the book.”

    She nodded hard.

    “The offer fell into my lap: I can’t take a skerrick of credit for it.” His nostrils flared. “Now I come to think of it, I’d better tell her that. Excuse me, Bettany.” He went out.

    Bettany looked limply round the shabby sitting-room. She felt completely drained. After quite some time she got up and, murmuring: “Do the thing that’s nearest, as poor Mummy always said,” went off to see what the kids were running out of on the stall.

    “Shannon,” said Alex in the kitchen, ignoring the fact that Nokomis and Ghillywaine were now in there helping to top the strawberries, “I didn’t tell you about the book earlier because the offer fell into my lap. I haven’t secretly been working towards it for the last couple of years or anything like that; I’d have done the drawings anyway. The book offer just happened along and has nothing whatsoever to do with my essential character, or, if you like, lack of same.”

    After a moment Shannon said grimly: “It’s not character that you haven’t got enough of. You’re as hard as bloody nails, Alex, under all that unfocused drifting crappola ya put on.”

    He was astonished to know she’d realised it. “All right, I am; I’ve never disguised it from myself, whatever other people might have assumed—or what I might have let them assume,” he said as she scowled and opened her mouth.

    “Yeah. Too right.”

    “I neither want nor approve of the conventional goals of our society, Shannon,” said Alex, trying not to sound too heavy-handed nor, on the other hand, too light.

    “Yeah, that had dawned. All right, good on ya, ya know what ya don’t want. But do ya know what ya want?”

    “No,” he said, this time very lightly.

    “No. Right,” she agreed grimly.

    Alex stole one of Nokomis’ strawberries.

    “HEY!” she shouted,

    “One won’t hurt: there must be five million here, Nokomis. –Do you know what you want, Shannon?”

    After a moment Shannon turned round and looked him in the eye. “I’ve been thinking about it. I dunno that I want to do the hospitality crap as such: it sounds as barmy as any other flaming set of procedures for any simple job that they’ve turned into a twenny-first century blow-up.”

    “Blow-up? Oh, as in photographic enlargement! Yes, exactly!”

    “Yeah. But I wanna succeed in something that doesn’t hurt other people and that doesn’t ruin the environment and contribute to global warming. I’m not the type to do nursing or anything like that, I haven’t got the temperament.”

    Actually Alex thought she did have the sort of detachment that a nurse needed, but he just nodded.

    “Though I suppose if I really cared about other people I’d go off and join the Salvation Army or something. Only most of those charities are weirdo Christian organisations, and ya can’t help wondering how much harm they do alongside the genuine relief work and stuff. I know there’s a few that aren’t attached to a church, but… Well, the YDI guy that’s one of the top project managers, that Ran did some work for when she was in England, he knows somebody that works for one of the big international charities, and he says it’s really terrible, it’s as bureaucratic as any government department, and a huge proportion of the funds they raise goes to the bureaucracy.”

    “Mm, and the United Nations agencies are even worse, I believe,” he murmured.

    “Yeah. So if ya can’t believe in the organisation, Alex, how could ya work for them?” she said earnestly.

    Alex didn’t ask why she had even considered the notion: he understood that it was the tsunami that had suggested the possibility of aid work. “Mm. And there is a place for merely giving to the appeals of which one approves: after all, if we didn’t give down here at grass-roots level, none of the big charities’ work would be possible, would it?”

    “No, right. Anyway, like I say, I’d just like to get my teeth into something that’s relatively harmless and succeed at it.”

    “Mm. Sounds entirely reasonable.”

    Shannon was silent for moment. Then she said: “I sent in an application for the reception job at Fern Gully, but that dweeb hasn’t got back to me.”

    “His bad luck,” he said lightly.

    “Yeah. Haven’t you thought at all about what you wanna do, long-term?” she asked, sticking out her chin.

    Oh, Gawd, were they back to the topic of him again? “I have tried.”

    “Is this five million?” demanded Nokomis abruptly.

    She had laboriously set out some of the strawberries on the small, rickety kitchen table. “Er—no. One, two, three… Twenty, Nokomis.”

    Nokomis counted, breathing stertorously. “One, two, free, four-wuh, fi-ive, six, seven, leventy, ten, twenny!”

    “Yes. Five million’s a few more than twenty.”

    “A lot?”

    “Mm. Don’t put them on the table, thanks. You’re supposed to be taking the green bits off them, aren’t you?”

    “Yeah, for the jam.” She got on with it, breathing stertorously.

    Alex began to help her. “There wasn’t anything I could envisage myself doing long-term. All I knew when I packed the varsity crap in was that I didn’t want any more of that, either the teaching or the so-called research, and that I would quite fancy getting off into the bush. The photography and the sketching just came along later. Well, I had always greatly enjoyed botanical drawing, but in the higher echelons of botanical research these days you don’t get to do any.”

    “No, right,” said Shannon slowly.

    “There’s not many that are lucky enough not to make any mistakes in life,” he said lightly. “Ooh, this is a lovely one, Nokomis! Wanna eat it?”

    “Neh, you can have it,” she said generously.

    Alex ate the strawberry, perforce. “Even Pete made the mistake of tying himself down to a suburban box and a woman who crocheted lemon toilet-roll holders, didn’t he?”

    “Mm,” she admitted, gnawing on her lip.

    Oops, that seemed to have hit a nerve. “Mm. Well, if you’re looking for stability and suburban bliss, even without the crocheted toilet-roll holders, I’m a bad bet, Shannon,” he said lightly.

    “I’m NOT!” she shouted, turning puce. “Weren’t you LISTENING? And it’s not a JOKE! And GET OUT!”

    Shrugging slightly, Alex got.

Next chapter:

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