Accidents Will Happen

 3

Accidents Will Happen

    Dan Jackson scratched his chin. “Ye-ah…”

    Flushing, Max croaked: “I’m terribly sorry, Dan, but I didn’t know who else to contact.”

    Dan grinned at him. “That’s okay! Ya don’t need to keep apologising! Thing is, we have got a pot-bellied stove—put one into the shed for Katy years back, it’s far too cold to work out there in winter without heating—but I’ve never seen one connected up like this.”

    “Mm. The damned website said the place had central heating,” said Max, shivering, and hunching into his expensive, goose-down padded anorak.

    “Yeah. Well, yeah, think that might be what it’s s’posed to be, Max.”

    “Yes, but we had it on last night and it didn’t heat the bedrooms at all!” cried Violet. “We all had to sleep in here.”

    Er—yeah. Right. To most New Zealanders that was what a ski lodge was: one big room where you all kipped. With bunks. Only this flaming palace on the mountainside didn’t have bunks and it did have proper bedrooms with actual beds, so presumably this was meant to be a sitting-room. Sitting-dining, maybe.

    “Well, let’s take a dekko.” He looked at Violet’s face. “Show us your bedroom, Violet.”

    “Oh! Of course. It’s this one, Dan.” Shivering, huddled into her giant fur-trimmed, padded goose-down anorak, Violet led the way.

    “Jimmy said those were valves,” she said, as Dan looked at the pipes.

    “Uh-huh.” Dan inspected the knobs carefully and turned them experimentally hither and yon but nothing happened. The word “dampers” sprang forcibly to mind but he was damned if he could have said why. “You getting any hot water?”

    “No,” said Violet, shivering.

    Primmy appeared from nowhere, huddled in a giant padded goose-down anorak, shivering. “No,” she agreed. “It’s too frightful, we’ve had to boil every drop, Dan!”

    “Yeah. Right. Yer electricity’s working, though, eh?”

    “Yes,” they both agreed blankly.

    “Mm. Can’t be related to the generator, then. There musta been someone round to turn it on, didn’t ya get a message or anything?”

    The two girls looked blank. “No, I don’t think so,” said Violet.

    “No,” agreed Primmy, shivering. “Max! –Where’s he gone? MAX!”

    “Here I am,” said Max on a resigned note, appearing with a tray of steaming mugs. “Hot drinks. I don’t advise taking your gloves off to hold ’em. –Instant coffee, Dan. Help yourself. Pig and Jasmine may be able to buy a bottle at The Chateau but unless and until they do there’s nothing to put in it, I’m afraid.”

    “No, and guess why?” said Primmy sourly. “Because they drank it last night!” she explained to Dan.

    “That right? Someone oughta tell Jimmy that grog’ll encourage the pneumonia, not scare it away, in that case.”

    “See?” said Violet with a sort of glum triumph. “That’s what I said, but no-one believed me!”

    “I did, but who took any notice of me?” said Primmy crossly.

    Dan looked at them with wry amusement. No-one had, very evidently, and this was because, although gorgeous to look at and with very up-market accents indeed, Primmy, in fact, having a high-pitched voice that you’d have taken for the Queen’s if you’d shut your eyes, they were both, very evidently, extremely dumb. The nicely curved Primmy was blonde, oval-faced, pink-cheeked, forget-me-not-eyed and extremely dumb, and the voluptuous, dark-haired Violet was round-faced, pink-cheeked, lapis-lazuli-eyed and extremely dumb.

    “Yeah. Well, don’t worry, Katy’s looking after him,” he said peaceably.

    “It’s terribly good of you both, Dan,” replied Violet on a lame note.

    “Think nothing of it.” He looked at her face. “This is New Zealand, Violet,” he said with a grin. “Any mate of me wife’s cousin’s kid is a mate of mine, geddit?”

    “Mm!” agreed Violet with a sudden laugh. “It’s rather like Ireland, isn’t it? The villages, I mean. Mummy’s people have got a place over there. They’re frightfully stuffy, but the local people are lovely.”

    Dan had never been to Ireland and from what he’d seen on TV it was the dump to end all dumps—endless rain, and bloody terrorists rushing round with guns into the bargain—and he had no intention of ever setting foot there, in fact he’d have made quite an effort not to have to, but he agreed amiably. And, the freezing cold of the bedroom beginning to penetrate his grungy parka, thick woollen bush shirt, heavy woollen jersey, and the tee-shirt Katy had made him put on as well as his woollen singlet when she’d learned where he was bound this frosty winter morning, led the way back into the main room.

    “I was just saying to the girls,” he said to Max, “that someone musta turned the generator on for ya or there’d be no electricity. Didn’t they leave a message or any instructions about the stove?”

    “None that we could find, no,” he said with sigh.

    Dan scratched his chin. “Ye-ah… You looked out the back?”

    “Er—no. Out the back?”

    Suppressing a sigh, Dan said: “In the generator shed, mate.”

    “Oh! Is that what it is? I just assumed, um, that it was a storage shed.”

    “Boy, you musta really roughed it, up this Austrian mountain of yours,” replied Dan drily.

    Max went very red.

    Sighing, Dan said: “It’s all right, Max, ya can’t help being born with a purple spoon in yer mouth.”

    “Born with— Oh, hah, hah,” he said with a silly grin.

    “It was more like a village, Dan,” said Violet in a small voice.

    “Right. You were there, too, were ya, Violet? Right,” he said as she nodded the gloriously rioting dark curls. Boy, were those yer traditional Irish good looks, or what? Whoever this “Mummy” of hers ostensibly was, he’d have a hefty bet that there was some bloody sturdy Irish peasant blood not too far back in her ancestry!

    “Well, we better take a look out there, eh? But let’s finish our coffee first.”

    They did that. The generator shed was firmly padlocked, so that was that. Max revealed that there had been no note left with the keys, because there were no keys, they’d had an email giving them the combination to the front door. So much for Progress. Dan went back inside and stared hard at the pot-bellied stove. Looked just like Katy’s only bigger, except there was a pipe going off it as well as its chimney. He walked slowly round and round it—it was set off to the side of the big room, but free-standing, on its own slab, the way they recommended… Hang on. A weak daylight was now coming through the somewhat inadequate windows of the lodge, partly because he’d recommended opening the shutters to Max as they passed them, and… He walked up to it and peered.

    “It’s a little slot, I think, Dan,” offered Violet.

    “Is it a hole? Is the heat all escaping through it and not coming into our bedrooms?” said Primmy crossly.

    “No-o… No, I think Violet’s right and it’s a slot. –Oy, mate,” said Dan to Max with a laugh in his voice, “before you cleared off the top of this here pot-bellied stove to heat up that appalling packet soup you were telling me about, did you clear away a smallish extraneous piece of metal, possibly black metal, about yay wide?”

    “No,” he said blankly.

    “The poker!” said Primmy crossly.

    “N—Oh, the thing for lifting the stove top, Primmy. Yes, here it is,” he said, picking it up from the slab.

    “Not that,” admitted Dan regretfully. “Extraneous smaller piece of metal, I think, Max. Flattish. –I’m avoiding the word ‘key,’ here,” he explained kindly.

    Max stared blankly at him. After a moment he went very, very red.

    “There wasn’t—” began Primmy.

    “Shut up! There was!” he snapped.

    “I never saw anything like that,” objected Violet. “And it was me that made the soup.”

    “Will the pair of you shut up! There was! You and Jasmine were fighting over the bedrooms, that’s why you never— Where the fuck did I put it?” he muttered.

    “Rubbish?” murmured Dan.

    “There’s nothing in the kitchen tidy except three beer cans and the packet that the soup came from, Dan, but by all means look,” replied Max grimly.

    Looking very mild, Dan ambled out to the kitchen. He was wrong, there was also an empty half-bottle of whisky and something nasty which on examination proved to be a dead camomile teabag. Certainly no metal flue-key.

    “I had a cup of camomile tea,” said Primmy in a small voice from just behind him.

    Jumping, Dan gasped: “Didja, love? Good on ya! Good for the innards, it’s supposed to be.” He looked at the perfect oval face. It was marred by a tiny spot by one nostril. “Got your period, have you?” he said kindly.

    Primmy nodded glumly.

    “Badly timed, eh?” said Dan kindly.

    “Yes. I think it was the stress of it all brought it on, it wasn’t supposed to start this week,” she revealed glumly.

    “I geddit. Well, you make sure he makes you a hottie to put on your tummy— Hang on, are there any?”

    Primmy shook her head. “Electric blankets,” she said, swallowing.

    “Well, that’s no flaming good! Uh—s’pose ya can buy chemists’ things up The Top of the Bruce,” he muttered. “Um, haven’t been there for ages, that’s where they got a big cafeteria and stuff for the tourists.” He took another look at Primmy. “How old are you, Primmy?” he asked baldly.

    Primmy’s full lower lip wobbled. “Twenty-four,” she said with a defiant lift of that oval chin. “I can look after myself, Dan.”

    “Can you, just? Well, I’d say he oughta be looking after you, that’s one, and two, GET IN HERE!”

    Max and Violet appeared in the doorway, looking very startled.

    “Not you, Violet. I just wanted to chew this joker’s ear. Ya do realise this poor kid’s got her period and she’s feeling rotten, do ya?”

    “I— She said she felt all right.”

    “She’s been drinking camomile tea behind your back, you cretin! Why are ya chucking perfectly good flat bottles away in a dump with no hotties in it?”

    “What?” said Max limply.

    “Don’t you speak English? Gimme that bottle,” he said, pointing at the bin.

    Limply Max handed it to him. He watched limply as Dan carefully poured hot water from the jug over it, then dried it, carefully poured hot water into it and screwed it up. “I see,” he said limply.

    “Okay, Primmy, love, you lie down on that big fat brown sofa,” said Dan, “and put this on your tummy—and undo those flaming jeans, ya don’t want jeans at a time like this. Haven’t ya got some nice comfy tracksuit pants or something? –No. Fleecy jamas? –No.”

    “I’ve got some thermal underwear she could borrow,” said Violet in a small voice.

    “Just the thing. And how old are you, just by the by?”

    “Tuh-twenty-five,” she stuttered.

    “Well, that’s not ancient, either. Thought girls were s’posed to stick together—or isn’t it like that in England?”

    “Y—um, but she didn’t mention it,” she said weakly. “Um, you should’ve said you were feeling grotty, Primmy.”

    Max passed a hand over his face. “Yes. Come on, lie down. And next time, just try telling the truth, would you?”

    They went out. After a moment Violet said feebly: “Maybe she didn’t want to, um, play the frail little woman card, if you see what I mean.”

    Dan eyed her drily. “Not even if she was genuinely feeling frail—uh-huh. My three girls are just as mad: what is it with your generation, the influence of all those mums that were burning their bras back in the Seventies? Dunno if you’ve noticed, but men and women aren’t actually the same. –Come on, let’s see if we can jog ’Is Master’s Brain into something like action and find that bloody flue-key—think that slot’s like a keyhole, Violet.”

    “I see. How silly; I’d have chained the key to it,” she said placidly.

    Dan’s eyes twinkled. Brighter than the average EnZed pot-bellied stove designer!

    The flue-key was, of course, in the last place they thought to look. Not on the wide, natural stone mantelpiece above the superfluous fireplace which held a contorted floral arrangement of bent twigs, dead flax leaves, and dried something that looked suspiciously like fennel, which was a weed in EnZed, in case the up-market interior decorator hadn’t looked, not on any of the dark brown Indonesian teak sideboards, tables and coffee tables in the main room, not in any of the sideboards, though a fair collection of Noritake china and cheap glassware was revealed, not on any of the granite surfaces in the Year-2000-style abortion of a white and grey kitchen, not in any of the featureless white kitchen drawers, though they held a goodly assortment of Japanese stainless steel cutlery and up-market implements of the totally useless or olive-pitter variety, not on top of the grey industrial-steel fridge (or in it: it held only the remains of a six-pack of beer), not on any of the windowsills, not in anyone’s pockets, not on any of the dark brown Indonesian teak dressing-tables and cabinets in the bedrooms, not in anyone’s bedroom drawers, not in the featureless white bathroom cabinets (why Violet had thought it might be, not clear), but, gee whizz! In that possibly genuine EnZed hand-thrown dark brown pottery vase on the wide, natural stone mantelpiece. Just as Max was rubbishing Violet’s notion that it might be. Along with some dust, a dead spider and an American five-cent piece. Dan pocketed that: there was always the chance that he could palm it off on Ma Roberts at the service station on a busy Sunday arvo when everyone was desperately seeking Crunchie Bars, economy-size Coke, milk and sliced bread.

    He inserted the key into the slot and with a Herculean effort— No, he didn’t. Bugger.

    “Other way?” suggested Max in a weak voice.

    “Yeah.” He turned it the other way. There was a graunching noise somewhere up the pipe. From the big brown sofa Primmy gasped: “Ooh!”

    “Well, that’s done something,” conceded Dan.

    Violet rushed optimistically into her bedroom.

    “If that opened a whatsit deep in the whatsit, and if them valves on the wall-heater are open, she might be getting heat in there in the next two hundred years,” noted Dan.

    “Yes,” said Max limply. “I honestly have no recollection of putting it in that vase, Dan.”

    “Obviously not, no. Well, you’d’ve been pretty out of it, after the drive and the flight and everything,” he said kindly. “Shoulda stayed the night in Auckland.”

    “It seemed silly to waste the whole day,” explained Max feebly.

    Yeah, almost as silly as arriving at a large mountain you’d never laid eyes on before when it was already getting dark. However. “Is it warming up, Violet?” he called.

    “I’m not sure, Dan!”

    No. Quite. They waited…

    “It’s getting hot!” she shrieked.

    Dan and Max rushed in there. Cripes, so it was. Definitely warmish. Just in case it was only warmish because the voluptuous Violet was warmish, Dan gingerly felt the feed-pi—Ow! Er, yeah, that was working, all right. The one in Max’s and Primmy’s room was also working, but Dan ordered Primmy not to go in there until it was really, really warm, just by the way reminding Max that pot-bellied stoves needed continuous fuel to make the heat come and that was what that giant heap of wood in the carport at the side of the lodge was for, and since it looked like it might snow again quite soon, in his shoes he’d bring it in and bung it for storage in the fireplace. Which reminded him— He checked that the fireplace flue was closed, but it was, for a wonder.

    “Don’t light a fire: the flue’s closed,” he said pointedly.

    “Er—no. We thought it was only ornamental, in any case,” replied Max feebly.

    Dan took a deep breath and managed to go into the third bedroom without actually shouting at the joker. Well, it wasn’t his fault he was born with a purple spoon in his mouth and had bloody Moyra for a mum and, apparently, no practical skills. And at least he’d had the sense to bring Jimmy and his weak chest down to their place and fetch him, Dan.

    Er—shit. The joker that had this room must be even dumber than the rest of them, the valves on his heater were closed! Dan turned the handles and the heat began to come through immediately.

    He went back into the main room. “Tell your other mate not to touch the knobs on that ruddy wall-heater at all, okay?”

    “Pig Bon-Dutton,” said Mac limply. “Was it off?”

    “Yeah, but it wouldn’t’ve made any difference last night, anyway, would it? –Why Pig? Or is that self-evident to those that went to yer flaming English boys’ public schools that don’t teach you anything practical?”

    “Pig made a model boat when were in the Fourth Form,” replied Max feebly. “I suppose it does date back to school, but prep school, I think, Dan. His initials. Philip Inigo George.”

    “The Inigo was after an old great-uncle but it never worked, he left the lot to Pig’s sister because she buttered him up blatantly,” explained Violet.

    “Goddit. Uh—sorry, Max. My Sean made his mum a lovely wooden tray, with inlay and all, when he was in the Fourth Form, and come to that, I made my mum an extremely useful box, about the size of a cigar box, when I was in the Third Form—hadda do metalwork in the Fourth Form in my day, me and my mate Larry Pohaka made our mums slotted spoons. Mrs Pohaka’s still got hers, she uses it for spooning chips out of the hot oil. The handle came off mine, so Mum donated it to my sister Rosalie for their little Sharon’s sand box, yonks back.”

    Max was now grinning, and anyone else would have left it at that, in fact even Violet was merely smiling, but Primmy asked: “What did you make, Max?”

    “When Pig was making his wooden boat? A flight of steps.”

    There was a puzzled silence, though Dan’s eyes began to twinkle. Then Violet ventured: “Kitchen steps, Max?”

    “No. A flight of steps. About knee-high.”

    “But what for, Maxie, darling?” asked Primmy.

    “Not for anything, Primmy. A flight of steps.”

    The girls stared at him, frowning, so Dan, trying not to laugh, explained: “Think his woodwork teacher must’ve thought he showed promise, girls. Not to say, wanted to cut him down to size.”

    “Yes!” said Max with a sudden loud laugh. “By God, it was exactly that, Dan! –It’s what they make apprentice joiners and cabinetmakers do, you see,” he said to the girls. “Teaches one about relative heights, angles, risers, that sort of thing, as well as the actual techniques of joining the bits together. Not to say an awful lot of maths that one had fondly envisaged oneself forgetting the instant the school gates closed behind one for the last time. –Mr Protheroe,” he said with a smile. “I’ve never ceased to thank God standing for him!”

    “I see,” said Violet: “it was for practice.”

    “Yes,” agreed Primmy, faint but pursuing, “but it seems an awful pity, Max. I think a tray for your mother would’ve been much nicer.”

    “Mm, well, the steps turned out okay, so after I’d sanded them down and French polished them for hours, Uncle David persuaded Grandfather to let them do duty as library steps.”

    “Oh, good!” she beamed.

    “At Wenderholme? But that’s a beautiful Adam room,” said Violet limply.

    “Not in the library, Violet. In the sitting-room in Uncle David’s suite. He’s got walls of books. And the saggy floral linen sofas don’t seem to mind.”

    Violet winced, but nodded.

    Grinning, Dan said: “Well, you gonna manage okay, now? I better get going before it snows again.”

    “Oh—God, yes, Dan: of course,” said Max quickly. “I can’t thank you enough.”

    “Yes; you were wonderful!” beamed Primmy.

    Dan blinked. “That’s okay, Primmy, love. You make sure someone refills that bottle for ya when it starts to cool down, eh?”

    “I will,” said Violet quickly. “Thank you so much, Dan!”

    “Any time.” Dan let Max see him out to the 4WD: he wanted to remind him to bring some wood in. Not to say, ask him about the arrangements for food.

    “Packets and packets of unspeakable soup, jars of instant coffee, a packet of teabags and a packet of dried milk,” said Max with a sigh. “They did say a few basics: I suppose we should have been warned. We, er, thought the hotel could probably provide dinner.”

    “Depends on if they’re fully booked for the season and how many other up-market ski lodges have already booked for dinner. Not to say on whether you’re snowed in. That is, if I’m correct in presuming that the extortionate prices there aren’t a consideration.”

    “Er—no.”

    Quite. “Well, if ya can get down to Taupo, Jan and Pete at Taupo Shores Ecolodge’ll do you a real nice dinner, provided you ring them beforehand, but again, ya gotta take the weather into account.”

    “Very well, Dan, we’re a pack of Pommy tits who thought it’d be exactly like Europe,” he said grimly.

    “Well, Violet did say something about Queenstown, so I dunno that you can be blamed for assuming it, really,” said Dan fairly.

    “Er—well, we’ve never been there, but a friend has and, well—yes,” he said lamely. “Thanks again, Dan. Oh: can I reinforce your impression of my ignorance and ask whether this,”—he pointed at the lodge’s beat-up 4x4—“counts as an all-weather vehicle?”

    Dan scratched his chin. “I gotta confess I got absolutely no idea what an all-weather vehicle is, Max, but with chains on, my guess’d be, Yes.”

    “Mm.”

    “Don’t take the chains off,” recommended Dan, getting into his own beat-up heap. “Anything else goes wrong, you get in touch with me pronto, okay?”

    Max was very red but he said: “Yes, I will. It’s terribly good of you: I can’t tell you how grateful we are, Dan.”

    “That’s okay,” he grunted. “See ya!” He ground off down the track, not looking back to see if the Pommy tit was bringing that wood inside because frankly, he couldn’t bear to.

    What with demonstrating his ignorance to Dan Jackson, the lack of edible food at the lodge, Primmy’s idiocy over feeling grotty and not letting on about it, and the fact that she had her period this week at all, Max Throgmorton wasn’t in the best of moods for a lovely skiing holiday. Not being the sort of man who takes his bad moods out on his female belongings, he didn’t victimise Primmy. He was, however, rather short with Jimmy as he and Violet drove him back to the ski lodge from Dan’s and Katy’s the next day, and rather short with Pig on discovering that he and the athletic Jasmine had spent the morning on the slopes, leaving Primmy all on her ownsome in the lodge.

    “I was okay,” she said in a vague voice, for about the fourteenth time.

    “Anything could have happened!” replied Max irritably. “You’re an irresponsible idiot, Pig!”

    “Oh, rubbish, old boy. The sun was out—well, almost,” he said, as Jasmine blinked, “and there was no sign of a howling blizzard, and she was in bed with the electric blanket on and the heating going: what could possibly have happened?”

    “The fucking stove could have overheated and set fire to the place, for one!” replied Max irritably.

    “Balls.”

    “You have got an awful lot of firewood in here; was it wise to bring in that much fuel?” ventured Jimmy.

    “Extremely wise—unless you’re volunteering to be the one that gets up in the middle of the night and replenishes the supply from the pile outside when the fucking stove dies on us? –No, I didn’t think so.”

    “You did tell us it was centrally heated, Max,” Pig reminded him.

    “Oh, shut up!”

    “He was only going by what it said on the Internet, Pig,” explained Primmy.

    Pig Bon-Dutton wasn’t the brightest of the bright but at this he eyed her drily and replied: “I think that has sunk in, Primmy.”

    “Never mind, Katy’s given us a lovely quiche!” said Violet brightly.

    “What?” croaked Max, going very red. “Haven’t they done more than enough for us already?”

    “I did try to stop her,” said Jimmy feebly.

    Max took a deep breath. “I’m going over to the hotel, where I intend buying Dan a large bottle of something expensive, and you two fools,” he said, glaring at Pig and Jimmy, “are going to share the cost of it!”

    “If you say so, though it wasn’t me that put that whatsit where no-one could find it,” replied Pig calmly.

    Managing to ignore this, Max added through his teeth: “And you lot are going to stay here and keep Primmy company while I do it! Got it?”

    “I’m okay, truly,” said Primmy helpfully.

    Max took a deep breath. “Good. Nevertheless I don’t think it’s a good idea for any of you girls to be here on your own. It’s very isolated, and God knows who could be wandering around. Oh—while I’m at the hotel I’ll order some flowers for Katy Jackson, and you two fools—”

    “Yes! Very well!” said Jimmy quickly.

    “Yes,” agreed Pig meekly. “It’s not my fault we couldn’t figure the stove out,” he said glumly to the others as Max marched out.

    Jimmy cleared his throat. “No. Just shut up about it, there’s a good chap. ’Tis nice and warm now, isn’t it? Fancy a game of Scrabble, girls?”

    Pig began: “But we checked all the cupboards the other night, there aren’t any ga—”

    “Dan’s lent me their set. Shut up, go into that kitchen and make us all something hot and put a belt of that Scotch you got at the hotel into it!”

    Looking meek, Pig did so.

    “His father was right about him,” noted Jimmy, setting out the game on the coffee table.

    “Um, what?” asked Violet uneasily.

    “Said it was just as well the Diplomatic had turned him down, because otherwise World War Three would have started by now, just as well the Services wouldn’t have him, because otherwise he’d have pushed the button that started World War Three by now, and just as well he couldn’t find a job in the City, because otherwise Britain would be enjoying the biggest depression in history by now.”

    There was a short silence as the three girls contemplated His Grace of Chelford’s opinion of his third son. Even the good-natured Violet didn’t protest that it was a bit hard.

    “Oddly enough, though, he makes an excellent car salesman. ’Specially when it comes to the middle-aged provincial ladies with more money than sense on the hunt for something pretty to tool around town.”

    “That’s not funny, Jimmy!” said Jasmine crossly.

    “It wasn’t meant to be. Merely literal,” replied Jimmy calmly. “Draw for highest letter to start?”

    “No!” she said crossly. “I’m not up for your sort of fight-to-the-death Scrabble, thanks!”

    “Nor me: let’s just play ordinary Scrabble,” said Primmy.

    “Yes; no fancy scoring,” agreed Violet.

    “But—” Their joint glare registered. “Very well, then,” said Jimmy weakly, not pointing out that he only played ordinary Scrabble in any case, and that that was how you played it. “Ordinary Scrabble, Pig,” he warned as Pig came back in with a tray of mugs.

    “Oh, good: not that fight-to-the-death version of yours,” said Pig placidly, setting the tray down carefully. “I don’t think I could have taken it, not after having Max tear a strip off.”

    They all looked at the Bon-Dutton oval face with its rounded chin and big blue eyes, topped by tousled black waves—attributes that the middle-aged provincial ladies were known to adore—and nodded kindly, even Jimmy.

    By the end of the week Max’s mood had improved considerably: the weather had held, they’d got in some really good runs, they’d managed to buy some food and had got tables for dinner once at The Chateau and twice at Taupo Shores Ecolodge. And of course Primmy’s period hadn’t outlasted the week, that made things considerably better.

    “Their CD player’s on,” she said in Max’s ear as he roused at a reasonably advanced hour of the morning after the second visit to the ecolodge. –It was quite a drive, but on the other hand there was very little to do on a mountain on a winter’s night.

    “Mm? Oh—mm,” he said, wincing, as something by Lloyd Webber penetrated to his brain from the direction of Pig’s and Jasmine’s room.

    Primmy snuggled up to his back under the heap of duvets. “Couldn’t we, darling Maxie?”

    Max loathed being called Maxie—especially, though he hadn’t admitted this to himself, since Primmy wasn’t bright enough to make it “Maxi” and relate it to anything corporeal, as one or two other ladies had done in the past.

    “Mm. Don’t call me that. Uh—hang on. Have those idiots let the fire out, again?”

    “I don’t know. It’s awfully cosy under here, though!” she said with a smothered giggle.

    Yes, that could be because she’d left the electric blanket on all night. He stuck his nose out from under the pile of duvets. “Hell!”

    “Oh, dear, is it cold?” bleated Primmy in dismay.

    “Like the frozen Polar wastes,” said Max grimly, hurling the covers back.

    “Ooh!” said Primmy with a loud giggle.

    “Don’t worry, the frostbite’ll take care of that,” said Max grimly. Flinging a duvet over his shoulders, he dashed out to relight the stove. Damnation! To scrape out, refill and then relight the stove. Shuddering, he held his hands out to the warmth. Gradually he began to thaw out and feel marginally human, not to say marginally interested again. He stood up, readjusting the duvet round his shoulders.

    “Oh, hullo,” he said idiotically as Violet appeared in her anorak over her dressing-gown.

    “Hul-lo!” replied Violet with a loud giggle.

    “It’s not for you,” said Max with a sigh.

    “Pity! –Jimmy’s terribly cold, so I said I’d light the stove.”

    “I’ve already done that,” said Max heavily, endeavouring to swathe himself in the duvet.

    “I say, darling! Maxi and a half!” replied Violet with a throaty gurgle, mercifully disappearing.

    Max went back into his room. “I’ve lit the stove,” he said shortly.

    “Ooh, goody-doody!” replied Primmy, poking her nose out from under the remaining pile of bedclothes and smiling. “Pop in here quickly, darling, you must be freezing!”

    “Something like that.” He got into bed.

    “Ooh, it’s still there!” said Primmy with a giggle, getting very close.

    “Something like that.” In two seconds, or his name wasn’t Max Throgmorton, she was going to—“Ow! Don’t do that,” he said feebly as she bit his ear.

    “Pooh!” replied Primmy predictably. She stuck the tip of her tongue in the ear. After a minute she murmured breathily: “Nicer?”

    “Mm.” It would have been even nicer if this routine didn’t happen, without variation, every morning. Or every morning that Primmy wasn’t feeling grotty. Max hadn’t got to the point where he was actually fed up with it but after six months of it—Primmy had ousted Angela in February and it was now late July—he was starting to feel that at least a little variation would be nice, or even letting him make the first move, however feeble: even simply putting his hand in an interesting spot before she— Yeah. It wasn’t that she was aggressive, it was just that she always did it. Didn’t she know that she did? Or had it worked in the past, so that— Oh, forget it. He was interested, so he rolled over and kissed her hungrily, got a hand on one of those well-shaped tits—unfortunately with a picture in his mind of Violet huddled bulgily in her dressing-gown, but never mind—and got on with it. As usual, the minute he got his hand down there Primmy squeaked: “Ooh, ooh, ooh! Naughty finger! Do that, darling Maxie!” In a way it was flattering but on the other hand, did she always react like that because it had been known to please other gents in the past?

    After a moment he said: “What about some variation?”

    “What?” replied Primmy blankly, blinking at him.

    “Well, usually I just get down there with my tongue, don’t I?” he said feebly, feeling like ten times of a fool.

    “That’s nice, darling Maxie!” she assured him.

    “Mm, but you could do it to me at same time: a little bit of a sixty-nine, mm?”

    “If that’s what you’d like, darling, of course!” she said, putting her hand on it.

    “Ooh! Um, yes,” said Max feebly. “Only if you want to, Primmy.”

    “Of course, darling,” she said, batting her big china-blue eyes at him.

    For the life of him Max couldn’t tell whether she was only saying it to please him. “Primmy, not if you don’t want to.”

    “But of course I do, darling!” she cooed. “But I thought you only liked that in the evenings!” She gave him her beaming smile.

    What? She couldn’t be that dumb, surely? Max gaped at her.

    “I’ll do it now,” said Primmy sunnily, squirming round.

    “Er—yes. Hang on, darling, keep the covers over you, the bloody heating hasn’t kicked in yet.” He slid down in the bed, carefully adjusting the covers over her, and they got on with it. Sort of: Max felt so shaken he wasn’t sure he’d be able to— Ooh! Yes, he would.

    The heating did finally kick in so they ended up with Primmy in all her glorious nudity on top of him while he tweaked a tit and fiddled a bit and then—God! Fucked like crazy while she jerked herself fiercely on him, squeaking: “Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh! Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!”

    “Can you?” he gasped.

    “Mm!” squeaked Primmy, clapping her hand on top of his.

    Panting, Max kept on doing that and she finally gasped and grunted and clenched on him, so he let go and showered gloriously into her, yelling his head off, what time Primmy shrieked, very high: “Eeee-eee—uh!”

    After quite some time, and with the covers hauled up to their chins again, he managed to say: “I sometimes like that in the mornings, too.”

    “Yes,” said Primmy. “I thought that was only an evening thing.”

    Christmas Day in the morning! Max didn’t have the strength to peer at her incredulously, what with one thing and another. Or even to ask if she meant him and other gents, or only him. And, just by the by…

    “Primmy?” he said cautiously at last,

    “Mm-mm? –That was ’licious, darling Maxie.”

    “Good. Er, Primmy, why didn’t you let me know before that you like having your clit tickled when you’re on top?”

    “With your naughty finger!” said Primmy with a giggle.

    Quite. “Mm. That.”

    “Oh, well, I don’t know, darling…” she said vaguely.

    “In future tell me, if there’s anything you’d like,” said Max with a smothered sigh.

    “Oh, but one can’t demand, darling,” she said, batting the baby-blues at him. “What if the other person doesn’t like it?”

    “The other person is almost bound to like it, in bed with you, Primmy.”—Oh, God, that smirk of hers had come over her face: that meant she wasn’t taking in a word, too busy preening herself.—“Primmy! Pay attention! If the other person doesn’t like it he will say so, got it?”

    “Of course, darling Maxie,” she said obediently, batting the baby-blues at him.

    Oh, Christ. Angela had been damned demanding, not to say as near to a dominatrix as the average chap was likely to meet without actually going to a specialist, but he was beginning to come to the conclusion that Primmy’s doormat act was worse. “There are two of us here: you are entitled to ask for what you’d like,” he said without hope.

    “Of course, darling Maxie!” she cooed. Possibly it penetrated through the buttery fluff that this hadn’t gone down too well, because she then added: “Besides, you’ve found it out, now!”

    Yeah. Okay, good, he had. But the thing was, would she say if he did something she didn’t happen to like? He was ninety-nine percent certain she wouldn’t. And whether it was native dumbness or some psychological quirk, God knew. But what he did know was that doormats begging to be trodden on pretty generally drove the party of the other part to tread on them, in the end. And he didn’t particularly want to end up as the treader. Uh—maybe he should dump her when they got home? Though that’d be a bit brutal: she hadn’t, at least in her terms, done anything to warrant it, had she? Er… find some other mug to shove her onto? She was gorgeous, true, but Max was conscious of a sinking, horrible feeling that with Pig B.-D. in the determined clutches of the athletic Jasmine—in bed as well, apparently—it might be some time before he found a chap that was mug enough. Damn.

    The phone rang at four in the afternoon, as the Jacksons were sitting round in the sitting-room wondering who was gonna get up and make a cuppa. Since they’d had the flaming mid-year break that the universities, along with the schools, now enjoyed in July, presumably because the weather was even worse then than it used to be for the August holidays, and since Sean and Shannon didn’t generally bother to favour their parents with a visit in the weekends unless they had a particularly large bundle of washing that needed to be done or in Shannon’s case a new boyfriend to show off, and since Felicity didn’t generally bother to favour her parents with a visit in the weekends unless she had a new boyfriend to show off or she and the boyfriend needed a base for a bit of skiing or, in better weather, a trip to the thermal area, only Ran had come down for the weekend. Without anything in tow or any washing needing to be done, what was more. Did this prove that you had a twenty-five percent chance of siring a reasonable human being? Though Shannon was only nineteen: possibly too young to count.

    “Stay there, I’ll get it,” sighed Dan.

    “You oughta get an extension in here, Dad,” said Ran for the forty-three thousandth time.

    Sighing, Dan trudged out to the passage. Getting them to come was the thing. They’d point out that you already had a connection and then they’d try to tell you they were booked up till Kingdom Come and then they’d try to make an appointment for an impossible time, warning you you’d have to pay penalty rates— Oh, forget it. It wasn’t gonna happen.

    “Hullo?” he said heavily. Ten to one it’d be that cretin Andrew Wilkinson wanting to borrow his router again or that cretin Dave Martin wanting to borrow his rou—

    “Oh, Dan! Thank God! This is Primmy! It’s simply awful!” gasped Primmy, bursting into loud sobs.

    Dan’s tummy sank into his boots. God, if something had happened to Max, he’d be the one that’d have to tell Moyra. “Just stop crying, Primmy, and tell me what the matter is!” He repeated this message several times and eventually it sort of worked.

    “He’s—broken—his—leg!” she sobbed.

    Phew, that wasn’t too bad. Unless— “Just his leg?” he said cautiously.

    “Yes, and they put him in an am-am-ambulance!” she sobbed.

    Er, they would have done, yeah. Or a rescue helicopter if it seemed really bad, or if it happened in an inaccessible spot, or— Yeah. “That’s nothing to worry about, loads of people break their legs skiing, Primmy,” he said briskly. “Keeping him in overnight, are they?”

    “Ye— I mean— I don’t know where we are!” she wailed, bursting into tears again.

    Gawdelpus. After quite some time he managed to get her to admit that she was by herself: the others had left yesterday but she and Max had had an extra day on the slopes because they were booked into the place with the lovely dinners for a week and Max had said it was quite near them. Uh—oh! Not the flaming Chateau, for a wonder, but Pete and Jan’s place? She couldn’t remember its name but the lovely man was called Pete, yes. Right. That didn’t solve the problem of where she was. Turangi? Did they have a hospital of sorts, there? After a string of protest that there wasn’t anyone to ask and she didn’t know anyone and it was all Maori words, he finally got her to go and get an actual body.

    “Hullo?” said a cautious male voice in the accents to which Dan Jackson was accustomed.

    “Hullo; sorry to bother you. My name’s Dan Jackson and that was our English cousin’s girlfriend you were speaking to,” said Dan briskly. “She doesn’t seem to be able to read a map, so would you mind telling me what hospital that is?”

    “Taupo, of course. So-called. My wife’s been in for tests and now they’re talking about sending her up to Hamilton because they haven’t got the facilities here!”

    “Uh—no, they wouldn’t have. Think they mainly do babies and accidents,” said Dan, refraining from adding “and deaths” in case the poor joker’s wife was at death’s door.

    “Yeah. Well, that’s where we are.”

    “Thanks very much,” said Dan, not expecting the joker to tell him his name because this was EnZed.

    And sure enough, saying: “That’s okay,” the joker handed him back to Primmy.

    “You’re not far from us, Primmy. I’ll come on over. Just stay there.”

    “They said it wasn’t visiting hours any more,” she reported soggily.

    Uh—no, it wouldn’t be. “No, but just stay there in the, um, lobby or reception area. Near the big front doors, okay? I’ll only be about ten minutes.”

    “Ooh, goody-doody! Thank you so much, Dan!”

    Blinking slightly, Dan bade her ta-ta and went to report.

    “She’d better come to us,” said Katy placidly.

    “Think she’ll have to,” he admitted. “Wouldn’t fancy sending anything that scatter-brained back up the mountain on its ownsome.”

    “She is an adult, presumably!” said Ran on a scornful note.

    “Yeah, but a pretty hopeless one. You wanna make allowances,” he advised her. “Talking of up the mountain,” he added slowly, scratching his chin, “it sounded as if they’re supposed to be out of that bloody ski lodge by tomorrow. Someone’s gonna have to rescue their stuff.”

    “I could do that now,” said Ran with a relieved look on her face.

    “I don’t think ya could, Chicken,” admitted Dan, “’cos see, Max’ll be full of dope and it’s ninety-nine thousand to one Primmy won’t remember the combination that works that flaming up-market front door.”

    “Isn’t there a key as well?” said Katy.

    “No.”

    “You could try asking Max,” she suggested.

    “I could, true. ’Member that winter Maydame Felicitay went up the mountain with that up-market Gary nit and busted her leg?”

    “Yes. Don’t call her that, Dan,” said Katy uncomfortably.

    “I might not, if she’d drop the airs and graces!” replied Felicity’s progenitor with feeling.

    “She was really out of it,” admitted Ran.

    “Totally,” agreed Dan. “Come on, get your coat.”

    “You don’t need me. I could make up a bed for her,” replied Ran, scowling.

    “I do need you, ’cos someone has to get some sense out of Primmy, and I’ll be concentrating on my driving!”

    Ran scowled. “You’ve already got the salient facts.”

    “You could get some more milk on the way home, Ran,” suggested Katy peaceably.

    “And stop him buying full-cream? Yeah. All right. Anything else ya need?”

    “I was only gonna do that Spanish rice recipe of your granny’s tonight,” she admitted.

    “Gee, Mum, in that case I’ll get some Parmesan to grate on top of it at only fifty bucks for twenny-five grams!”

    “Um, Spanish rice is pretty tasteless, Ran,” Katy replied to the sub-text.

    “Mum, there’s no reason why Dad’s hard-earned should be chucked away on expensive food for a brainless Pommy twit!”

    “It’s not her fault that Max has broken her leg, poor girl. You’d better get some bacon as well,” decided Katy briskly.

    “Good. And get your coat and get in the car,” said Dan heavily.

    Shrugging, Ran mooched off to the car.

    Dan gave his spouse a meaning look.

    “All right, Hercule Poirot, you were right all along,” she said heavily.

    “Mm,” he agreed wryly, going out.

    Katy went along the passage and looked dubiously at the available bedrooms. Ran was in the one she and Shannon shared. It was a small room, meant for one single bed, but they’d put bunks in there. Ran had long since claimed the top bunk. The bottom one at the moment was occupied by a sort of smelly hearthrug inaccurately named Rover. Well, possibly he’d decided his roving days were over ’cos he knew a soft touch when he found it? He had originally been discovered in Ma and Pa Youngs’ sacred asparagus bed rooting out old Pa Young’s sacred asparagus and as he didn’t have a collar the bastards had proposed taking him to the pound and having him put down, but Ran had rescued him in time. That had been three years back, when she was still a student, but her current flat in Auckland didn’t allow pets. So there you were. Rover was about the size of a well-grown Labrador and he did have sort of Labrador ears but his coat was thick and, uh, almost curly—well, rough, yeah. Sean had suggested he might be a long-haired retriever but no-one had been able to believe that retrievers came in doormat-colour. That typical dull brown of your average coir matting—yes. With not enough burnt Siena in it to be interesting. His face didn’t look like a retriever’s or a Labrador’s, it looked sort of muttish.

    “No, stay there,” she sighed. He didn’t even bother to flick an ear at her, though one eyelid twitched. Sighing again, Katy went along to Felicity’s old room. It was the one they’d had to put Moyra in, because obviously she couldn’t have gone in a bunk. You could just have squeezed two beds in here but that would have necessitated taking out all the other furniture Felicity had wanted. And had since spurned: she’d gradually bought new everything for her flat. At one point she had claimed this muck was French provincial. Katy would have said fake Queen Anne painted white and superfluously decorated with little gold bits and tiny blue flowers here and there, but if Felicity wanted to call it French provincial it wasn’t worth arguing with her. The carpet was a pale blue thing she’d insisted on and the curtains, dressing-table skirt and bedspread, the material for which had which cost a considerable packet even though she’d made them up herself, were toile de Jouy—fake, Katy suspected, because she had an idea it had never originally come in pastel blue on white. Well, it’d have to do. And come to think of it, Primmy looked like the sort of girl who would actually like it. The only other empty room was Sean’s rat-hole. Since it was actually an enclosed sun-porch it was bloody cold in winter, so that ruled it out, even if it hadn’t been full of his fishing-rods and cricket gear and toy trains and hideous posters of rock groups glaring at a hideous poster of Madonna in pointed metal boob-covers that his misguided father had bought him years back as a joke.

    She fetched some clean sheets and made up Felicity’s bed, removed the sickening heart-shaped white cushion with its frilled lace edging and pale blue ribbons, on second thoughts put it back, Primmy’d probably like it, and wandered into the sitting-room thinking vaguely about a pudding for dinner tonight. Apple pie? Ran could do the crust, she made a nice short pastry. Only were there enough apples left?

    Insensibly her thoughts drifted off pudding and onto the fibrous texture of those leaf skeletons she’d picked up the other day. The texture was what she wanted but could she find enough leaves to cover an entire panel? They were from some sort of native plant but as almost all the native vegetation was evergreen it was unlikely she’d find enough leaves even at this time of year. …Hessian? The stuff you bought by the metre was horribly regular. Actual sacking? Help, she hadn’t seen a real sack for years: did they even make them any more? Um… potato sacks? After some time she went out to the passage and rang Jan.

    “Hullo, it’s Katy here. Where do you get your potatoes from?”

    “Down the back or next-door from the permaculture nuts if desperate,” replied Jan calmly. “Have you run out?”

    “No, at least I don’t think so. I was wondering about the sacks,” said Katy glumly.

    “Pete’s got a shed full of them: you’re welcome to them. He’s been saving them for years.”

    “Really?” she cried. “Could I really have them?”

    “Uh—yeah,” said Jan, blinking slightly. “Of course. Um, they’re not too clean, Katy, if you were thinking of using them for anything artistic.”

    “That’s all right, I’ll put them on the line for a week!”

    “That should rinse them, yeah. Well, come over any time, the shed’ll be here.”

    “Thanks. –Oh,” she remembered: “Moyra’s Max has broken his leg, so I dunno if he’ll be turning up to claim that room from you tomorrow.”

    “Sorry to hear that. Um, wasn’t one of those girls his, though? Won’t she still want it?”

    “Primmy. The blonde one. Very dumb.”

    “They all struck me as pretty dumb, Katy,” said Jan on a cautious note. “The blokes as well, actually.”

    “That architecture firm Max works for is terrifically up-market, so he can’t be totally dumb; just pretty inept, I think. I dunno if Primmy’ll want the room or not: Dan’s collecting her now.”

    “Right, well, try and remember to let us know. Not that we’ll get another booking, we’re too far from the mountain, really. Oh—remember that bloke from Auckland I told you about, the one that brought the Pommy bloke down to look at the Meldrums’ bach for some sort of fancy up-market ecolodge? Jim Thompson. He’s down again. With his wife this time, but he’s paying for the room on a company credit card. Sussing out the winter sports possibilities, we concluded.”

    “Dan reckons they might decide to send the guests over to you for their main meals, so put your best foot forward, Jan!” said Katy with a laugh.

    “Uh—I will, but he’s just an ordinary Kiwi: it was the Pommy one that seemed to know a lot about food.”

    “In that case I’d give him a lovely roast dinner with kumaras and gravy and the lot, and you’ll be in like Flynn!” said Katy with a laugh. “Gee, I wish I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. “We’re only having Dan’s mum’s recipe for so-called Spanish rice.”

    “Um, it’ll taste better if you put a nice stock in with the rice, Katy,” said Jan cautiously.

    “What?” replied Katy with a laugh. “See ya!”

    “See ya,” agreed Jan, shaking her head.

    Katy wandered back into the front room and pulled her chair closer to the heater. Good! Now she only had to decide whether to cut the sacks up into leaf shapes. No-o… No, but not just patched together, either. Possibly free-form shapes… Or possibly slightly leaf-like but overlapping; more like layer upon layer of hills, marching off to the horizon…

    Max roused groggily to the view of a shortish, wideish, fair-haired figure clad in wrinkled black jeans, giant black boots and a giant black leather jacket standing in the doorway watching him.

    “Hullo,” he said cautiously.

    “Hullo,” she replied cautiously. “How do you feel?”

    “Hellish. Uh—aches and pains, really. I have a vague recollection of being told I’d be kept in overnight: was that yesterday?’

    “Yeah.”

    Max looked at the squarish face with its smooth, honey-coloured tan, the generous, soft-looking pink mouth, the amber eyes, and the plait of thick, straight fair hair that he would have taken his dying oath was entirely natural, and smiled. “Ran?”

    “Um, yeah,” she said going very pink. “Um, sorry it’s a bit early, but I told them we’d take you away and free up the bed and they let me in. What’s the combination of that bloody front door of yours up the mountain?”

    “Uh—in my wallet,” he said, looking round vaguely. “Oh—Jesus. We’re supposed to be out of the place today!”

    “Yeah. That’s why I need the combination, I’ll collect your stuff. I’d of done it yesterday but Primmy didn’t know it.”

    Max passed a hand through his curls. “Have you got Primmy?”

    “Yeah,” said Ran, grinning at him. “Jan’ll take her today at Taupo Shores if she wants to go over, but they didn’t have a room yesterday: had a big party of Yanks booked in that couldn’t read a map. Where is your wallet?”

    “I really don’t know,” admitted Max weakly. “They stuffed me so full of painkillers yesterday…”

    Ran came over to the bed and started looking through the cabinet that stood beside it. “Here. Well, at least Primmy didn’t let someone nick it.”

    “Er—no, I think this is due more to the probity of your New Zealand mountain rescue and ambulance people than anything Primmy may have done, Ran,” he murmured.

    “Yeah!” said Ran with a loud laugh. “She was telling us about all the trips her school took her on, like up to London to the art galleries and over to Paris and everything, only when Dad showed her the pic Felicity cut out of a Country Life and asked her to put us out of our misery and say whether it looked like a Gainsborough to her, she said she didn’t know but it looked old!”

    “Oh, Lor’. Yes, that’s Primmy, I’m afraid. Er—Country Life isn’t that bad: surely—”

    “Felicity didn’t bother to include the caption,” said Ran drily.

    “I see. Did you ask Moyra?”

    “Yes. She thought it was a Reynolds or a Lawrence but Mum reckons the brushwork looks too soft for Reynolds.”

    “Mm. It might be a Lawrence, then. The brushwork in—uh—The Red Boy is fairly soft, Ran.”

    “Master Lambton,” corrected Ran drily. “Yeah, that’s right. I mean, of course I haven’t seen the original, only a reproduction, but it is fairly, isn’t it? Only Mum thinks the style of the lady’s clothes in the cutting is too early for him. –Hey, have you ever seen a hunk of granite that looked more like an armchair?”

    “Never!” said Max with a laugh. “One imagines the great Sir Thomas sat the boy in a large armchair for the hard bits, then one of the minions in his studio draped the armchair with a painted canvas cloth vaguely resembling a piece of granite mountainside, and got on with it! And the reason the master didn’t sit the boy on the canvas,” he said, looking very prim, “was—”

    “Didn’t wanna spoil the velvet suit!” gasped Ran, collapsing in hysterics.

    Max watched her with a smile on his face.

    “No,” she said, blowing her nose, “but this thing’s got that sort of fluffy look that some of the later Gainsboroughs have, y’know?”

    “Absolutely! Er, his oeuvre is very well documented, it should be possible to look it up.”

    “Mm, only it’s a bit hard to look up a portrait that you don’t know the name of. I’ll have to take it up to Auckland and try actually comparing it to the reproductions in the books. The public library’s got quite a good collection of art books.”

    “Mm, or look through their collection of back numbers of Country Life. Hang on: what happened to the one she cut it out of?”

    “She binned it. Well, Jan had already cut out the pic her friend Polly thought she might be interested in—it was hers originally, ya see. It was a full-page colour reproduction of some awful colonial thing that had come up for sale. You know: done by someone with an elementary knowledge of perspective and a firm idea of the way trees did oughta look that’s got nothing to do with the New Zealand landscape. Pete’s framed it up and stuck some dark varnish on it and hung it in one of their guest bedrooms: it looks really authentic! And there was a really nice little study of some English flowers—a bit like primroses, does ‘primula’ sound right to you?” Max nodded numbly. “Oh, right; me and Shannon had an argument over it. She’s got that, she got one of those cheapo gold frames from a photo shop. It looks quite good, actually. Felicity would have had it only it’s the wrong colour for her interior décor.”

    “Right: that’s very clear, Ran!” said Max with a laugh.

    “Yeah,” said Ran with a sheepish smile. “Sorry: running off at the mouth, like usual. Have you got the combination?”

    “Mm? Oh!” Max came to with a start, realising he was just sitting there holding his wallet. “This is the email. Um, there’s rather a lot of stuff to collect, I’m afraid: we intended to pack yesterday evening.”

    “That’s okay, I’ll just collect up anything that doesn’t look as if it belongs there.”

    “Right. Uh—my laptop’s there: in a bedroom drawer, Ran.”

    “Were you gonna do some work?”

    “No: but I thought that if my wallet got nicked or some cretin lost that piece of paper, I could look up the email.”

    “Good one,” she approved, going over to the door.

     Max looked at her limply. “Aren’t you—aren’t you taking me with you?”

    “Nah, Dad’ll do that. He’s collecting a wheelchair for you and a pair of crutches and checking whether they’ve given you your brekkie.”

    “I don’t think so. Unless I woke up for it and went to sleep again. Er—is Primmy with Dan?”

    “Nope, she was still dead to the world when we left!” said Ran cheerfully, going out. “See ya!”

    Max looked limply at the closed door. “See ya, Ran.”

    “How’s Max?” asked Jan cautiously.

    Katy made a face. “Still sleeping a lot. It’s partly psychological, we think: you know, intimations of mortality.”

    “Mm, it can hit them rather hard the first time they realize they’re not invulnerable. How old is he now?”

    “Going on thirty-three, I think. Moyra did manage to impart the information, once the hysterics had died down, that he’s never had anything seriously wrong with him in his life. Well, chicken pox and mumps when he was about three, but that’s it.”

    “Yeah. Well, that’s a bit young for it to dawn you’re not gonna live forever, but not impossible, even with one of them!” said Jan with a grin.

    Perfectly understanding she meant the male side, not Throgmortons or even Poms in general, Katy nodded agreement.

    “Well, these are the sacks,” said Jan, opening the door of the shed and pointing.

    Katy’s eyes lit up. “Ooh! Millions!”

    “Technically hundreds, I think, Katy, but it feels like millions, yep. Help yourself. There’ll be a cuppa going in the kitchen when you’re ready for it.”

    “Ta,” said Katy in an abstracted voice, looking hungrily at the sacks.

    Presumably she wasn’t gonna ask after Primmy. No, well, at least that meant she, Jan Harper, wouldn’t have to break the bad news. She walked back to the main building with a very wry expression on her face.

    Pete was sitting in the kitchen doing nothing, with Jim Thompson from Auckland helping him do it.

    “Where’s Caitlin?” she asked pointedly.

    “Drowned ’er!” replied Mrs Thompson’s spouse with a grin. “Nah: gone on that ‘Antiques and Boutiques’ tour of yours with the grannies and the Yank dames.”

    “One’s a Canadian and one’s an Aussie but you’ve got the general drift,” Jan admitted. “And it isn’t ours, exactly, it was all Vern Reilly’s idea.”

    “Eh?” Jim had met Vern on his previous visits to suss out possible ecolodge sites for YDI. He was a dry-mannered little elderly character, as unimpressible as they came.

    Jan sat down heavily. “You may well croak ‘Eh?’ He bought the ruddy minibus, then he had to think what to do with it. Go on, laugh,” she sighed.

    Jim was laughing anyway. “Who dreamed up the boutiques and crap?” he asked, blowing his nose heartily.

    “Not Vern,” replied Jan on a dry note. “Actually it was Jake Carrano: they were down here for a weekend—largely to get away from one of her cousins that had headed for Auckland that week, I think—and Vern was over here helping get rid of all that excess beer that was occupying good storage space in our storage shed. Instead of the space that could have been occupying it,” she explained.

    “Um, yeah,” said Jim with an uneasy look at Pete.

    Pete remained unmoved, though he did say to his partner in life: “Spit it out.”

    “Jake was listing all the junk shops masquerading under the name of antique dealer that seem to have sprung up in the Rotorua-Taupo area over the last fifty years, and Polly was trying to shut him up, and inspiration struck.”

    “Um, yeah. Struck who?”

    “Jake. Not the name of the tour at that point, the general idea. Then they had a few more beers and Polly tried to tell him there weren’t enough nice antique shops and not all of the customers would be interested in antiques as such, why not include the craft boutiques, and that’s how it got its name.”

    “Um, yeah. Whose actual idea was the name, then?”

    “Jake’s. He likes naming things. He names all those horrible suburban developments Carrano Development builds.”

    “Not all,” objected Pete mildly.

    “No, only the worst ones,” agreed Jan.

    Jim tried to smile. He’d been a real estate agent before he landed the job managing YDI’s outpost in Auckland, and he’d sold a few trendy home units, trendy two-storey townhouses, and trendy modern villas in those developments, in his time. It was very hard to imagine a billionaire with giant business interests all over the world bothering to name them himself. Not to mention coming up with those precise names. “Um, Willow Heights?”

    “Yep. Uh, thought it was Willow Grove?” she replied.

    “No, that’s further down the hill,” he said on a weak note. “Um, Buttercup Meadows?”

    “Who else?”

    Smiling weakly, Jim subsided.

    Pete cleared his throat. “You mention Primmy to Katy, Jan?”

    Jan gave him an annoyed look. “She didn’t ask, so, No.”

    “Mm,” said Pete with a slight sniff. “Well, let’s hope it’s par for the course in their Pommy jet-setting circles. I’d say Max’ll either find out or he won’t, depending on whether she elects to stick it out here until he’s feeling up to travelling, or lights out with Whatsisface.”

    “Hanley Johansson,” said Jan on a weak note. “Um, he isn’t American, he’s Canadian,” she explained to Jim.

    “The huge blond hunk in the bush shirt,” added Pete. “Blonder version of Arnie in his youth.”

    Jim swallowed. The glorious Primmy and the hunk in question had certainly been all over each other at dinner last night. “Yeah. Without the accent,” he ventured.

    “Or the brains—well, presumably the man must have!” said Jan on irritable note. “He’s got from being Mr World or something equally idiotic to Governor of California!”

    Pete cleared his throat but didn’t say it.

    “I dunno how Hanley latched onto us,” Jan then admitted. “Well, that Internet ad that Jake talked us into having, I s’pose—but apparently his dad’s some sort of tycoon. Canadian baked beans or something.”

    “This explains why Master Hanley’s free to waltz around the world trying out global skiing venues, ya see,” explained Pete.

    “It is their long holidays, Pete,” said Jan with a sigh. “No, well, he is nominally employed in his Dad’s Toronto office, but from what’s he let out, you’re not completely wrong. He does that mad skate-boarding stuff, too.”

    “Um, snow-boarding, Jan?” ventured Jim.

    “As well as that. The rubbish they do on dry land on those dangerous concrete things. And if you thought that was only for the kids, you’re not alone in that,” she said heavily.

    “It’s only kids that do it round our way,” admitted Jim.

    “Yeah. It’s mostly little Maori kids that do it down these parts: preferably on pieces of street furniture or civic art not built for the purpose,” noted Pete drily.

    “Yeah. Well, I’d say he’s bright enough for Primmy,” ventured Jim.

    This went down very well: both Pete and Jan grinned at him and Pete admitted: “Yeah. We’re agreed Max’d be well rid of her—eh, love? Only the thing is, neither of us wants to be involved when it happens.”

    “Ya wouldn’t,” he acknowledged. “Hey, tell us a bit more about this ‘Antiques and Boutiques’ tour, eh?”

    They goggled at him and Jan said weakly: “If you were that interested you could’ve gone on it, Jim.”

    “No! Strewth, I’d rather cut me throat! Get enough of that on the weekends, she’s always hauling me off to dumps down at Clevedon or over at Devonport and places. No, how it works.”

    “The payoffs,” drawled Pete laconically.

    “Oh! Well, it is on a business footing, yes,” conceded Jan. “It’s perfectly legal, they’re not payoffs.”

    “Not much,” noted Pete.

    “Uh—no. Commission on anything the places flog off to your guests?” Jim ventured.

    “No. We thought of that,” admitted Jan, “but it’d rely on the shop owners’ good faith, you see. No, they pay a six-monthly fee to be included in the tour. We were gonna make it annual, but that left a long time between payments as well as a whole year before we could put the fee up. If they want to be included in our ads for the tour that’s another fee. Pretty hefty, because we don’t wanna give them free advertising and maybe have them pull out once it’s got their name known. We thought Vern might want to manage the whole thing as his own business, but he doesn’t, it’s far too much paperwork, he’s just happy to do the driving. So he’s on the books as one of our employees and we pay him a wage and a petrol allowance. And because we advertise it as our tour, we’ve got an employment contract whereby he doesn’t pick up anyone from any of the motels without our say-so.”

    “We thought he might not wear that one—after all, it is his minibus—but he agreed without a murmur,” added Pete. “And the motels display our tour brochure for free: it encourages the tourist trade if they can offer them something to do, ya see.”

    “Right,” agreed Jim, frowning over it. “What about maintenance and depreciation on the minibus, though?”

    Pete shrugged. “Dunno.”

    Jim looked hopefully at Jan.

    “The taxman doesn’t know he owns it, Jim. I did try to explain the advantages of declaring it and being able to claim for depreciation and maintenance, but he didn’t want to know. At one point we thought we ought to make an offer to buy it from him but he didn’t want that, either.”

    “Right. Does he do any other tours?”

    “He’s taking three others for us,” explained Jan. “Up to the Waitomo Caves, that’s a day trip, because he has to wait for them to go round the caves, of course, and a personally guided one over to Rotorua, taking in the Blue and Green Lakes and the Buried Village and Tarawera as well as the geysers and mud pools at Whaka’. –He wanted to take them round in person, we didn’t ask him to. That’s a day trip, too. In summer we give them a picnic lunch that they have up on the shore of Lake Tarawera.”

    Jim had to swallow, thinking of those brooding, broken dark grey crags left behind by Mt Tarawera’s huge eruption, something over a hundred years ago. “Um, yeah: right.”

    “And a really weird one,” added Pete, “that the eco-nuts rave over—you oughta get in on this one, Jim—over to National Park to look at the native plants.”

    “Eh?”

    “Only in summer. Well, ’e’s done two: started it last Christmas holidays after some of our clients had started maundering on about unique native flora.”

    “Eh?”

    Pete shrugged. “Went down a treat. Well, I think there’s some feeble-ized walking track near The Chateau that specialises in native plants, that’s what gave him the idea.”

    “If you say so. Uh—how far in can he get the minibus, though?”

    “Well, to The Top of The Bruce in summer, Jim. But he doesn’t go that way.”

    “It’s a secret route, Jim,” said Jan with a sigh. “He dreamed it up all on his ownsome. We’re not asking; we just pay him for his hours and his petrol and he’s happy. It’s supposed to be a half-day, but what with dodging off to look at extra things that they’ve pointed at— Oh, well. Like Pete says, he’s only done two. And the punters really loved them.” She eyed him drily. “Even without the camouflaged four-wheel-drive.”

    “Yeah, hah, hah,” he said weakly. That idea had been floated when they’d been talking about the sort of clientele his bosses wanted to attract to the ecolodge they were envisaging further round the lake shore.

    “The thing is,” said Pete with a little smile, “it suits the ones that don’t wanna get into their suede desert boots and hike off for hours across the desert. It’s mostly riding in the bus with a little bit of wandering in the scrub taking snaps, geddit?”

    “Yeah. Do they have a picnic for that one, as well?”

    “If you’re wondering about permission to light campfires in the wilderness areas, so are we,” admitted Jan. “Well, they didn’t, Jim, ’cos it was supposed to be a half-day, but we’re gonna talk to him about making it an official full day and adding in lunch, this year.”

    “Right. Um, I think Sir Maurice and them at Head Office are envisaging our clientele’d be more your active eco-nut type,” Jim admitted. “Though I guess we could always have an agreement for any that aren’t to be in on your tour, eh?”

    “Why not?” agreed Pete easily.

    “And even the really active ones like an easy day every so often!” added Jan with a laugh. “Those very brown, skinny Swedes—remember, Pete? They were exhausted after that bloody tramping trip of theirs down the far end of the lake—well, dunno how far they got,” she admitted, winking at Jim, “but they were only too glad to pile into the minibus next day and let Vern show them the native plants!”

    “Yeah,” said Jim slowly. “It would have to be a local identity, for a trip like that, I think.”

    After a startled moment Pete and Jan nodded agreement.

    “So it is all going ahead, is it?” ventured Jan. “We thought you might have got started last summer, if the firm was serious.”

    “Nope, Sir Maurice got carried away with the one in Queensland, so we’ve been concentrating on that. Using the existing farmhouse seems to count as recycled, and it’s amazing the fancy tourist cabins ya can build out of coconut palms, apparently. Well, don’t look at me, and I dunno if Head Office has realized they’re not native to Australia—come floating across the Pacific, them that weren’t planted deliberately. But the one here is gonna go ahead, yeah. Head Office has been doing loads of research on building techniques and suitable materials—suitable to get us listed on this ruddy website that grades the ecolodges.”

    “Right: not necessarily suitable for human habitation,” agreed Pete. “So when are ya gonna actually break ground here?”

    “Not while it’s frozen solid, presumably,” noted Jan drily.

    Jim smiled weakly. “’Tisn’t that bad, round here. Um, no, they’ve had huge rows over the styles and Sir Maurice has thrown out everything the architects have suggested. He was gonna send a bloke out but his PA rang me to say they’d changed their minds about him. They’re making him work on some place in France that they’re turning into an English pub.”

    Pete scratched his head. “Lemme get this straight: you haven’t even got a design for the dump yet?”

    “No,” he said glumly.

    “Uh—well, that Moyra was right, her blue-eyed boy could be in with a chance, eh?” he noted to his helpmate.

    “Pete, it doesn’t sound as if he wants to,” said Jan feebly. “Uh—sorry, Jim: that’s Max, the guy that’s broken his leg. He’s an architect: works for some huge firm in London that specializes in industrial complexes of the clean-air, recycled-waste variety.”

    There was a short silence as the three of them realized what she’d just said.

    Then Pete recommended laconically: “I’d speak to ’im, Jim. Can’t do any harm, and if it came off you’d be quids-in with your Sir Maurice. Fancy a cuppa?”

    “Um, yes, ta. I mean, I would fancy a cuppa, thanks. Um, and I will speak to him,” said Jim, sticking out his round, pink chin. “Why not?”

Next chapter:

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