Easter Hangovers

18

Easter Hangovers

April (ctd.) Well as the month wore on the weather began to cool and Silvia began to ask me anxiously if I was feeling all right: I had such shadows under my eyes. As she didn’t know anything about John being incommunicado and the flat being bombed there was nothing much I could say, was there? Except that I was okay, but, um, wasn’t sleeping very well. Um, yes, actually, Silvia, I was having bad dreams. Off and on. Imparting these facts was of course a mistake and remedies were immediately offered by her and rather soon after her, Judy.

    Silvercreek Cellar Door went on serving lunches until the end of Easter week, including the Easter Monday. But then they switched to their cooler weather routine: lunches only on weekends and public holidays, but the bar and cellar door proper still open. So by the time the famous Australian Anzac Day was in sight (always the 25th of April) I wasn’t really needed much for waiting or chopping and was personing the tasting bar more or less all day. Tho Brad was firmly not letting me carry anything heavy. Greg was right about people starting to stock up on reds for winter, custom really picked up.

    Okay, Silvia, we wouldn’t open for lunches on Anzac Day until one o’clock. The reason, tho she didn’t put it in so many words, seemed to be that it was a holy day, at least, the morning was. According to Bean it was like a saints’ day. It commemorated all the Australian (and New Zealand, hence the “NZ”) soldiers who’d died in the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War. Helpfully he read out the appropriate intel via the technological nuisance instrument. Adding that these days people would commemorate all the war dead from all the conflicts that Australia had been in over the years. And for Heaven’s sake, Mel, don’t say anything anti-war in front of Matt Manning!

    What? “I’m not that bad, Bean, for goodness’ sake!”

    “Not half. Get a glass of that bubbly muck of old Kev’s into you and you’d say anything. –Shut up. If you think Silvia and Judy haven’t noticed that you’re drinking too much, Mel, you’ve got another think coming.”

    “It’s only fizz. I mean, people keep asking for a taste and that means there’s a bottle open, it’ll only go flat… Well Brad drinks it, too,” I ended on a defiant note.

    “Not to mention Judy,” he noted drily. “They’re both four times your size, not to say capacity. Know what the Aussies call your type?”

    Loftily I ignored him.

    This cut no ice with the sibling and he pursued relentlessly: “A two-pot screamer.”

    What? “Rubbish, Bean.”

    “Yes. It means you can’t hold your liquor. Which we all know you can’t, in fact you’re a one-pot screamer. I’d stop now, if I was you: I don’t think John’ll fancy an alcoholic girlfriend,” the brutal sibling ended calmly.

    “Oh, shut up! At this rate he’s not going to have any girlfriend, is he, because I don’t even know where he is!” I shrieked, rushing out of the room.

    … One-pot screamer? What bally rot!

    Um, on second thoughts maybe I had better cut back a bit. In any case the alcohol wasn’t helping with the bad dreams. It might be a good idea to take Judy’s advice and drink a nice glass of milk before bed. Guaranteed to give one a good sleep and a peaceful night… But I don’t like milk. Silvia’s remedy might be preferable: a nice warm mug of Milo, dear. Well yes, you did make it with milk, Mel, but it tasted very chocolatey and nice. Um… Okay, at least the weather was cooler, it wasn’t as if I’d be downing a hot drink with the ambient temperature never sinking below 28 Celsius all night, no kidding. Tho undoubtedly Ovaltine would be better for me, as Bean Minor helpfully pointed out, finding me in the kitchen looking dubiously at Greg’s container of the aforesaid M. drink.

    Yes? Just two questions there, Bean Minor. One, could one even buy Ovaltine in Australia and Two, if so would it be available in the Barossa Valley? (Well and Three, was he suggesting this because their Matron at School had prescribed the stuff? Because it most certainly wasn’t known at the Château LeBec.)

    He picked up the Milo and examined it closely. Then he said: “I’ve tried this stuff. Don’t worry, there isn’t enough cacao in it for its natural caffeine to go anywhere near keeping you awake.”

    “I wasn’t worrying, mon petit haricot vert, and why don’t you push off—no, what was that jolly good, spot-on Junior Drones phrase? Oh yes: make a noise like a hoop and roll away, Bean Minor.”

    Ignoring this completely, he opened the stuff and said: “I’ll make it. You’d get the proportions wrong.”

    Sighing, I sat down and waited…

    Okay, a warm brown drink eventuated. Quite nice, yes, thank you Bean Minor. Yes, I will drink it all. (Um, before or after I clean my teeth? Not that it matters, I’ll be old and toothless anyway before the dashed MOD lets John out.)

    … “Did it work?” the minor sibling demanded far too bright and early next morning.

    “Um, what?”

    “Mel! The Milo, of course! Did it help you sleep?”

    “Well something did, yes. Either Milo or exhaustion.”

    “Did it stop the bad dreams, love?” asked Webber anxiously.

    What? Well dash it! Somehow I found myself going very red. Not that Webber wasn’t the loveliest chap, I didn’t really mind him knowing, but it was beginning to feel as if the whole of the Barossa Valley knew I was having bad dreams!

    “Um, well I didn’t have a bad dream, actually, Webber. Just, um, an odd one.”

    “How odd?” demanded Bean Minor, frowning over it. Was he intending to adjust the bally dosage of the M. stuff? Honestly!

    “Um, well you know how the other day— Oh, no: you boys weren’t there. Webber was, though. Down at the Cellar Door.”

    A trifle unfortunately Greg had come in during this conversation. “For what?” he asked, staring at his henchman.

    “I suppose he can pop in for a bite of lunch now and then, Greg!” I retorted smartly.

    “Was it lunchtime?” the vineyard owner replied stolidly.

    It was poor Webber’s turn to go red. ‘’Well more or less, Greg. I mean, it was me lunch break.”

    “You’re forgiven, then,” said his employer drily, going over to the sinkbench to inspect the electric jug. “Some cretin’s filled this to the brim again!” he discovered aggrievedly. “It’ll take forever to boil!”

    “The other day you said why were we boiling it up with a couple of cupfuls every time,” the Bean pointed out calmly.

    Muttering about happy mediums, Greg carefully unplugged the thing, poured out some of the water, and plugged it in again. “Go on, Mel.”

    “Um, what?”

    “You were about to tell us what happened the other day down at the Cellar Door. –In connection with a weird dream, I gathered,” he prompted.

    Er… “Oh! The emus! Yes. Well, Angie had popped up with a few eggs for Silvia—I mean, to make cupcakes for the afternoon teas she does need some eggs, Greg.”

    “Keep yer hair on, I believe you. So was this weird dream about eggs?”

    “Sort of. Um, we got onto the subject of eggs, you see. And I was telling them how a while back we used to have ducks as well as hens at the Château LeBec, and there was a woman in the village who kept geese, and their eggs are much bigger. So Webber said had any of them ever seen an emu’s egg and they had to admit they hadn’t, only on the telly. They’re huge, you see. And Webber explained to me that they’re a funny colour, a really dark sort of steel blue. Only then they had an argument because Judy said she’d have said they were more a dark bluey green and Silvia said she thought they were more dark blue than green. Angie reckoned that her great-aunty had once had a big silver cup that had an emu’s egg for a bowl but that was before she was born, and she’d seen something like it in the Art Gallery in town, only that didn’t help much because that one seemed to be all silver. Anyway they sort of agreed in the end—didn’t they, Webber?—that they were really big and a very dark colour, sort of steel blue with green in it.”

    “Pretty much,” he confirmed, as everyone looked at him.

    I nodded. “Yes. So I had this weird dream about Easter eggs only they weren’t chocolate eggs and they weren’t painted or dyed real eggs like they have in some European countries, they were huge dark emu eggs, so big that the Easter bunnies couldn’t lift them, they had to be wheeled around in a barrow! –Is it ‘barrow’ or ‘wheelbarrow’?”

    “Both,” Greg replied definitely.

    “Oh. English is very odd. Anyway, we were all there, wheeling these big emu eggs around, and there were Easter bunnies as well, but I can’t remember what they were doing… Um, well, it was weird, like I said, but it wasn’t a bad dream!” I finished happily.

    “No,” they  agreed weakly.

    “I suppose one couldn’t eat an emu’s egg, in any case,” I added.

    “Yes, ya could!” Webber replied in astonishment. “The Aborigines—”

    “Jesus, don’t start her off again, Webber!” gulped the Bean. “I say, Bean Minor: you’d better cut back on the amount of Milo in the mixture.”

    “I tell you what,” said Trelawney helpfully: “I’ve got classes in town today, so at lunchtime I’ll have a good look for Ovaltine in the big supermarkets, Mel. I’m sure it’d be much better for you. I mean, we used to have it at School, Matron always said it was a very soothing drink, didn’t she, Tommy?” (There, see? I was right: they had been given it at dashed Marbledown!)

    “Um, thank you very much, Teddy,” I replied, perforce.

    “And from now on, you blokes,” Greg decided firmly, “the topics of E,M,U’s and E,G,G’s had better be avoided.”

    “Um, what about Alan, tho? Don’t they call him, um, E,G,G?” ventured Webber.

    “They can all call ’im Alan,” the vineyard owner decided breezily. “Where’s the Vegemite?”

    “In the cupboard, I expect,” Trelawney replied. “It doesn’t really appeal, if one’s used to Marmite.”

    “You could look for that, too!” the minor legume decided happily.

    “Good idea!’

    Oh dear. Deluded young things, they’d crossed the whole world only to hanker after the boring old stuff they’d had at home! Er… perhaps they were homesick, ooh help.

    I looked at them anxiously, but they looked remarkably cheerful, and very tanned. Oh well!

    Just to show there was no ill feeling I kept Greg company in the toast and Vegemite, not revealing that Merrifield School had failed, unlike dashed Marbledown with my young sibling, to inculcate any liking for Marmite in me. Well… Nothing to choose between them, really. Salty, sort of savoury. The trick being to spread one’s Vegemite very lightly. Full of Vitamin B, eh, Webber? Jolly good. Well it was vastly preferable to bally peanut butter, also one of Greg’s and Webber’s favourite breakfast-time spreads, ugh!

    “Mm? Sorry, Teddy, what was that?”

    Rather flushed, the young chap produced: “You will try the Ovaltine if I find some, won’t you, Mel?”

    Oh dear. I felt about a hundred and two! “Yes, of course, Teddy mon chéri. I’m sure it will be very soothing; just the ticket.”

    The which enabled him to rush off in order to be in time for his first class with a shining morning face, bless him.

    Okay, now I’d jolly well have to drink the stuff and like it, wouldn’t I? Still, if it was very soothing it couldn’t possibly produce another weird dream featuring a giant Easter slash emu egg. Er… Could it?

    And so it came to pass that the week leading up to Anzac Day featured bed-time mugs of Ovaltine for little Mel, not to say ditto for the two younger boys. As Trelawney had sourced an enormous jar of the stuff, they decided that they might as well… I don’t think it ever dawned that their host looked upon this crepuscular imbibing with considerable amusement. The Bean of course sneered and noted to the ambient air that some of us had outgrown bally School and its dashed brainwashing. And, alas, invited Egg, Crumpet and Flossie to share his scorn via the dashed technological nuisance instrument. Flossie duly snorted derisively and passed an arcane remark in re mother’s breasts (tho as they don’t supply Ovaltine I wouldn’t have said it was as clever as the two of them apparently thought it), but Egg and Crumpy, tho trying not to laugh, kindly noted that the beverage was generally considered both soothing and strengthening and wouldn’t do two active lads any harm.

    After which I inspected its label somewhat anxiously but as usual with food labelling the very, very small print made no sense. So I concluded firmly that it wouldn’t do me any harm either, and the bad dreams had certainly stopped. Tho I was still having jolly weird ones, a fact which I decided not to disclose to any of my kind well-wishers in case it all got worse and I was blackmailed (with the best of kindly intentions) into consuming something much, much less palatable.

    Well one might say it had the benefit, at least for a short while, of taking my mind off why the MOD still had not released my Colonel Raice.

    Anzac Day was now almost upon us and clearly looming large in the Australian consciousness as a whole: the telly news was full of it. As old Charlie Lewisham explained in considerable detail, the day had developed in Australia over the last three decades into a much bigger thing than it had been for quite some years previously—though when he was a kid it had always been a full public holiday, everything closed, pubs as well as shops, and the only day in the whole year on which it was legal to play two-up!

    On enquiry this turned out to be the mildest of gambling games, involving the tossing of two old pennies in the air, and betting (don’t ask me exactly how) on the result. Why was it prohibited? The only answer seemed to be Charlie’s, that Canb’ra (viciously) was full of joyless pollies that were all knockers that had never held a rifle in their lives and wowsers that begrudged a working bloke his simple pleasures like a drink and a bet.

    Well times had changed drastically and there were now many online gambling facilities available to Australians on which one could, apparently, bet on “everything under the sun” (Charlie, again). Similarly, tho on the morning of Anzac Day almost everything was closed, in the afternoon it was pretty much business as usual, pubs an’ all, tho as it was still nominally a public holiday some of the shops wouldn’t be open. But in any case after the Dawn Parade they always went down the RSL! the old man ended his explanation happily.

    Rather fortunately the Bean had gathered useful intel (for once not via the nuisance instrument but from word of mouth, considerably more reliable in this instance as in many others). The equivalent of the British Legion for former members of the Armed Services, Mel. And to avoid opening my big mouth on the subject, because the dyed-in-the wool old fogies who ran the organisation had refused to let the kids march with the veterans in the Anzac Day parade wearing their late grandfathers’ or great-grandfathers’ medals. And Matt got really hot under the collar about it.

    To my fumbling enquiry as to what they did down at their RSL my sibling returned scornfully: “Knock back the beer, of course! What do you think they do?” My face must have remained blank, because he added: “It’s like a club, Mel, wake up!”

    “I see,” I said feebly.

    “Yeah. And don’t ask old Kev where Matt’s gonna march this year, it’s a sore point!”

    “Buh-Bean,” I said in a trembling voice: “the poor man can’t march.”

    “What? No, y’fool! There’s usually quite a few of them in wheelchairs on the march and if they get tired their mates’ll push them!” he ended in the vernacular.

    “I see. So—so does Mr Manning think it’d be too tiring for him?”

    “N— Well he probably does, but it’s not that. This year Matt’s going to Canb’ra to join in the big ceremony there at the War Memorial, um, it’s a museum, actually. It’ll be on TV, he said.”

    “It’s an awfully long way, Bean,” I faltered.

    “Wake up, Mel! Not to the Aussies, they’re used to travelling huge distances at the drop of a hat! No, old Kev’s afraid Matt’ll want to join up with some mates over in NSW,” he said as to the Antipodean manor born, “and hive off somewhere over there—up near the Queensland border, I think—to start up a crafts centre. You know: selling handmade stuff.”

    “Oh dear.”

    “You said it.”

    “Um, has Matt said anything about it to you, Bean?”

    “Well yeah. I mean to me and Webber, really. If he had his druthers he’d persuade the old boy to chuck in the dashed vineyard and settle over there with him, but as it is, he’s tempted, but he’s not gonna go. Only see, his dad’s still afraid he might let himself be persuaded.”

    I nodded. “If he goes over there and lets the male peer group influence him: I get it.”

    “Yes well, he didn’t put it like that and I wouldn’t advise you to put it like that to good old Webber either, he’ll think you’re barmy.” (At this point I swallowed a sigh, reflecting that Mum wasn’t far wrong about him getting really Australianised. And what did that indicate for the future of the Junior Drones? Because he was a founding member, after all.)

    “I won’t,” I said meekly. “Um, but how’s he gonna get there, Bean?”

    “He’s already gone, actually. His mate Danno—you know, the one that sometimes comes over to play basketball with him—he jacked it up. His Aunty May lives in Queanbeyan—that’s technically in NSW but it’s actually just a dormitory suburb of Canb’ra—and his brother Bruce, he’s driving them over, he’s got a van that’ll take the two wheelchairs easy, ya see—and they’ll stay with her.”

    Driving all that way? No wonder his dad didn’t want him to go! My horror almost chased away a certain amount of depression induced by the elder legume’s continual use of the vernacular “Canb’ra”.

    “So Greg’s decided we’d better watch the Canb’ra Dawn Service instead of the local one,” the Bean concluded. “Mind you, they’re a half-hour ahead of us, we could probably squeeze them both in. But we’ll start off with the Canb’ra one. It’s on one of their funny new channels: you know, the ones that have got totally different numbers when you tune the telly in: their frequencies are nowhere near the old stations that used to be the analog— It’s interesting, Mel! If you’d take your hands away from your ears you might learn something!” he shouted.

    “Bean, anything technological is Greek—no, ancient Greek—to me. I can’t help it, my brain just goes fuzzy when you or Trelawney start talking about that sort of stuff. It’s like maths,” I ended sadly.

    “You were always rotten at maths, that’s true,” he agreed. “But have you got it? We have to watch the big national service, not the local one?”

    “Mm.” Half an hour before dawn, SA Time. Oh, goody. How was I ever going to wake up for it?

    Even tho I didn’t say it the dashed sibling stated grimly: “We’re all gonna set our alarms. We’ll wake you up. And just don’t say anything anti-war.”

    “No! You’ve already told me not to!”

    “That was to Matt. Don’t say it in front of Charlie: some of his best mates and his older brother were badly wounded in blasted Vietnam.”

    “Ooh help! No, I won’t, I promise.”

    “Just see you keep to that,” he replied awfully, stalking off.

    … Um, so was that why Charlie had come over to stay for a few days? And had told me all that about Anzac Day? Undoubtedly, Mélisande Fullarton-Browne, and anyone with half a brain who wasn’t wholly self-centred would have realised this before, and just try to take an interest in other people’s concerns outside your own fat ego!

    Oh, help. And I’d thought that the old man had only launched into his speech because he wanted to wise me up about two-up with the old pennies and the sort of wowser that they had in Canberra that begrudged a working bloke his simple pleasures.

    Well as it turned out the Dawn Parade in Canberra as viewed from Silvercreek, Barossa Valley, South Australia, was pretty much a fiasco as far as yours truly was concerned. Not anything that I did—no. They’d made me go to bed early, which had given me plenty of time to brood, and then plenty of time to have muddled dreams in which John was continually going away from me, and I couldn’t catch up with him. So all that Ovaltine that they’d poured down me the evening before hadn’t done any good at all. In fact it had doubtless been responsible for the fact that I’d had to stagger up blearily for a pee twice in the middle of the night.

    But quietly nodding off before the thing started was an impossibility: the Bean had, with horrid super-efficiency, made a large pot of very black coffee. The sort of officious super-efficiency, indeed, that led one to reflect that the Junior Drones ought to call for a vote for all his silver buttons to be torn off and his sword broken across his Commanding Officer’s knee, kind of thing. One was allowed to drink the coffee au lait as one would for breakfast when home in France, but what was the point of that? There were no croissants to eat with it, only English toasts. Very well, Bean, toast singular, if you insist. And I dare say there is a grammatical term for that singular used as a plural, Trelawney dear, but please don’t tell me, not at this hour. No thanks, Greg, not Vegemite, even tho it might well perk me up. No thanks, Webber, I don’t really fancy marmalade. Marg? Ugh! Uh—no thanks, Greg. I’ll just dip these little bits of toast in my grand bol de café au lait.

    “Never seen ’er do that before,” my host said groggily to my siblings.

    “She’ll be pretending that that toast is a croissant. Just ignore her,” sighed the Bean.

    He looked dubious but did his best to ignore this strange sight in his sitting-room. (In front of the telly, QED.)

    And we settled down to watch the Dawn Service, followed by the Parade (or march)…

    Well it was all very expectable tho genuinely touching, apart from the bits where old Charlie muttered about the bloody pollies of course having to get in on the act; and yes, one could fully sympathise with those who had lost loved ones in the various conflicts Australia had been involved in, however wrong-headedly and misguidedly, not to say taken in by the British and American propaganda of the time (didn’t say it), and I genuinely had to wipe my eyes a couple of times. Tho it became rather boring when the Bean started identifying the foreign uniforms. Canberra being their federal capital, the equivalent of Washington D.C., various representatives of various allies had turned up, um, and former enemies as well, that one was Japanese, wasn’t he? Well never mind, it was forgive and forget these days, tho how they reconciled that with manifestly not forgetting but remembering, it being the equivalent of Britain’s Remembrance Day— (Which they had, too, according to Bean Minor’s rather new Australian Collins Diary that he’d carefully marked all the university hols. in). Oh well.

    It had gone on for so long—it was well past the time to change over to the local event—that I was half asleep in spite of the coffee, when Bean suddenly cried:

    “I say! That’s John!”

    And I came to with a jolt. “What? Where?”

    “Bean, it can’t be!” cried Bean Minor, peering.

    “There! There, you ass! In the British uniform!”

    Jesus. It looked jolly like him. In his Army uniform.

    “That’s—that’s impossible,” I said shakily.

    “It does sort of look like him— Bother,” said Trelawney as the camera angle changed. “Tho of course I don’t know him all that well, I mean I’ve never seen him in uniform… It can’t have been him, Bean.”

    “He is still a serving officer,” he replied obstinately.

    “Look, Michael, what in God’s name would he be doing in Canb’ra?” said Greg heavily. “It’ll just be some Pommy joker that looks a bit like him, and for God’s sake don’t go on about it, you’re upsetting your sister!”

    “It—it was awfully like him, Greg,” I said shakily. “Tho it wasn’t very clear…”

    “No, it wasn’t,” Webber agreed quickly. “Cheer up, Mel, we all know yer brother’s a twit.”

    “Thanks!” cried the Bean angrily. “Next you’ll be telling me I need glasses!”

    “I thought it was him, too,” said Bean Minor in a very small voice. “Tho I couldn’t make out his medals… I mean, if they were the wrong medals it couldn’t possibly have been him, could it? Um, sorry, Mel.”

    “Wouldn’t his medals have been blown up with the flat?” ventured Trelawney, as on the screen the ceremony went on unheeded by its Silvercreek audience.

    “Um, no, old man,” replied Bean Minor, eying me uneasily. “Actually he put them in a safety deposit to encourage his elderly neighbour to put his valuables away safely.”

    “Mmd,” I admitted somewhat soggily, blowing my nose. “Thad’s righd.”

    Greg sighed and got up. “It can’t have been him, pet. Let’s have a cup of tea. And I think those muffins that Janine went and shoved in the freezer might have thawed enough to bung in the toaster, by now. –Come on, Michael, you can give me a hand.” He gave the Bean a hard look.

    As they went out we heard: “I’m still convinced it was him, Greg.”

    And his host’s reply: “Shuddup, ya nana, she’s upset enough as it is.”

    Bean Minor was sitting beside me on the sofa. He took my hand and squeezed it hard. “We’ll have news soon, Mel, I’m positive.”

    “Bean Minor, I’ve switched my phone on and there are no messages at all!”

    “No, well, there wouldn’t be, would there? But he’ll be in touch as soon as the MOD lets him go, you’ll see!”

    “Yeah, ’course!” Webber agreed on a bracing note. “Come on, love, the parade’s started: let’s see if we can spot Matt and his mate, eh? –Tho I dunno how the Hell they’ve organised it,” he admitted, staring at the screen in confusion.

    It was a fair-sized telly, though certainly not one of the huge ones. But big enough for me to have been absolutely certain for a heart-stopping moment that that had been darling John in his British Army Colonel’s uniform. Um, tho come to think of it…

    “But his uniform was blown up with the flat!” I realised.

    “There you are, then,” said Trelawney, awarding his little pal a warning look. “Can’t have been him. Can it, Bean Minor?”

    “Um, no,” he said on an uncomfortable note. “’Course not.”

    “No, that’s right, lad,” said old Charlie firmly.

    “No,” Webber agreed quickly. “Cripes, what are they? Gurkhas or something? Look!”

    We all stared at the screen, but I didn’t take in a thing. My heart was still beating nineteen to the dozen, how stupid! What on earth would John be doing at an Antipodean ceremony on the wrong side of the world? Commemorating an occasion which, as Charlie had bitterly informed me, the Brits didn’t even remember no more, tho it was their bloody officers that had sent our boys to their deaths at bloody Gallipoli and don't mention the Charge of the Ruddy Light Brigade, thanks. Mind you, that had been at the orders of the flamin’ British High Command, too! Any dirty job to be done, it was Send in the Aussies and the Kiwis, just look at flamin’ El Alamein! (Which I couldn’t have done at that moment, actually, as I hadn’t the faintest how to spell it. It had eventually necessitated an appeal to the Bean, shamingly. Okay, the Desert Rats. Got it. And yes, Charlie had been quite right.)

    After quite some time and the consumption of cups of milky tea and twice-toasted muffins that hadn’t been quite thawed, the old man pointed out: “Here come some blokes in wheelchairs, think this must be the Afghanistan lot.” And we all peered, but although there was now more light on the scene no-one could be absolutely sure that they’d identified Matt.

    However, when it was over old Kev Manning rang to say had we watched it, and Matt had been clear as anything! So Greg was able to assure him untruthfully that yeah, we’d all seen him, Kev.

    By which time I should have been getting ready to go down to the Cellar Door and help Silvia and Judy, but Greg put his foot down, loudly seconded by Charlie and Webber. And I’d better have a brandy, pet, and get off to bed, I was looking very pale.

    I was feeling rather pale, yes; and come to think of it, my dashed period was due: no wonder I’d been so low for the last few days! So I gratefully accepted the brandy, ignoring Bean’s remark that it wasn’t a good idea as I was already turning into an alcoholic and it’d be pink elephants next, and tottered off to bed.

    Well either because of the morning’s trauma or the size of the brandy, Charlie had poured it and he had a very heavy hand, or the dashed period, which had bally well started, yes, I had the most extraordinary dream. I was being drummed out of the Army (I couldn’t tell whether it was the British Army or the Australian one, which was very frustrating to the dream me) for excessive consumption of alcohol. The general in question being Bean with a very silly big hat like Napoleon’s and a habit of kissing one on both cheeks, that was, one cheek, two cheek, one cheek, except that he wasn’t doing it to me, he was doing it to a row of uniformed chaps lined up with very fancy Australian hats on, complete with cockades. But if he was a French general why was he— Dream me was just about to figure this out and Bean had just morphed into Général de Gaulle when this huge pink elephant came up and trumpeted at me: “Stand to attention, Fullarton-Browne! Orderly, tear all her silver buttons off, she’s a drunken disgrace to the Army!”

    And all my buttons were being torn off when I woke up all hot and bothered to find it was late afternoon and the sun was shining brightly and I was far too hot under the duvet. And to the realisation that of course my darling John wasn’t in Australia looking handsome in his uniform, he was incarcerated somewhere in Blighty in a Secret Location and I’d be better off dead!

    So I got up, had a pee, changed the dashed tampon, boy there are times when it’s not worth it being a female, tho I have never wanted to be male, ugh, and as the house was completely empty and I did not feel anything like top-hole had a very medicinal brandy, and a glass of spring water just in case my kidneys needed it, and then another brandy…

    Well rather naturally I came to later that evening with a shocking hangover. The chaps, bless them, were most forbearing and advised me to take some paracetamol and have a big drink of water and go back to bed. Tho poor Greg, looking at the level, not the right word, the trickle in his brandy bottle, did croak feebly: “Heck, how much didja drink, pet?”

    So I took myself, the hangover and my shame off to bed.

    I think they must have decided not to mention the subject again. Well either subject, unlikely sightings of John and my excessive consumption of Greg’s brandy, because nothing was said on either topic and the month of April rolled on to its end without incident.

    Tho—unsurprisingly if one is acquainted with the vagaries of the dashed female constitution—by then I felt a lot better and brighter. And possibly with the aid of the Ovaltine forced upon me anxiously by those two blessed boys, and even more possibly with the help of the beautiful healthy food supplied by Janine, Silvia and Judy, not to mention old Robbo, who turned up with a box of fresh produce from his garden, which was still going strong and he was gonna have a nice crop of Brussels sprouts later this year, oh dear, j’aime pas les choux de Bruxelles—as I was saying, possibly with the aid of all this from the kindly people of Silvercreek and environs, I didn’t have any more horrible nightmares.

    Tho the very nice dream that I did have in fact left me more distressed than the most terrifying bad dreams could have. Because in it John and I were married and living in his cottage with our Scottie dog and our two little children, a boy and a girl, who were all happily having an Easter egg hunt in John’s garden…

    I decided to be very firm-minded and didn’t tell anybody about this except my dear Mireille, whom I rang on Bean’s phone. Tho I was positive that by this time no crazed terrorists would be monitoring mine, or even aware of my existence. She was very, very sympathetic and said that possibly it was a vision of the future, and I must look forward to it. Well, bless her, that is Mireille’s sweet, sunny nature. But I’m not a thoroughly good person like her and it was very hard to be cheerful and optimistic. But I promised her that I’d try. And rang off secretly hoping that that dream had seen the last of the dashed Easter motifs. And wishing fervently never to hear another word about Easter eggs, ever. Because honestly, that had been the last straw!

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendsdownunder-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-merry-month-of-may.html