Helping Out

8

Helping Out

December. Well the nearer we got to Christmas the more the spectre of the clinger Anthea, due to arrive to get her claws into Egg again, it may be remembered, on the 23rd of December, raised its ugly head, but I for one did my best to ignore it. And to shut the Bean up on the subject, yes. But at least we had plenty of distractions: as November ticked over to December and the weather got even hotter, we were at last allowed to do some work for the hospitable Greg. Not that Bean and the two younger lads hadn’t been, anyway. Well possibly observing more than actually working, but Duck and Webber both seemed happy to have them around, thank goodness. And Bean had assured us that they were learning a lot! That was nice, dear—er, jolly good show, old chap!

    Egg, Crumpy and I, meanwhile, had been introduced to the “Silvercreek Cellar Door”, such being the notice over its front door, and the lady in charge of it, one Silvia Vickers. Mrs. Divorced: he’d been a no-hoper (intel from Mrs Janine S.) and that son of hers, he wasn’t much better and had long since taken off for the Gold Coast and don’t ask her (Mrs S., darkly) what he was doing up there. A dole bludger if ever she’d seen one! (This curious phrase indicated an able-bodied person who was happily living off the unemployment benefit in preference to doing any sort of work, particularly not hard manual labour. Well yes, the syndrome was not unknown in Blighty, the Egg had acknowledged weakly, but where on Earth had the term “bludger” come from? Cautious enquiry revealed that nobody knew, in fact he was met with a sort of blank surprise that the question needed to be asked, so he ceased pursuing the topic, concluding that discretion was probably the better part of V.)

    Silvia, as she asked us to call her, was a slim, meek, squashed-looking personality tightly tied into a floral apron (always clean, a different one every day but always an apron, we discovered), and the Silvercreek Cellar Door was a low, cream-painted one-storeyed wooden structure which from the front gave nothing much away. Old barrels flanked the front door, each containing flourishing lavender plants, but no further attempt had been made to pretty up the frontage, which gave directly onto a stretch of concrete clearly used for parking, and thence the dirt road, which led down from the house and then on to the winery proper. There were a couple of windows, but they were shuttered, the shutters being painted in the same cream as the rest.

    The sign hanging from the guttering above the door was attractive enough, a nice piece of signwriting in a mixture of navy and a shade of mauve which picked up that of the barrels’ lavender on a white background: the same colours as those used on Silvercreek’s wine labels. Well yes, okay as far as it went. The door itself was a heavy wooden thing, painted in the same navy. With a small notice on it which read “Closed” but which Silvia hurriedly changed to “Open”. Er—yes. Succinct but hardly welcoming. Still, presumably if one had struggled through the Barossa Valley and got this far one wouldn’t be deterred.

    The interior was revealed as one big room, not deep but quite wide, attractively lined and floored in pale golden timber, with a smallish restaurant area over to the left: beyond it tall windows and sliding glass doors gave a glimpse of a terrace at the rear with more tables. A long bar occupied part of the back wall, in front of us. The right-hand side of the room was taken up by a clutch of small round tables with accompanying chairs. All metal: the sort that are full of little holes.

    “Um, café tables and chairs, we got them for the patio and, um, they had a discount, so Greg thought they’d do for in here as well. Um, we just serve tastes for those customers,” said Silvia in a small voice.

    “I like the navy paint: the corporate colour, eh?” said Egg nicely.

    “Um, yes. That was Jenny’s idea… She used to work here, she was a local girl, but she was at uni, and she finished her course, you see: she’s got a job in Sydney now,” Silvia explained on a sad note.

    We nodded kindly and Crumpy asked: “So how many waiting staff do you have now, Silvia?”

    “Well only Jamie, really. My daughter. She’s a uni student, too… They don’t stay, you see,” she added miserably.

    “No, well, of course the work would be seasonal,” said Egg.

    “Mm. Last summer we had Sam, she was okay, she liked working with the customers, and she was a careful waitress; we’ve had some that dropped stuff, they were terrible,” she said with a sigh. “Greg thought it’d be a good idea to take on some younger girls that were still at school—in Year Twelve—but they took off at the end of the year for that awful Schoolies’ Week, and none of them wanted to work right up to Christmas anyway… It didn’t work.”

    Not all of that statement was intelligible, but more than enough. We nodded sympathetically.

    Silvia then showed us the rest of the Cellar Door. Well the terrace was lovely. It was a walled area at the side and rear of the restaurant, sheltered by flourishing creepers rampaging up posts and over a network of beams above. One was a grapevine, yes, and the other was a wisteria, which did look lovely when it was flowering, but made an awful mess when the flowers dropped. No, it was over now, she said as we peered up at it. She smiled wanly as we admired the effect of the leafy cool shade and replied that yes, it was nice, but of course when it got up to about thirty-six people weren’t so keen on sitting out there. Certain Junior Drones might have been observed to swallow hard. According to Greg, who of course always kept an eye on the weather, we were headed for thirty-two today and to us it already felt very hot. How often did it get to thirty-six? It was only the beginning of December! Help.

    A door behind the bar led to the kitchen and storage area, the latter stacked with cartons of wine, ready for the customers. And personed by a burly, grinning character introduced as Brad. He wasn’t young, perhaps fiftyish, about Greg’s age, and rather obviously he wasn’t very bright. In his youth, Silvia explained, having shepherded us into the kitchen, he’d been a professional footballer and had taken too many knocks on the head—tho he’d never been all that bright to start with. He and Greg had been at school together and you might say—tho we hadn’t and wouldn’t have, actually—that he’d given him the job out of pity, but as a matter of fact he really pulled his weight, and was very willing, and it wasn’t an exciting job, lugging cartons of wine in and out. Um, yes, she agreed somewhat weakly to Crumpy’s enquiry: he did carry them out to the customers’ cars; of course most of them could of done it for themselves, but they appreciated it. And he was good-natured: you never had to worry where you were, with Brad.

    This last remark was accompanied by a loud sniff from the lady sitting at the kitchen table preparing mounds of salad. Judy Perrin. She was perhaps in her mid-fifties, older than Silvia, a comfortable-looking plump woman with an amazing head of carefully coiffured bright brass waves.

    “Yeah well,” she remarked in the wake of the sniff: “Silvia’s certainly had some of that, in ’er time!”

    We goggled at her: one could not imagine the amiable Greg Lewisham being other than even-tempered: how could she possibly have been driven to worry where she was with him?

    But of course it hadn’t been him at all: quickly the blushing Silvia explained: “I used to have an awful boss before I came to work here.”

    “You can say that again!” Judy Perrin agreed. “Aw, a customer rung while you were out the front, Sil’. Lunch booking for two. Only they weren’t sure when they could make it—think they might be tourists.”

    “That’s okay; at least it gives us some idea how many quiches we’ll need,” Silvia replied placidly.

    “Yeah.” Judy got on with carefully slicing cherry tomatoes in two.

    Egg meanwhile was looking with interest at the kitchen appliances. There were two large refrigerators, a big chest freezer, a small toaster oven, and a stove—not an industrial one, but just an ordinary kitchen stove, rather old-fashioned in style, I would have said. Electric. No, Silvia revealed, the gas didn’t come out this far, Alan: Greg would of had to pay for the pipes, you see; it wasn’t worth it. Um, electricity? Well, the house was “wired up” but the business had its own generators. Judy added the interesting intel that one year there’d been a terrible black-out, the whole of the State had been out for hours, and anybody that had been connected to the grid could of lost megabucks, only they’d been okay here. Not that they kept much in the freezer in the off-season, of course.

    “And at this time of year?” Egg asked nicely.

    “Well the ice cream, of course: there’s always one or two people that want dessert—Greg said to keep it simple, so it’s just vanilla, with strawberry or blueberry sauce and a berry or two. And we freeze the bread, it’s no use relying on deliveries out here. And there’s always a couple of cooked hams—boned, the right size for slicing, y’know? And we keep a stock of tomato jam. –So-called, it’s good ole chutney, really!” Judy revealed with a laugh. “The customers think it’s trendy if ya call it jam, ya see. We use it for the bruschetta. And we fry up the onions for the quiches in big batches and freeze them, too. We use those zip-lock bags, enough for a couple of quiches, ya see, and stack them flat. Then we take out enough each morning. Means we don’t have to fry up onions every day—well, it’s handy, and it means we’re not breathing blimmin’ onion fumes all morning!” she finished, grinning.

    “Um, yes,” Silvia agreed. She then went rather pink and added on a guilty note: “And um, the eggplant caviar—that’s just its name, it’s not caviar at all—it’s been so popular we decided we’d better get them in when they’re cheapest and cook them up and freeze them. That’s just a starter dish, of course. Um, when it’s thawed we just add some lemon juice and olive oil, you see. It’s already got a bit of garlic in with it.” –Oh, right, I realised: what Marthe would call une purée d’aubergines! Well aubergines are always very acceptable—good show!

    And would we like to see a menu? Silvia then wondered. We would, very much, so she produced one. Just a single sheet of heavy paper, but very nicely printed—the corporate colours again. …Okay, it was basically quiches, bruschetta and salads, with a small choice of starters: the purée d’aubergines, I mean eggplant caviar, “Silvercreek Hummus” or marinated olives.

    “A lot of places round here,” said Silvia, swallowing hard, “do really fancy meals. I mean, there’s one place that has quails on a bed of red cabbage, and another that does duck breasts, only Greg said it just wouldn’t be economical to try compete with them. They’re much further in, you see.”

    “Right,” Crumpy agreed. “So you don’t do anything with meat, really?”

    “Um, only the sliced beef for the bruschetta: we buy that ready-sliced. Harrison was keen for us to do a couple of grilled lamb dishes—one with skewers, and one, um, strips, I think—but you really need a gas grill or a barbie for that sort of thing, and someone has to stand over it, of course, and with only the two of us, we can’t manage it. Um, and if you’ve taken the meat out of the freezer and no-one orders it, it goes to waste. It just—it just wasn’t practical.”

    “No, of course not,” Crumpy acknowledged—possibly feeling Egg’s eye upon him.

    The consultation, if such it could be called, was then interrupted by the appearance of a grinning Brad with the announcement: “Here’s Robbo!”

    And in came a thin, elderly gent lugging a cardboard carton bearing the interesting appellation “Silvercreek Cabernet-Shiraz”. Er… did Silvercreek grow Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, then? One was not immediately enlightened: the open carton proved to contain a selection of feisty-looking tomatoes.

    The elderly Robbo was thanked by Silvia as he set his burden down on the table, and Judy enquired on a strangely sardonic note: “So how much we owe ya now, Robbo?”

    Solemnly he produced a small notebook from the breast-pocket of his limp short-sleeved checked cotton shirt. Consultation resulted in the report: “I make that one case as of today.”

    Heavily Judy responded: “All right, gi’s a gander.” And he handed the notebook over, tho noting: “That is right.”

    “Yeah,” she acknowledged. “Give or take, I s’pose.”

    “Give or take what?” the elderly Robbo responded sharply.

    “All them morning teas what you’ve had off us, mate.”

    “His veggies are lovely, Judy,” Silvia protested faintly.

    She sniffed. ‘Soemthink like that. –Well yeah, go on,” she said to the hovering Brad. “He can have one.”

    “Silvercreek Cabernet-Shiraz,” stated Brad carefully.

    “Yeah, that’s it, good on ya, mate,” she returned tolerantly, and Brad disappeared into the fastness of his storage area. A concrete-floored space lined with towers of cartons and featuring an outer door which was presumably how Robbo had entered. Closing it behind him, it was to be hoped: the store was noticeably cool, so it must have been air-conditioned.

    “So does Greg grow some Cabernet Sauvignon grapes as well as the Shiraz, Silvia?” asked Egg.

    “Not him, really, it was Duck’s idea. There was one slope that wasn’t doing too good with the Shiraz so he decided to try Cab-Sav. Well we’re not Penfolds, so we can’t afford to buy in from other regions, you see,” she explained arcanely. “The Cabernet-Shiraz is what Greg calls a table wine, it’s not dear, but it’s selling okay.”

    “It does me,” said Robbo.

    “Yeah, we know,” retorted Judy. “We’re busy, we got bookings, so if ya want smoko, yer out of luck.”

    “Don’t be awful, Judy!” protested Silvia, smiling at the old man. “We haven’t done any scones, Robbo, but you could have a sandwich if you like.”

    “Thanks, Silvia,” he replied firmly, grabbing a chair and seating himself at the table—at a judicious distance from Judy, however.

    ‘Have a menu,” said Judy on a dry note, sliding one down the table to him.

    Looking jaunty, the old man picked it up and perused it carefully, finally lowering it to ask: “What’s the special?”

    “Not for you,” was Judy’s not entirely unexpected reply.

    “Um, it’s called ‘Tunisian Eggah’,” said Silvia on an uneasy note. “It’s like a quiche, only without a crust. Um, it’s got sliced chorizo in it, Robbo.”

    “Eh?”

    “It’s a spicy sausage. Um, with garlic and, um, chilli in it.”

    “Chilli!” retorted the old chap in tones of immense scorn. “Thought you was avoiding that?”

    “Well usually, only I thought I’d try something different. With—with a salad.”

    “No thanks. That It, is it?”

    “Mm.”

    “Right. In that case I’ll have a cheese and tomato sandwich, thanks.”

    “You could have that at home,” noted Judy drily.

    “Don’t take any notice of her, Robbo,” said Silvia kindly. “Would you like some lettuce with it?”

    “All right, yer talked me into it. But none of them liddle tickly green things, thanks,” he replied, eyeing a large bowl of them with disfavour.

    “Those are Judy’s beautiful fresh pea sprouts straight out of her garden!” Silvia protested.

    “Nah. Tickly. Stock feed, if you ask me.”

    “Nobody was asking you, actually,” noted Judy. “I suppose you want coffee?”

    “I won’t say no,” Robbo replied superbly, looking down his nose at her.

    “It’ll be instant,” she warned, getting up and going over to the sinkbench.

    “Good. Can’t stand that tar they call coffee these days.”

    “Ya wouldn’t think,” she noted to the ambient air, “that this country’s had Italian and Greek immigrants for all of his lifetime!”

    Er—yes. Well if the Bean had been right, that’d be since about 1950, so… Mm, he would be seventy or so.

    The coffee and a generous plateful of sandwiches were duly produced, Robbo tucked in with a will, and Silvia and Judy got on with preparations for lunch, chatting happily, with very little prompting, about where they sourced most of their ingredients, how many customers they could expect, and etcetera…

    Well it was all like that: cosy, really. We finally tottered out into the afternoon sunshine, having been regaled with generous samples of all four quiches on offer that day plus a selection of bruschetta to try, washed down by glasses of spring water with lime slices. The limes? Oh, well actually Della Mason, she lived next-door but one to Judy, she had a lime tree, so…

    Well yes! As I say, cosy. And delicious, really fresh, locally grown produce. Commerce, however, it was not, as the Egg noted weakly.

    “Can the place possibly make a profit?” I croaked, as the three of us retired to the privacy of the sitting-room in the main house, everyone else being out at work.

    Crumpy had managed, in between the chat, to get a copy of the Cellar Door’s monthly accounts from Silvia. “Not according to these,” he announced. “Not that— I mean, ninety percent of those ingredients we saw today aren’t even listed here! Those delicious tomatoes of old Robbo’s that might or might not have been compensated for by an occasional case of an indifferent table wine weren’t the half of it! Or even the tenth, I’d say! What about those tasty green sprouty things of Judy’s?”

    “Tickly!” I choked, going into an unfortunate giggling fit.

    He eyed me sternly. “Exactly. And no eggs, which must surely be their main expense, with all those quiches.”

    “Any outgoings of cases of wine or the value thereof to old Robbo?” asked Egg.

    “Um… Not that I can see, no. Tho the actual wine sales look healthy enough.”

    The Egg peered over his shoulder. “Mm-mm… Reasonable. I say, who on earth does the accounts for the wine, tho? I mean, surely not Brad?”

     We looked dazedly at one another.

    “Er… Stop me if this sounds completely bonkers, old chums,” said Crumpy at last. “but what’s the betting that down at the winery that efficient chap Vern Peters who does their dispatches and so forth, just lists ‘2 doz. Silvercreek Shiraz 2019 to Cellar Door’, etcetera, and at the end of the financial year they simply count up what’s left?”

    We gulped. It seemed all too likely.

    “Uh—Greg’s deliberately been running it as a tax loss?” ventured Egg.

    “But he asked you to see if you could make it pay its way, old thing!” Crumpy protested.

    The Egg made a face. “Think I’ll be persona non grata if I do, actually.”

    “Ugh,” the Crumpet replied simply.

    “But he can’t blame you for pointing out its weaknesses if he’s asked you to, Egg!” I cried.

    He sighed. “Of course he can, old thing. Human nature.”

    “But— Oh.”

    After a considerable period of glum silence Crumpy offered: “Tell him it generates so much good will it’s worth it?”

    “Well that’s true, as far as it goes. I think I’ll have to,” Egg conceded. “Plus a few hints as to where Silvia could make it more cost-effective. I mean, four choices of delicious quiches seems excessive, when she’s offering all those varieties of bruschetta as well, plus the starters.”

    “Yes,” the Crumpet agreed heavily. “And somehow wean her off making batches of scones that don’t appear anywhere in the accounts because unexpected customers have turned up early in the morning, or too late in the afternoon for lunch!”

    “Mm. They should just be offered the minimum of nibbles as they taste the wine,” sighed Egg.

    “Yes: they were over-generous!” I put in.

    “The nibbles, Sister Bean? Yes, they were,” he agreed.

    “Yes,” sighed Crumpy. “And according to Judy, each of the quiches had between six and eight eggs in them according to size—think she meant size of the eggs, the actual quiches were all the same size, weren’t they?—and like I said, there is nothing at all in these accounts about eggs!”

    “But there must be!” I cried.

    “I second them sentiments,” said Egg very weakly indeed. “Are you absolutely sure, old man? I mean, they must get through, um, well at four pieces per quiche, say a maximum per day of, uh...”

    “Twelve?” l supplied helpfully.

    “What?” he said, staring at me.

    The Crumpet coughed. “Think she means a doz. quiches, old man, not eggs.”

    “Yes,” I agreed.

    The Egg ran his hand through his hair. “Right. Uh—I’m brain-dead. Twelve quiches a day at six to eight eggs per… How many dozen eggs is that, Crumpy?”

    “A maximum of six to eight dozen, of course, old chap, depending on the size of said output from the common or domestic fowl.”

    “Chooks,” I said thoughtfully.

    “Hey?” they responded foggily.

    “They call hens ‘chooks’ here, hadn’t you realised?”

    The Egg was seen to gulp. “Omigod. So that casual mention of ‘Of course, Judy’s brother-in-law’s chooks are a great boon’ was not a mere bon mot, tossed in, as it were, for the delectation of the bystanders, but a—a—” He ran down and just sat there looking flabbergasted.

    “—Piece of financial accounting. Yes,” said Crumpy grimly.

    “Jesus!”

    “I second that sentiment,” his peer agreed.

    “Me, too; I mean, the Ayes have it,” I put in.

    “Think you mean it’s unanimous, Sister Bean, old thing,” said the Crumpet kindly. “No well, there you have it, Egg, I’m afraid.”

    “But— I mean, beautiful free-range eggs, up to six dozen a day… God!”

    And a glum silence, compound of consternation and, um, well glumness, really, was enabled to reign in Greg’s big, comfortably shabby sitting-room.

    Next morning the three of us had more or less a council of war in Greg’s kitchen after the workers had disappeared, the Egg producing a sheaf of closely written, very neat notes and Crumpy likewise producing what he said was an annotated accounts sheet. Gulp. It had an awful lot of blanks and question marks on it.

    “This wouldn’t go to the taxman,” he explained as I remarked on how detailed it was: “but to run a business you have to keep track of all your outgoings and supplies, you see, old thing. This’d be summarized for your annual accounts—I mean, you wouldn’t list every pound of tomatoes there, kind of thing.”

    “Right, or bales of hay,” the Egg agreed. “But you do need to know exactly how many individual bales you bought, so as to keep track of where your money’s going every week, you see, Mel.”

    “That’s it!” the Crumpet beamed. “Your accountant would run his eye over the totals and make sure they were hunky-dory in case the taxman did suddenly ask questions, y’see. After that his summary in the format the taxman requires would be the official return.”

    “So, um, what about receipts, tho? Don’t you have to keep them in case the taxman queries something?” I groped.

    “Yes, but usually if the official return from the accountant is okay they don’t look further. And a decent accountant won’t be up for fiddling anything: it’s his neck as well as the client’s, you see.”

    “Do you mean if the Aussie taxman checks up on him Greg could be in trouble?” I gasped.

    Crumpy looked dry. “No, quite the reverse, he’d be more likely to be owed a refund. Uh—well his computer records look okay, so one can presume that his accountant accepted them at face value.”

    “Without ever visiting the Cellar Door itself: yes,” Egg agreed. “It is only a minor part of the business as a whole, after all. And—uh—I think most wineries see their cellar doors largely as part of their advertising budget, you see. But if Greg goes on like this, it’s going to turn into a drain on the business. The restaurant prices are hopelessly low, for a start—I mean, compare them with what those places with the olive groves charge! And they seem to be providing free wine with the meals.”

    “Um, ye-es… But the point of the place is to encourage the customers to buy the wines by the bottle or the case, isn’t it?” I ventured.

    “Yes, but that’s what the tasting is for. They lose quite enough that way without chucking free drinks at the lunch customers!”

    “I see. So, um, what do you think the restaurant should charge, Egg?”

    Silently he passed me a menu which he’d altered to what he claimed were realistic prices and a realistic choice of dishes.

    Well yes, the price of a glass of wine seemed fair enough… “Help!” I gasped. “You’ve tripled the price of the quiches, Egg! And not even with a salad!”

    “Yes. Didn’t you take in the prices at The Archer?” he replied heavily.

    “And that was only a pub lunch,” noted Crumpy. “This is a nice little restaurant.”

    “Quite. And The Archer’s salads were as pricy as their other mains.”

    “But they did include, um, a bit of salad with the mains,” I ventured.

    “A bit is right. Silvia’s been offering a good-sized bowl of salad, the same as she's listed on the menu as a separate choice, as a freebie with the quiches! It’s not on.”

    Crumpy looked dubious. “Ye-es… The Archer had chips as well, old man.”

    “Yes, that’s partly why I haven’t upped Silvia’s initial prices even more,” Egg replied grimly. “They can pay, either for a proper side salad or a full salad. She can pretty the quiche plates up with a sprig of parsley and a couple of those carrot curls that Judy showed us, and maybe the odd pea sprout if Judy won’t take cash for supplying them.”

    “You’re beginning to sound as mean as Grannie,” I objected.

    “Sister Bean,” he sighed, “this is supposed to be a business.”

    “I know!” said Crumpy brightly. “Edible flowers!”

    “Huh?” replied our Hon. Chairperson.

    He grinned. “Didn’t you notice? Judy was going on at one point about edible flowers. Nasturtiums, rampaging all over her garden. –Don’t know them, Mel?” he added to my blank face.

    “Des capucines in French, Sister Bean,” the Egg supplied. “Pretty name, isn’t it?”

    “Oh yes! I’ve seen those in a restaurant!” I cried. “Um, I think they just pulled off a petal or two, tho.”

    “Even cheaper!” the yeasty muffin-like one gasped ecstatically.

    The Egg smiled. “It’s not a bad idea,” he conceded. “The punters will think it’s awfully posh!”

    “Yes. There’s a blue one, too,” the Crumpet said thoughtfully. “Tastes like cucumber, Dad claimed, but I wasn’t game to try it…”

    “I know!” I cried. “La bourrache! Marthe grows that. Sometimes she used to make, um, I don’t know the English name… She’d dip the leaves in batter like for beignets and fry them. They were lovely, sort of crisp and light! Only for us, in the kitchen, tho. Grannie wouldn’t eat them, she said the leaves were, um, well I think the English would be what Robbo said about those lovely pea sprouts of Judy’s.”

    “Stock feed!” the Egg remembered with a laugh. “Classic! Mind you, a couple of nasturtium petals”—he grinned—“would definitely be the go!”

    “And I tell you what!” I cried. “A sprig of lavender! It’s right outside their door!”

    My audience promptly collapsed in sniggers, but rallied to agree that that wasn't half a bad idea.

    Firmly the Egg wrote “nasturtium petals” and “lavender” and crossed out his notes of “parsley” and “carrot curls”. Er... Had we meant that? I eyed Crumpy cautiously but he was studiously looking elsewhere. Oh well!

    Well the consensus was that Egg would type it all up and hand it to Greg.

    … “Ye-ah…” the amiable Mr Lewisham concluded, scratching his head. “Well yeah, you’re spot-on, Alan. But getting them to write down where the Hell they’ve sourced the stuff from’s another thing entirely… And it does create good will in the community, I s’pose,” he added without noticeable enthusiasm.

    A trifle unfortunately the other lads were now in on the discussion, boots and all, as it were. And the Bean put in keenly: “But do they buy your wines, Greg?”

    “No. Well they’ll drink ’em, yeah. And I dunno how much of that Cab-Sav-Shiraz of Duck’s ole Robbo must of got away with since he started making it, but it’s not our core business, really…”

    “But you could sell it elsewhere,” the brilliant sibling noted. Brilliantly.

    “And then they’d have to pay supermarket prices for their tomatoes!” retorted Trelawney smartly.

    Well possibly wholesale, as Greg noted, but the trouble was finding a grower that could let you have anything decent who wasn’t tied in to the big chains…

    “Really?” said the Bean limply. “Here?”

    “This isn’t the village near the Château LeBec, Bean,” I pointed out helpfully.

    “Just as well!” he admitted with a shudder. “Grannie wouldn’t let them get away with not accounting for every penny and every crumb!”

    Webber so far hadn’t contributed to the discussion, tho he’d been keen to come and hear it. “Has Chateau LeBec got a cellar door, mate?” he asked at this point.

    Abruptly Bean Minor broke down in giggles.

    The older legume gave him an annoyed look. “Technically, yes, I mean one can roll up and buy a dozen or two. For a price. And you can taste if you get on the right side of whoever happens to be down there on the day.”

    “What?” said Greg limply.

    “Well yes,” the Bean admitted. “I mean it could be Oncle Patrice, tho the winery isn’t his job, of course. He’s soft as butter, he’ll happily let anyone taste. Or old Pierre-Louis: you only have to let him tell you his entire life history—but his brother, old Eustache, he’s as hard as nails: if you’re not a regular buyer and he doesn’t know you, you’ve had it.”

    “Well yes,” Bean Minor agreed. “But of course they don’t have a restaurant or a proper tasting area, let alone a bar: it wasn’t done that way in the days of Louis XIII.”

    As he articulated the last two keywords in la langue française, Greg could perhaps have been pardoned for groping: “Uh—whose day, little mate? An ancestor, was it?”

    “No: Louis Treize,” the junior legume repeated, looking puzzled.

    “Louis the Thirteenth,” said Egg kindly. “Seventeenth century.”

    “Eh?”

    “Yes,” I agreed. “—Well the records go back that far, but most of the walls of the château itself are much older, of course,” I added helpfully.

    “I geddit,” he admitted. “So ya drive past this grim ancient pile of grey stone, and down to the winery, looking just as grey and grim,”—my siblings were nodding: had they described the bally place to him?—“and ya reach this forbidding-looking huge wooden door with iron hinges—got iron hinges, has it?“—they nodded mutely—“right; and if anybody answers, ya might be allowed to buy something!” He broke down in helpless sniggers, closely followed by Webber, and who could blame them?

    “Yes,” I agreed simply, when they’d recovered.

    “Quite possibly scores of American would-be buyers have rolled up to that door and retreated without placing the intended orders for a regular sixty dozen per,” noted the Egg.

    “What I was thinking!” Greg agreed with a laugh. “Well I’ll have to think about all this, Alan. S’pose we better have a meeting with Silvia. –Think we’ll leave Judy out of it: she won’t like it, of course, but if Silvia tries to dig her toes in she’ll be right there backing her up, the woman behaves as if the ruddy place was a home away from home!”

    “We noticed that,” Crumpy agreed.

    “Yeah. Well,” he said with a wink, “if all else fails you can bung these edible flowers of yours on the tables, eh? Nice little bunches of fresh flowers for the restaurant!”

    We smiled feebly. Unfortunately we could well envisage it coming to that…

    Of course the restaurant was only part of the Silvercreek Cellar Door’s business, if undoubtedly the part that was least commercially viable; there were also the wines. Assorted, we’d discovered. Egg, Crumpy and I gathered rather glumly to discuss the matter.

    “You know,” said Egg, “a considerable proportion of the Cellar Door wine sales don’t even seem to be their own vintages!” –This after we’d at last dragged it out of Greg and Duck that the white wines sold at the Cellar Door were supplied by a fellow vineyard owner whose products were bottled by Silvercreek. The grower in Q., one Kev Manning, didn’t want the hassle of running a cellar door and was very happy, it was also revealed, to let Silvercreek not only sell his stuff directly but do his marketing for him—such as it was. He grew mainly Chardonnay grapes and produced the wines labelled variously “Chardonnay”, “Blended Chardonnay” or “Sparkling White” that we’d seen on the shelves.

    Um, well no, Chardonnay wasn’t grown much around here but his place was “a bit further out” and the wines, according to Duck, were “okay but nothing much, only Chardonnay’s very big in Oz, ya see.” Um, well yeah, Alan (uncomfortably), the stuff Kev called “Shadow Road Chardonnay” was unoaked—yeah. Sold quite well locally: the bloke that took a lot of Silvercreek’s table wines, he had quite a thriving online business in SA, well he sold most of that for Kev. By the case—yeah.

    “So is Shadow Road anywhere near Shadow Glen?” Crumpy had asked—one of Silvercreek’s lines of table wines was sold as “Silvercreek Shadow Glen”. It was, according to Bean Minor, nothing that would even have crept into a regional appellation. True, the bottles did have dates on them. That was about all that could be said of it. It was a blended wine with a little Shiraz and a considerable amount of Duck’s Cabernet Sauvignon plus additional Merlot and Grenache from other growers. And had sold very well over the last few years. So it should, considering its usual price was around nine dollars a bottle from their friendly online outlet and eight at the Cellar Door. Mr Kev Manning’s Shadow Road Chardonnay was similarly priced.

    “Um, yeah,” had been Duck’s somewhat uncomfortable reply. “The Shadow Glen stuff comes from our vines just over the rise, um, way up the back of the property, and, um, ya head past there down Shadow Road to Ken’s place. Well it’s quite a way, really, and the terrain changes a fair bit. But his grapes seem to do all right.”

    Rather unfortunately Bean Minor had been present at this point and had put in: “Except that they don’t produce anything like a Pouilly-Fuissé or a Champagne.”

    —The two great Chardonnay grape wines of France: quite. Duck had merely smiled palely.

    Now Crumpy replied thoughtfully to Egg’s statement about the wines the Cellar Door was stocking: “No, that’s true, old man, but all those other dashed cellar door places we’ve looked at so far have had a hefty variety of stuff available: at least a dozen reds lined up for tasting, and usually several whites as well, and half of them have fortified stuff into the bargain!”

    “Yes, well Greg refuses to make anything miscalled ‘Port’ and good on him!” the Egg replied feelingly.

    “Well yes, but my point is the place probably needs the choices in order to drag the punters in.”

    “Yes, but how the Hell is Greg costing it, Crumpet?” he asked heavily.

    The Crumpet produced a now somewhat creased sheaf of computer printouts and smoothed them out carefully. He cleared his throat. Egg and I winced.

    “Apparently this Kev chappie has been paying an agreed price for the bottling for the last umpteen years. At least fifteen, as far as I can make out.”

    “You mean a fixed price, Crumpy?” asked Egg in a hollow voice.

    “Yes.”

    Our revered Hon. Chairperson, Junior Drones, was seen to take a deep breath. “Right. And the labels?”

    “Um, well we saw that, old man. They stick them on during the process.”

    “Uh—no: where are they printed and who pays for it?”

    Crumpy was looking blank so I said proudly: “I know!”

    “What? How?” asked Egg.

    Well really! Can’t one’s word be taken for a thing? I put my nose in the air. “Webber was telling me that his sister’s married to—“

     “No-ooo,” the Egg groaned, clutching his head.

    “Let her tell it, old man,” said the Crumpet, smiling.

    “Crumpy,” he said wildly, “this is going to turn out to be another of those Silvia-and-Judy-like, chummy little ad hoc arrangements with some favoured local! –Isn’t it?” he demanded grimly of me.

    “I am merely the reporter,” I returned loftily.

    Hastily Crumpy put in: “Then I think you’d better report, Mel, dear, before Egg completely loses his marbles and dashes off to put straws in his hair.”

    Okay, I would. “Webber’s sister and her husband are both web designers—they started off in art, you see, only then they realised that the money these days is in the online stuff and most of the SA websites are really terrible, they might look pretty but there’s a fashion for having stuff sliding up or down off the screen and it’s calculated to drive the viewer mad, and it’s all pretty show, nothing solid, so they set up on their own: they work from home. And his brother-in-law, I mean the husband’s, is a local printer, see? He was mostly doing menus and flyers and invitation cards for stuff like weddings and gallery showings and things, only you see, Venita and Shane, those are their names, they spotted that the labels could be a good niche market for him, if he undercut the biggies. So they redesigned Kev’s and Greg’s labels for them, and they both came on board, and now they’ve got a whole lot of other clients as well, and they do the printer’s website for him, it’s really lovely, and Silvercreek’s as well!”

    “And Shadow Road Vineyard’s, one presumes,” said Egg heavily.

    “Yes. Aren’t their labels pretty? The very pale blue with the big white cloud on it was Venita’s idea. Shane wanted to do it round the other way, but her design is miles more effective!” I beamed.

    “Lovely labels, rotten wine,” noted Crumpy. “Dad says it’s kind of a law: the fancier the label, the less likely the stuff is to be drinkable.”

    I thought of Château LeBec’s plain white labels with their simple black lettering, unchanged since time immemorial… “Oh. Yes.”

    Egg took a deep breath. “So presumably Kev Manning is responsible for paying this printer direct for his labels, while Greg just pays for Silvercreek’s. Is the printer in the accounts, Crumpy?”

    The Crumpet rustled papers. “Um… Yes. Well he’s written ‘Labels &c’, with an ampersand,” he elaborated unnecessarily, “under ‘Barry’s Barossa Printery’. Um, can’t tell about the amount, sorry, old man: well outside my experience.”

    “Sister Bean?” said Egg without hope.

    “I’ve seen Oncle Fernand’s accounts… Um, but actually—I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this,” I admitted. “That’s not how they do it.”

    “Go on, we won’t tell!” said Crumpy with a laugh.

    “Um, well it’s the old men who work in the cellars. I mean, they’ve been there all their lives and they’re not up to the heavy work any more, but mind you, Oncle Fernand says their palates are invaluable. Um, tho Bean maintains they’re actually pickled.”

    “So would I be, if I worked in a Burgundy cellar!” chortled the yeasty comestible.

    “No, Crumpy, he meant that their tongues have got so pickled in wine over the years that they can hardly taste a thing,” I explained.

    Oddly, at this point the Egg broke down in snorting hysterics.

    “Um, yes,” I said feebly. “Um, well you see, they have this special ink. It’s, um, I think the English word is indelillible.”

    “Indelible,” said Crumpy kindly.

    “Yes, that. And they write the year on the labels for each vintage when it’s bottled, you see. So Oncle Fernand doesn’t have to keep buying new… labels,” I ended faintly, as both of the chumps had now gone into wheezing paroxysms.

    “I thought it was really practical!” I protested.

    “Yes,” said the Egg limply, wiping his eyes, “but is it legal in France?”

    Er… “I don’t know.”

    “Not to worry, we never heard a thing,” said Crumpy comfortably. “Well, Greg’s figure doesn’t seem extortionate, Egg.”

    “Mm? Oh—no. And the annual charge to Kev for the bottling is there, is it?”

    “Yes: ‘K. Manning Wines Pty Ltd.’,” he read out.

    “Right. And a charge for marketing the stuff?”

    “Eh?”

    “For selling it at Silvercreek Cellar Door, Crumpy. Either a flat charge or a percentage off the sales. Both, preferably.”

    “Um… No. Nothing else billed under that name.”

    “Right. And are the sales of his wines listed there?”

    The pages flapped. “No, definitely not.”

    “So they just vanish from good old Brad’s storage area with no trace whatsoever?”

    “What about the till?” I croaked.

    “Good question. Well that or the credit card records: all the customers we saw seemed to be paying with the plastic, didn’t they?”

    “What there were of them,” noted the Crumpet, “but yes. Um… Hang on.” He rushed out.

    “They only seemed to have come for the lunches,” I noted.

    “Yes: Silvia’s quiches are undoubtedly a draw. Pity they can’t brainwash those who consume them into going over to the bar and buying cases of wine, eh?”

    “Yes,” I agreed. “And the free wine with the lunches didn’t seem to work at all, did it?”

    “No, tho the blighters certainly lapped it up!” the Egg replied feelingly.

    They certainly had. A table for two—they had all turned up in twos, clearly retired couples with time on their hands and, one deduced, enough nous to spot an underpriced delicious lunch when they saw it—as I say, a table for two rated not two glasses of wine but a whole bottle. This had been intended to be the remainder from a bottle they'd earlier tasted—but actually none of them had tasted. No, well, Silvia had explained, it seemed mean not to offer them a bottle… (At which point I hadn’t dared to glance at the Egg.)

    During the time we’d been there, which covered the entire Australian lunch period, there had been a total of twelve lunch customers (six couples, yes). Not too bad, according to Silvia, considering that they only started serving lunches on weekdays at the beginning of December. Their summer season, that was, lunches six days a week, excluding Mondays, lasted from December to the end of March. In October and November and April and May they only did lunches in the weekends and public holidays. The restaurant was closed from June to September, tho the Cellar Door was open for tastings and wine sales.

    Um, yes. What I started to say was, because they were all couples, that would only have been six wine sales anyway, say one case each, but that hadn’t happened. Tho on their way out some of them had stopped to taste, true. I had been behind the counter at that point and the verdicts, always from the distaff side, had been, more or less: “Very nice… Not today, I don’t think, dear.”

    Crumpy returned, panting slightly, waving yet more sheets of paper. Okay, the credit card records.

    … “Help,” uttered the Egg at last. “I’d say this lot needs a forensic accountant!”

    “Well I can sort it out in categories, old man,” the Crumpet offered, “but just looking at it cold it’s impossible to see whether or if (a) the amounts for Kev Manning’s wines ever got to him or (b) Greg ever charged any sort of commission for selling it.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed numbly. “Crumpy, there must be more than this!”

    “Only totals on the sheets that the accountant seems to have approved, old man.”

    “Look, when Dad’s accountant… “ He broke off. “Um, actually I think that might have been the time he was late with his returns and the taxman was getting antsy… Anyway, it’s Wellington and Freebody. They sent a small team: a young chap and a girl who checked things like cheque stubs and credit card statements against the bank statements, and Freebody Junior in person, who had to okay the lot. Down to the petty cash.”

    Crumpy pulled his ear thoughtfully. “Mm. Maybe accountants take more on trust, here.”

    “They must do,” he said dazedly. “Or Greg’s must.”

    We looked weakly at one another.

    “He isn’t his brother-in-law or something, is he?” I said in a hollow voice.

    They winced.

    “Only too likely,” the Crumpet conceded.

    Help.

    “Well let’s look at the final tax returns,” the Egg decided.

    Silently the Crumpet produced them, neatly bound by the accountant. Egg opened them…

    “Jesus,” he said at last. “It’s… formulaic!”

    “Yes. Style the Aussie taxman requires, Egg.”

    “But…” He took a deep breath. “Okay, the Australian taxman isn’t going to worry about the Cellar Door’s accounts, but Greg damn well should be! For one thing, how the Hell is he paying Manning for those wines they sell?”

    “Yes,” I chimed in, “and for another, that was twelve people they had in for lunch today,” I pointed out, “and they each got a quarter of a big quiche, so that was, um, hang on…”

     “Equiv. three whole quiches, Mel,” said Crumpy kindly.

    “Thanks, Crumpy. Three whole quiches each taking a minimum of six eggs, and Silvia said it was a slow day, didn’t she? I mean, that’d be a minimum for a day. How many for their six-day week?”

    Crumpy had worked it out before I’d even finished speaking. “Minimum a hundred and eight eggs, old thing: 9 doz.”

    I nodded hard. “Nine dozen, then. Is it possible that Judy’s brother-in-law’s chooks can produce a min. of nine dozen eggs a week?”

    “That’s some garden hen run,” the Egg acknowledged in a shaken voice. “They must have some sort of commercial supplier, surely!”

    Crumpy made a face. “Possibly that’s it, old thing. I mean, this brother-in-law is running a business and the restaurant gets its hen berries sort of sub rosa, as it were.”

    “Paid for how, tho?” demanded the Egg.

    “Jesus, I don’t know, Egg! Er—think we might have to get Sister Bean in under cover, as it were. Keep your eyes and ears open, old thing, as you buckle on a flowery apron and do your best to charm the punters into paying for the bally wine.”

    Who, me?

    Oh, dear, they were agreeing firmly between themselves that that would be the go. And I’d thought I’d just have to wear the apron, carry things, and look pretty!

    Well the mystery of Mr Manning’s remuneration for his wines was solved, more or less, by the efficient Vern Peters, down at the Dispatch Office at the winery. “Here ya go,” he said, handing a neat folder of sums to Crumpy. “We just add up the amount of his stuff sold at the end of the financial year and pay him online, straight into his bank account. There wouldn’t be anything in the monthly accounts, no.”

    Crumpy sighed. “It’ll be included in the lump sum of payments to outside wine suppliers, then. Even tho Silvercreek doesn’t in fact use his wines.”

    “That’d be it,” Vern agreed placidly.

    “He’s paid once a year?” said Egg weakly. “But how on earth does he manage in between times with no regular income?”

    “Yeah—no, he makes most of his dough from the wholesaler’s online sales, Alan: that bloke pays him on delivery, ya see, same as us. Then it’s up to him to sell the stuff: suits ole Kev, he doesn’t get the hassle.”

    I avoided the lads’ eyes at this point: not getting hassles seemed to be Mr Manning’s major policy.

    Well as far I was concerned that settled that and we could retreat happily from Vern’s domain, tho as he seemed keen to explain more stuff, I let him take my elbow and lead me through to “Dispatch” proper, where several huge, grinning chaps were quite glad to see me, really, and happily showed off their muscle power as they lifted cases of wine into lorries...

    But as we walked slowly back to the house in the heat, both Egg and Crumpy were very thoughtful.

    Finally Egg cleared his throat uneasily and said: “Crumpy, old man, are you thinking what I’m thinking?

    “Yes. VAT,” he said, swallowing.

    “Well, yes! Tho they call it something else here. G—uh—”

    “GST,” the Crumpet supplied. “Same thing, but they don’t have a VAT man, their system relies on the business reporting in its annual accounts goods bought and the amount of GST paid on them, and goods sold and the amount of GST charged to the customer. Then the GST outgoings are discounted against tax due—more or less.”

    “Yes—in other words,” said Egg, “you don’t end up paying additional tax on stuff you’ve already paid the VAT on.”

    “Right,” said Crumpy on an uneasy note.

    “Um, I don’t get it. What’s the matter?” I asked.

    Crumpy looked at Egg.

    He removed his straw cowboy hat and ran his hand through his hair. “Well,” he said with a sigh, replacing the hat, “Kev Manning’s dough for his wine sold has gone through on Greg’s books as just another outgoing payment to a wine supplier.”

    “Well I suppose in a way it is.”

    “No,” said the Crumpet heavily. “Think about it, Mel.”

    Er…

    “Look,” said Egg, “suppose Duck buys in a tanker-load of indifferent Merlot to mix into his bloody Silvercreek Shadow Glen. That’s a normal payment to a supplier who charges the usual amount of VAT—GST. Then that GST counts as an allowable discount on Greg’s tax return, because tax has already been paid on it.”

    “Um, ye-es…”

    “But Kev Manning hasn’t sold anything to Greg and there’s no VAT involved!”

    “GST,” murmured Crumpy.

    “Uh—yeah, GST. Get it, Mel?”

    “No,” I admitted.

    “The taxman— Damn it. Can you explain it in simple terms, Crumpy, old thing?”

    Obligingly the Crumpet produced: “Say the total amount of Greg’s payments to suppliers is a hundred dollars, Mel: ten to each supplier. –I know it’d be miles more than that, but as a for instance, okay? –Right. Well approx. ten percent of that, ten dollars, would have been the VAT the suppliers had to charge him: got that?”

    “Yes. –You said VAT again.”

    “Never mind, it’s the same principle, so let’s call it that. Now, the taxman looks at Greg’s tax return and says Very good, that’s ten dollars you should be claiming in your column for VAT already paid, so where is it? And he has a look at that column and it isn’t ten dollars, it’s only nine. Because one of those ten so-called suppliers was Kev Manning, and as he wasn’t really a supplier at all—he wasn’t selling Greg his wine—he of course didn’t charge any VAT.”

    “Ye-es…”

    “I think you’ve lost her, old chum,” sighed the Egg.

    “No he hasn’t! You mean Mr Manning could be in trouble for not charging VAT!”

    “No!” cried the Crumpet. “He’s not a supplier, Mel! Greg could be in trouble for claiming he was and apparently not paying VAT on a purchase, and if the taxman assumes it’s some sort of fiddle—which he would, their minds work that way—it could take years to sort it out! And they’d probably both be up for fines anyway, for improper accounting.”

    “Ooh, help.”

    “Quite,” they agreed grimly.

    We walked on in the heat in silence…

    “I presume,” said the Egg tightly, “that it’s only because they’re both such small fry in comparison to the huge major Aussie wine businesses that no-one’s bothered about the anomaly up till now.”

    “Must be,” Crumpy agreed in a hollow voice.

    Ooh, help.

    The house was in sight when Egg concluded bleakly: “I’ll have to break it to Greg… Pretty much of a tangled web, isn’t it?”

    “Er—yes, but he wasn’t practising to deceive, old man,” Crumpy pointed out feebly.

    “No, but that doesn’t make it much better, does it?”

    Not really, no. Help.

    … “Jesus,” muttered Greg. “And ole Dave Bergen never spotted it?”

    This gent, it had been revealed, was his accountant. Semi-retired, unquote. These days he only did a few local businesses—well theirs, a hairdresser’s, and ole Kev’s stuff, really. And Greg supposed, glumly, that the business had expanded a lot since he’d first started going to him… Uh, yes: right at the beginning, that was right, Alan.

    Egg and Crumpy having agreed that Mr Bergen must not have spotted it, no, Greg thought it over and then noted: “Well he did say that I better get the payment out to Kev pronto before the end of the financial year, otherwise his wine sales’d be on me books as income, but… Shit. I s’pose he never looked. Well he did always check the monthly amounts of GST… At least, he used to.” He made a face. “Getting past it, I s’pose. Well Hell! Do ya reckon I oughta tell the ATO about this?”

    The ATO, we’d now gathered, was the Aussie taxman. Egg and Crumpy changed uneasy glances and the former admitted: “Probably best to let sleeping dogs lie, if they haven’t picked it up by now.”

    “Mm,” Crumpy agreed. “Just change your system of accounting for this year.”

    “Yeah. Uh—but how? I mean, we don’t buy his wines… I can’t see where to even enter it up!”

    “No,” I agreed. “I mean, if it was a proper restaurant—” I broke off hurriedly.

    But Greg didn’t seem to take offence. “What, Mel?”

    “Um, l was thinking of Oncle Albert’s resto—the Restaurant LeBec.”

    “In Paris, yeah,” he nodded.

    “Yes. He buys in the wine, you see,” I explained, omitting all ref. to those sub rosa cases of Château LeBec from Oncle Patrice, “and then he sells it to the customers, and the difference in the amounts is his profit.”

    “Yeah, but I don’t wanna buy ole Kev’s stuff, love! I’d have it on me hands for God knows how long, and it’s shit!”

    Well I wouldn’t have gone that far. The “Shadow Road Sparkling Brut” was quite drinkable, really. Lots of bubbles—fun, if really chilled. Me and Judy had had some in the Silvercreek Cellar Door’s kitchen that morning, actually, because I’d started helping out, and a customer had wanted one opened to taste but hadn’t drunk much. Um, yes.

    “No, I see,” I agreed. “I just thought it’d be a simple way of doing it.”

    “What agreement do you have with Mr Manning, Greg?” asked Egg.

    “Just that we’d stock it for him, really.”

    “Mm… That’d work. Rather like a small art gallery, selling stuff on commission.”

    “Cripes, I don’t charge the ole joker a commission, Alan!”

    “But— Do you have a copy of the agreement?” our fearless leader asked on a weak note.

    “Eh? Nah, we just shook hands on it, mate!”

    Vern Peters had been roped into this discussion, possibly because he was the only one of Greg’s staff who appeared to have any commercial acumen at all, as Crumpy had noted heavily. Now he put in: “Thing is, the old joker’s in ’is seventies and his son, Matt, he’s a paraplegic: copped one in the spine in flamin’ Afghanistan, poor bastard.”

    “Oh dear! That’s terrible!” I cried. “No wonder the poor old man doesn’t want any hassles!”

    “No, of course,” agreed Crumpy, looking horrified.

    “It’s a shocking thing,” said the Egg, “and one does understand you want to spare Mr Manning as much as possible, Greg, but the thing is, if you don’t charge for selling his wines, the bloody taxman could claim you’re making him a gift.”

    It was Crumpy who’d initially come up with that one: he looked glum and added: “Yes. That or claim you’re supplying a service, and GST would apply: Goods and Services Tax, isn’t it?”

    “He’s not making anything out of it, tho,” Vern objected.

    “No,” the Crumpet agreed, “tho if they really wanted to make a meal of you they could claim that his wines are an extra draw, helping to bring in more custom, so he’s supplying a service to you—the wrangles could go on forever. But I don’t think that’s likely: you’re not big enough to make it worth their while.”

    “Well, uh,” fumbled poor Greg, “could we have a written agreement that I just stock his wines but don’t charge him?”

    “You could, and the agreement as it stood would be legally binding, but that sort of thing won’t stop a taxman with the light of revenue in his eye,” noted Crumpy sourly. “A pal of Dad’s—well, never mind. He paid up, sold out and went off Spain in the end: said it wasn’t worth it, it was making his life a misery.”

    “So I’ve gotta charge old Kev for selling his wines that I don’t wanna charge him for, just to keep the bloody ATO happy?”

    “It’d be better than getting in their bad books, Greg,” ventured Vern. “You could make it a commission, like Alan was saying. Ten cents a bottle or somethink.”

    “It’s not worth more,” he admitted. “But think of the extra paperwork, for God’s sake!”

    “Your accounting system should be able to work it out, easily,” noted the Crumpet optimistically.

    Greg sighed heavily. “You better take a look at it, Crumpy. Personally, I wouldn’t say there’s anything about it that’s easy. Added to which it depends on the returns from the till, doesn’t it? And that’s Silvia and Judy, and young Jamie during the uni holidays. Plus anybody else they can dig up that can hit the right keys to ring up a sale, and write up the slip properly. They had one nit that’d just write ‘1 bottle’.” He shrugged heavily.

    “Um, the sales aren’t really very heavy, are they?” I ventured. “I was comparing them with an average day at the Resto LeBec… Well, I’ve done those sales for Oncle Albert, and they weren’t hard to sort out. And of course they sell drinks at the bar as well, I mean not just wine, it’s spirits and coffee and sirops as well, and then in the afternoon they get people wanting a croque’ or un sandwich…” I ran down. “Um, sorry,” I muttered.

    “Yeah well, ya better come and work for us permanent, then, Mel,” poor Greg said heavily.

    Cautiously I replied: “I could do it for as long as my working visa lets me.”

    “Yeah. Right.”

    “Um, I’d say you got no choice, mate,” said Vern awkwardly.

    The vineyard owner sighed. “No. Why the Hell Harrison couldn’t have chosen— Oh, well, ya can’t force kids into a family business, it never works.”

    “I’m pretty sure I can sort out your computer for you, Greg,” said Crumpy.

    “Mm. And we’ll try to work out something a bit more efficient with the sales from the Cellar Door,” said Egg kindly.

    Greg winced. “You can try, mate. Silvia’s been there for ten years now, and the only thing that’s changed is Judy’s got even more mates on side to supply God-knows-what for God-knows-what. Last financial year we were short on the returns to old Kev, so they must of given some of his away, as well!”

    “Right,” Vern agreed sourly.

    We gulped.

    “Yeah,” said Greg drily. “Well don’t think I’m not grateful, Alan, I am: bloody grateful: you and Crumpy have done a great job. Could of been this year the ATO decided to take a hard look at me returns, eh? Think I better change me accountant, for a start. But—well, I better start getting used to seeing the Cellar Door as a tax loss, I s’pose.”

    “A marketing expense,” said Crumpy firmly. “Ask your new accountant about that, Greg.”

    “Sure, and he’ll be able to write the whole thing off as advertising and I’ll be looking pretty,” Mr Lewisham returned sardonically.

    “I’m sure a decent accountant could do something along those lines,” said the Crumpet firmly. “One of Dad’s pals owns a restaurant that he writes off as a tax loss. –Come on, chaps: the sun must be over the yardarm: drown our sorrows?”

    More or less managing to ignore Vern’s mutter of “It’d take a barrel or two for that, mate,” we proceeded to do just that.

    … Mmm, that very chilled Shadow Road Sparkling Brut really was not totally bad! Bubbles! …Hic!

    Ooh, pardon!

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendsdownunder-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/05/swings-and-roundabouts.html