Ice Cold In Canberra

21

Ice Cold In Canberra

June. The weather: freezing. The entertainment: more of the same. John and me: torrid.

    Well one might have said that that last made up for everything. Which it very nearly did.

    But unfortunately, for large stretches of the day John had to be at work. And it might be remembered—tho one would be utterly forgiven for forgetting—that the putrid Melissa Canning-Foulkes was currently infesting Australia’s federal capital. (Unfortunate encounter at Sydney airport when returning from blissful Brisbane visit—no? Well anyway, she was.) She and the unknown but deeply pitied “Rufus.” Which hitherto one had sort of thought was a name used for large dogs in Britain. Of the bony and hairy and/or droopy and floppy-eared varieties?

    “Well yes, darling!” my beloved agreed, those long blue eyes sparkling like anything. “But it can be a person’s name, too. In fact there’s a young chap at the Commish. right now who labours under that moniker. Rufus Bellingham. No notion what he does: nothing very much, I rather think. Sort of chap that fills in at dinner parties when the hostess is desperate to balance her table. –Not really a joke, Mel,” he ended uncertainly, as I went into a giggling fit.

    “No!” I gasped at last, wiping my eyes. “That’s Melissa Canning-Foulkes’s husband! –Melissa Bellingham now, presumably. Totally putrid bimbo from School, John. Um… It was the last Merrifield Guests’ Day, that’s right! She was the female who tried to flirt with you in the Seniors' Over-Scented Battleground while you were waiting for me!”

    “Er… I remember the day: you and Alysse showed me round. You pinned the red Scottie dog brooch I gave you to la robe BCBG de Grannie!” he said with a laugh.

    Good: all vestiges of memory of the Canning-Foulkes female would seem to have been obliterated—though one always has to bear in mind with Col. J. Raice that he’s a Machiavel when it comes to managing men. And women.

    “Tho I don’t see why the hilarity, Mel,” he added.

    “Well the thing is, we bumped into her at Sydney airport on our way back from our trip to Brisbane and the Gold Coast. We were just in our holiday gear, of course, and she was frightfully patronising, revealed that Rufus was with the High Commish., and couldn’t imagine what I was doing out here. –Read, how on earth I managed to afford it: it was no secret that I was always flat broke at School. In fact she was one of the ones that paid over the odds for me to do her French prep.”

    “I see,” he said on a grim note.

    I hugged his arm. “Dad’s still sending us all regular conscience money, since you tore that strip off.”

    “Glad to hear it,” he replied grimly. “He most certainly owes it to you.”

    “Yes, that’s what Bean and I thought, so we decided not to remind him that we’re grown up now.”

    That long mouth of his was seen to tighten. “Good.”

    “So what’s this famous Rufus actually like, John?” I asked eagerly.

    Well I might have known he wouldn’t be able to describe him: men never can.

    “Ah… Thought I said, darling? Sort of chap that fills in at dinner parties. Well, uh, don’t have much to do with him, y’know.”

    “Well what does he look like?”

    “Ah… Not very tall. Average, really. Um, brown hair, was it? Think so.”

    For Heaven’s sake! “Is he good-looking?” I demanded rather tensely.

    “Wouldn’t say that. Nothing to write home about.”

    “Is that it?”

    “Well like I say, I hardly know him. Bit negligible, I suppose.”

    Golly. I goggled at him. “He must have something, or Melissa wouldn’t have taken up with him! Um, connections? –Bellingham?” I prompted.

    “Doesn’t ring any—hah, hah—bells,” he replied with a silly grin.

    “Maybe he’s somebody’s cousin… Or maybe his dad’s something in the City and he’s an only child! –I know: I’ll ask Crumpy to ask his dad!”

    “You could ask this Melissa, couldn’t you? You’re bound to run into her sooner or later,” the male idiot offered helpfully.

    “John Raice!”

    “What?” he fumbled.

    “What a foul thing to say! And it started off as such a lovely evening, too!”

    “It could get better,” he said on a sly note.

    I ignored that superbly, and got up. “I was going to make you a nice G&T, but you don’t deserve one. I shall make myself a Kir Royale Lewisham instead!”

    “A—a what?” he groped.

    “Watch and learn.” I marched out to the kitchen—mercifully separate from the sitting-dining area, the apartment block was definitely not new—and fetched the ingredients.

    Poor John then watched numbly as I proceeded to pour Ribena into a tall glass and fill it up with sparkling Shadow Road Vineyard Melisande 2022.

    “My God,” he uttered.

    “Pooh!” I drank thirstily. “Aah! Pas terrible. –Not bad at all,” I translated kindly. “Like some?”

    “No, thank you very much! –If I hadn’t seen it I would never have believed it, tho I do know your ancestors on the side over the Channel from Us invented such insane tipples as Pernod, orgeat au lait—had a girlfriend once who favoured that,” he revealed with a shudder—“and a dark green oily-looking substance, terrifically sweet and terrifically peppermint-flavoured. –Not apocryphal,” he ended, shutting his eyes.

    “I know. Lots of people from the quartier order it at the Resto LeBec. Sirop de menthe.”

    “Neat?”

    “With some water. It’s a sirop, one wouldn’t drink it neat.”

    “Just don’t. –Mel, you can’t be serious!” he protested as I made myself a second Kir Royale Lewisham. In fact, come to think of it, a Kir Royale Lewisham-Manning.

    “Of course I am.”

    He staggered to his feet. “I need a whisky!”

    “Chacun à son goût,” I retorted with relish.

    Well two whiskies and another Kir R. L.-M. later the subject of Melissa and her spouse had rather been lost sight of, as had almost everything else including dinner…

    Mercifully. Because it wasn’t long at all before I encountered the female.

    Nice Bettina Chernovsky and I were trying on hats. Well it wasn’t a very good hat shop, but it was all there was. And trying on hats is super fun! Provided that one is suitably dressed for the exercise, which of course one was. Tho le manteau BCBG de Grannie had not yet arrived from France. However, one coped. Luckily Bettina has a great sense of humour and went into a giggling fit when I said as much. Her Ladyship to the life! Yes well, we aim to please.

    “Mel? Is that you?” gasped a voice.

    Oh, no. I turned reluctantly. “Hullo, Melissa.”

    “It is you!” she gasped, looking from me to Bettina and turning an unlovely sort of puce shade. “What on earth are you doing in Canberra?”

    Looking at hats? But I refrained.

    “Oh well, John’s at the High Commish.,” I said on an airy note.

    “What? John Who?”

    “John Raice, of course,” I said as the puce changed to a sort of mottled purple. “Colonel Raice.”

    “Cuh-Colonel Raice?” she stuttered.

    “Of course. Um… Didn’t you meet him, once?” I asked, my brow wrinkling. “Our last year at School, it would have been. He came to Guests’ Day. Of course I was just a kid, then!” I ended with an airy laugh.

    “Yuh— Buh—” Again looking from me to Bettina with a stunned expresh.

    “He’s doing some daft sort of military attaché thing: just filling in for a chap who let them down, kind of thing.”

    “Yuh—uh—Rufus mentioned he was here, yes…”

    I judged it was time to strike. “So your husband is still with the Commish.? I thought he might have moved on: I don’t think you were at the dinner the other day, were you?” –Airily.

    “I— No. You mean the High Commissioner’s dinner?”

    “Of course. Bettina was there too, weren’t you? –Oh: I’m sorry: have you two met? Bettina Chernovsky, Melissa Canning-Foulkes—sorry, Canning-Foulkes that was; what is your married name, Melissa?”

    “Bellingham,” she said numbly. “How do you do, Mrs Chernovsky?”

    Bettina responded charmingly, with the addendum that she had no idea that Mel knew anyone here. And Melissa and her husband just must come to dinner next time she and Lionel had Mel and John!

    Which just about finished Melissa off, but she managed to gasp that they would love to!

    Yes, well. Lionel Chernovsky, bounder tho he undoubtedly was, was far, far above a mere Rufus Bellingham in the diplomatic pecking order, being something very high up at the American Embassy: First Secretary or some such title.

    … “Nice day shopping with Bettina?” my beloved asked kindly that evening.

    “Spiffing!” I replied with glee.

    “Oh? Found a nice hat, then, did you darling?”

    “No.”

    “Er…”

    “What I did find was Melissa Canning-Foulkes that was, with her nose totally out of joint on discovering me not only with Bettina at that precise moment, but also here in Canberra with you! And to set the seal on a perfect day, Bettina was genuinely kind to her!” And I collapsed in giggles.

    “Got it,” he said, grinning. “The Melissa female wouldn’t have been able to dismiss her as just another spiteful diplomatic wife.”

    “Exactly!”

    “And did she look daggers at your outfit, sweetheart?”

    “Yes: her eyes were just about bolting out of her head!”

    “That shopping trip to Sydney wasn’t wasted, then,” he said on a dry note.

    “No, quite. And Oncle Albert’s emailed me to say he knows someone in diplomatic circles in Paris who owes him a favour,”—John duly cringed and I admitted: “Yes, it does make one quail—so he’s going to send my decent clothes over in the diplomatic bag!”

    “Er… ours or theirs, Mel?”

    “He didn’t say. Does it matter?”

    “Probably not. Well could mean we owe the French a favour, y’see, but we are pals with them at the moment. Given that they both loathe our government and consider its last lot of antics pathetic, and still consider bloody Brexit a ludicrous mistake.”

    “Oh,” I said numbly.

    He raised his eyebrows at me. “Wheels within wheels. That’s the bloody diplomatic life for you.”

    “Ugh. I’m sorry, John. The thing is, Oncle Albert wanted to save money by not having to post—”

   “I—know!” he gasped, going off in a roar of laughter.

    Phew! At least he wasn’t cross about it. But what a horrid object lesson. Okay, Mélisande, tread very carefully in future, or at least as long as these dashed postings last, and look well before leaping or encouraging any connections to do likewise.

    Um, which reminded me…

    “Um, it is okay if the boys come over for their mid-year break, is it?”

    “Mm? Of course! Why wouldn’t it be?”

    “Um, well, just so long as there’s no diplomatic objection to them.”

    “Uh—no. Trelawney’s father’s with the FCO, isn’t he? Hasn’t blotted his copybook, or such-like?”

    “No, he isn’t the sort to make any sort of boo-boo. His last posting was to Brazil, but I think Teddy said they’re back in Britain for a bit. That’s right: his mother complained about the weather in Brazil being too hot but last time he rang them she complained about the London weather being too cold. –They knew he was out here but they didn’t send him anything for Christmas, would you believe?”

    He made a face.  “On the whole, yes.”

    “Yes. Never mind, he’s got us, now!”

    “Us, who, Mel?” he asked, trying not to laugh.

    “Um, well I meant you and me and Bean and Bean Minor, actually. Though if he needed help any of the Junior Drones would rally round, too, of course.”

    “Yes, of course. Um… how is the lad off financially?”

    “Okay, I think. His father’s paying his university fees, but on condition he pays him back—I think I might have told you.”

    “Mm. Not that. Everyday expenses, darling.”

    “Um, he’s staying with Greg, of course… I did ask Bean Minor but he got rather huffy and said they were both perfectly okay and to stop fussing like a mother hen. –Is it an English saying?”

    “What? Oh—yes. Standard commonplace in such circs.” He rubbed his chin. “I think I’d better have a word—with the pair of them, mm? Then it won’t be too obvious.”

    “Really? That’d be lovely! Thank you, John!”

    He looked wry. “You only had to ask, you cuckoo. –I say, am I dreaming or can I smell something delicious cooking?”

    Well on my track record thus far he might well have been dreaming, yes. But I replied proudly: “Yes! Guess what, Bettina took me to a shop that sells slow cookers! Just like the one we bought for the cottage! So I’ve made fake boeuf Bourguignonne. With an Aussie Pinot noir—don’t worry, it’s a good one, Bettina said Lionel’s bought a couple of cases of it. It smells okay, doesn’t it? Well I didn’t do all the pre-browning stuff, I was afraid I might burn it, so I just put it all in the pot and turned it on.”

    “That’s certainly what we did at the cottage!” he replied with a laugh. “Jolly good! Ready, is it?”

    “I think it must be, by now. Shall we have a red with it?”

    “Absolutely! Silvercreek Shiraz 2020, I think.”

    Okay, why not? He’d bought a couple of cases of it—Greg had tried to stop him paying, of course, but John had won. Of course.

    I had actually managed to boil some potatoes without burning them, so John efficiently mashed them. With a fork. Help. I had a go but it obviously takes strength in the wrists, which I haven’t got.

    “You can be the official potato masher from now on.”

    “Yes, sir!” he replied saluting.

    “Hah, hah. Um, there’s salad to follow, and some cheese. It looks all right: Suzanne Pouligny put me onto the right shop.”

    “Good show!” And we sat down and he poured the wine, what time I dished up.

    “Taste the boeuf Bourguignonne,” I prompted anxiously.

    He tasted it, pronounced it excellent, and raised his glass. “To us, and slow cookers!”

    “Abso-bally-lutely! On both sides of the world!” I agreed fervently. “Us and slow cookers!”

    … Which did not mean, John Raice, that I was going to invite Melissa and Rufus Bellingham to dinner and serve them something from our slow cooker! I informed him quite a lot later that night.

    “Oh. I was looking forward to it,” he said, smothering a yawn.

    “You were not!”

    “Well—take them out to a restaurant, Mel?”

    I peered at him. “Are you serious?”

    “Mm. ’Course,” he murmured, yawning again.

    I sighed. “Okay. Go to sleep.” –Not little-womanly concern, no. In the hope that he’d have forgotten all about it on the morrow.

    … He hadn’t. Bother. Like the dashed elephant. As if the social round in Canberra wasn’t quite bad enough!

    Which really set the seal on June with John in Australia’s federal capital. Because it did not get better, slow cooker dinners and what came after them apart.

July. The weather: freezing. The entertainment: winter sports! The mountains! Oh, God.

    “Teddy, surely you don’t want to hurl yourself down a dashed precipitous mountain slope?” I croaked, hoping to find an ally.

    “Of course I do!” Trelawney replied in astonishment. “I’ve only been skiing once: that was when Sar’t Treloar from School took a whole bunch of us that weren’t going home for the hols. to Austria. It was great fun!”

    Great fun. I essayed a smile, and failed. “I see.”

    “You should try it! You’d enjoy it!” the misguided youth urged.

    “No. I loathe heights. And I’ve got no sense of balance.”

    “Um, well, skating?”

    I took a very deep breath. “Balancing on excruciatingly narrow blades on ice? Trelawney, read my lips. No sense of balance. B,A,L—”

    “I get it,” he conceded. “Um, you could try sledding. Um, on a gentle slope.”

    I just looked at him.

    “You’ll be bored,” he warned.

    Maybe, but would this be essentially different from being bored in Canberra?

    I looked down my nose at him—fortunately the creature was sitting down at the time. “I shall bring a great stack of lovely French magazines that Suzanne Pouligny from the Embassy has passed on to me. Vogue, Elle, Marie-Claire, et tout et tout.”

    “What a waste of a holiday!”

    Something like that. Likewise the rum toddies I fully intended to ingest while reading them in front of a roaring fire.

    —We were going with a group arranged by the amiable Benny. That was, him and his pal Will, plus our lot. The alpine accommodation in Q. being the property of the High Commissioner or rather, one imagines, of His Britannic Majesty’s Government. Available because Sir and Lady were taking off for a little break at Club Méd. Nouvelle Calédonie, how nice for them. True, Suzanne, her husband, and his boss plus spouse were going them one better: Club Méd. Tahiti. French two, Brits one!

    Oh dear. When we got to the spot we found it was quite a little conurbation, so to speak. Full of persons from Canberra. The lads of course were happily indifferent to this, and eagerly headed out to the slopes.

    John was also eager, but urged me to come along, just to watch.

    Yes well. I got as far as the foot of the terrifying thing that sailed through the air with the greatest of ease.

    “I’m not going on that! Why didn’t you say?” I gasped, as ski-laden persons hopped insouciantly onto it and were borne aloft to their doom.

    “Eh?”

    “John, it’s high! –Up in the air! I just can’t!”

    His face fell. “Oh, Lor’. Didn’t think. Sorry, darling. Well, uh—tell you what, if you come over here,”—leading me off—“you can meet us when we come down.”

    Come down that? I gaped at it.

    “Just stand over here,” the deluded maniac went on happily, “and you’ll have a splendid view.”

    Of idiots immolating themselves? Ouch! –As one fell over in a tangle of skis.

    “Oops!” he was saying. “No, he’s all right!”

    —And poles, that’s the other things’ stupid name. Poles.

    “I’ll watch you come down once, to make sure you’re okay, but my feet are already freezing. After that I shall head to that nice big lounge bar with the huge open fire.”

    “Er—very well, darling.” With that he awarded me a kiss on the cheek and hurried off to immolate himself.

    … WHOOSH! Sparks flying—no, um, snow. Bean pulled up with a flourish, grinning. “How’s that?” he panted.

    “Very good, Bean. You’re still alive,” I responded bitterly.

    “Pooh! This is nothing to the runs we did with Oncle Fernand and Henri de Montauban!”

    I took a deep breath. “Good. Where are the others? Or have they killed themselves halfway down?”

    “Don’t be ridiculous. –Look, here they come!”

    … WHOOSH! And WHOOSH! Benny and Will. Grinning like apes. Still alive, yes. Not that I cared.

    … WHOOSH! And WHOOSH! Bean Minor and Trelawney, thank God!

    “I say!” panted the latter. “That was something like! We were only on the nursery slopes with Sar’t Treloar!”

    What? I rounded on my siblings. ”Why did you two idiots let him come down this horrible big mountain that’s too hard for him?” I screamed.

    “It’s not too hard for me, Mel!” he beamed.

    “Shut up, you stupid boy, you could have been killed! –Bean Minor, you must have known he’d never come down anything this steep before!”

    “Pooh. Don’t fuss, he’s perfectly all right.”

    “He could have been killed. You could both have been killed!”

    “Rats. Stop fussing, Mel,” the younger legume ordered crossly. “Anyway, Trelawney’s not your responsibility.”

    What? Of course he was, deluded infant! “Bean Minor, he came out here with us: of course he is! Imagine having to tell his parents he’d immolated himself on a horrible Australian mountain!”

    “Well he didn’t. Shut up, Mel, you’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

    “And where’s John?” I wailed, looking madly round for him. “You’ve lost him, you pack of idiots, what’s happened to him?” I wailed.

    “Stop it, Mel!” cried the Bean. “He was helping a lady with her skis, that’s all.”

    Benny cleared his throat. “Um, predatory hag from the Canadian High Commish., actually, but yes,” he admitted on a sheepish note. “Don’t worry, old thing: he does know what she is. Well all Canberra does,” he added fairly.

    I took a deep breath. “We’ll just wait, then, shall we?”

    We waited. We saw.

    … WHOOSH! John pulled up with a flourish, grinning. “Not bad!” he panted.

    … WHOOSH! Two seconds later a creature welded into the smartest of ladies’ ski wear pulled up beside him. “Johnny, darling! You awful liar! Head-start or not, you beat me hands-down! I’ll know, next time.”

    “I say, John, you didn’t give Charlotte a head-start, did you?” said Benny quickly. “She skied for her university in her time, y’know.”

    Good old Will picked up his cue. “Yes, and they say she had a try-out for the Canadian Olympic team, too.”

    “Well he beat her, didn’t he?” said the Bean, loyal but not quite getting the point. “Must have been all that exercise you had for six months or so, John.”

    “Yes,” I agreed: “running round the estate every morning. Not to mention those exercise machines in the cellar!”

    The Charlotte creature by this time had developed what looked suspiciously like a pout. “Oh? What estate was that, Johnny? You never mentioned it to me!”

    “No well, told Mel, of course. Think she must have told the boys. Just a dump in the country.”

    I was suddenly inspired. “Yes. You didn’t think it was Grandfather’s estate, did you?” I said with a light laugh.

    “What?” she fumbled.

    Blessedly, Bean Minor picked up the cue; in fact his eyes positively sparkled, as he said casually: “Chypsley. Grandfather’s Lord Hubbel—that’s Mum’s side, of course.”

    “Good Lord!” cried Benny. “She must be Lady Patrizia Fullarton-Browne, then!”

    “Of course,” the minor legume replied, superbly off-hand. “Mind you, we tend not to mention her, y’know. Frightful pest. And Grannie’s frightfully fed up with her. Won’t have her at the château, these days.”

    Er—more like, Mum wouldn’t set foot there unless dragged by the hair, kind of thing.

    But I added: “Well it’s all that ghastly telly publicity, not to mention slathering those books of hers with her dashed title. I mean: ‘By Lady Patrizia Fullarton-Browne’? Please!”

    “Yes well, Patrizia never was famed for her taste, darling,” John reminded me, in what sounded suspiciously like an upper-class English drawl. Goodness, so the fearsome Charlotte, near-Olympian lady skier or not, didn’t actually appeal? No, well, the sort of bimbo that goes round calling him “Johnny” never did, of course.

    Charlotte attempted an airy laugh. “Gee, you British sure go in for that kind of thing, don’t you?”

    “Um, actually Mum’s half French and we grew up in France at the Château LeBec,” said the Bean. “Hardly ever spoke English as brats.”

    “Not until Grandfather sent us to School,” said Bean Minor quickly, “and of course they forced us to!”

    “Abso-bally-lutely,” chimed in the loyal Trelawney. “Foreign lingo totally banned, kind of thing!”

    “That’s enough, lads, I think,” said John with a laugh in his voice. “Canadians are all bilingual, y’know.”

    “What? No! I’m not French-Canadian!” said Charlotte crossly.

    “Oh? Sorry and all that,” he said, sounding totally uninterested, help! One almost felt sorry for the creature. “Shall we push off to that nice big lounge bar, Mel darling? ’Fraid the slopes here aren’t as exciting as one was led to believe.”

    Good grief! Round two to Me, then!

    “Well these low mountains aren’t les Alpes, no,” I agreed. “You’d better undo those ridiculous things on your feet, darling.”

    “Righty-ho!” –Suiting the action to the word. And he slung them over his shoulder, took my arm, and led my enfeebled form off.

    … “Golly,” I finally produced.

    “Thanks!” he said, shaking slightly.

    I took a deep breath. “I presume that’s another one that’s been chasing you ever since you got here?”

    “Mm,” he agreed, hugging my arm firmly into his side. “Don’t want her, don’t like her, never looked twice at the damned woman.”

    And with that we adjourned to the big warm lounge bar and, given the still-early hour, settled for large mugs of milky coffee, well sugared. Well!

    … It didn’t get entirely better, no. He did go skiing again, but with a chap of around his own age, who apparently knew a better route. Yes? That meant more dangerous! Oh dear. I just bit on the bullet and waited it out.

    No well, there were a few keenish chaps who weren’t terribly expert skiers but had just come for fun, so we did a bit of very inept sledding on a very, very gentle slope. The sort of sledding where two of you cram onto the thing, rather close, arms tightly round the party of the second P., so to speak, and, er, yes. After a while Benny joined us, tho actually he was quite good at skiing. I must say John’s nose was rather out of joint at the sight of me closely clasped in the said Benny’s arms as he kissed me fervently.

    “Mel, put that down,” he sighed.

    I emerged breathless from the fervent embrace, which actually was not solicited. “The boot was on the other foot!” I gasped.

    “Yes? In that case, Benny, I have to inform you that Mel’s taken.”

    “Uh—yes. –Well, not wearing a ring, y’know!” Benny retorted brazenly.

    “Give me time. –Just shove off, will you?”

    “It was good while it lasted, Mel!” he assured me with a wink, going.

    “Yes it was, rather!” I admitted with a giggle.

    John sighed. “I know you meant nothing by it, darling—”

    “Well actually I did mean something by it, John. Do you and that Karl chap have to  disappear all day?

    “Er—well no, strictly speaking, but he’s my opposite number at the German embassy and it won’t do to get on the wrong side—”

    “What? I think I’ll go back to Canberra!”

    “Horrors, has it been that bad?” he said with a laugh. “No, okay, tomorrow I’ll give you a nice skating lesson. Just on a nice flat surface.”

    A nice flat surface of ice. Okay, let him try.

    … “No sense of balance,” he conceded ruefully, picking me up for the umpteenth time.

    “No!” I gasped, desperately holding on to him. “I just can’t do wintry things, John!”

    “Never mind, darling, you’re the prettiest woman here!” he replied, picking me up bodily and skating expertly over to the blessed ground, snowy tho it was, and depositing me on a thrice-blessed bench.

    “I can walk,” I ventured. “I mean, Oncle Patrice and I used to get out with Flopsey for some rough shooting.”

    “You shoot?” he croaked.

    “No. Like I said, I can walk. I just thought when we get home to the cottage we could do walks, John.”

     “Er—‘go for walks’ is the vernac., sweetheart. Yes, so we could!” he said with a smile. “Let me get those damned skating boots off for you, darling.”

    I let him, surprisingly enough.

    Next day was our last day, so he had to have just one last run with the ubiquitous Karl—the man had too many large teeth, I’d noticed that before with persons from the northern half of Europe.

    No, John didn’t break his leg, or even his ankle. But Karl did. His ankle. A just retribution? Precisely.

    And we returned from the icy slopes to icy Canberra, with a freezing gale howling down the wide boulevards that the place prided itself on…

    Ugh. One doesn’t mind being in a real city in winter. Winter in Paris is cold, yes, but fun. Especially with all the winter produce in the markets: du gibier, et tout et tout. And the Métro is always warm, of course, and it makes it so easy to get around! But Canberra isn’t a real city, just a scattering of tallish buildings with some shops and hotels on one side of its weirdly-named, weirdly artificial lake (it is: man-made), and the widely spaced government head offices and etcetera on the other side, on the aforesaid boulevards. Plus quite an amount of suburban nothing, and then outside that the dormitory suburbs. With an appalling lack of public transport.

    … “It won’t be for long, Mel!” said Crumpy cheerily on a Zoom call to the far-off Junior Drones.

    “No, I suppose not,” I agreed.

    “And I’ve found out who Bellingham is!” he added.

    Uh— Oh! I’d almost forgotten about that. “What?”

    “He’s an arms dealer, that’s what!”

    “What?” I gasped.

    “Slight exaggeration, there, Crumpet, old thing,” put in the Egg, grinning. “He’s an arms manufacturer, Mel. The business started off as an innocent light engineering firm, was diverted to munitions during World War II, and took off from there.”

    “Yes: now they manufacture horrible long-range weapons,” Alysse added. “And Rufus is an only child, Mel, like you thought.”

    “My God. l knew,” I said limply, “that Melissa has no sense of decency, but honestly!”

    “That’s right. But there is some brighter news about an old school chum.”

    “Alysse, we didn’t have any— Oh! I’m thick! Go on!” I said with a laugh.

    “Well I had to get a new laptop and I lost all my email settings and started getting Babs Rowntree’s bally newsletter, you see.”

    “And?”

    She grinned. “Angela Purviss and the husband have busted up!”

    “Golly! Already? Not that I wouldn’t have bet good money that it wouldn’t last! So what year did they get married?”

    “2018, don't you remember? The year after we all left school. The church had to be booked at least a year in advance.”

    I counted on my fingers. “It was June, wasn’t it? So… Help. Five years?”

    “Yes. Babs’s email purported to be very cut-up about it, but you could tell she was licking her chops!”

    “Can’t blame her! Remember those pitying looks Angela used to give her while she noted airily that of course men don’t go for the sporty type?”

    From the far side of the world Alysse was seen to shudder. “Vividly! I suppose one ought to feel sorry for Angela, but if ever anyone deserved it, it’s her.”

    “Abso-bally-lutely!”

    And on that unkind note we were able to bid one another a happy goodbye.

    Winter in Canberra rolled on. Don’t expect August to be any warmer, eh, Benny? Thank you for that, and no, I won’t have lunch with you today, thanks all the same.

    … I know it’ll be cold next month, too, Lionel, thanks. A nice hot “grog” as they call it in Paris to warm me up? No, thank you. I dare say you do know a place that can do a decent one, but no. No!

    For Heaven’s sake! All I did was smile politely at the creature as I crossed the road!

    Obviously the only solution was to stay home all day. So I did that, with another pile of old French fashion mags. from the obliging Suzanne Pouligny. And a few American Vogues from Bettina just to balance them. And a slow cooker cookbook that I’d bought in desperation. Tho it had an awful lot of recipes that used tins of soup. Tinned soup? Mon Dieu! Such a thing had never been allowed in dear old Marthe’s kitchen at the Château LeBec! Okay, boeuf Bourguignonne and a chicken one that would probably be quite nice if one omitted the soup and used white wine instead! …Mmm, not bad. The sauce was very runny, tho. So I rang Bean Minor. The word was, turn the heat off and stir some cream into it. Carefully. Jolly good show! Er, risk venturing out in search of cream? Er… Oh, damn it! I took a taxi. There and back. How much? Okay, it could go on that credit card of John’s that he’d urged me to use but that so far I’d gallantly resisted. Oh, there’d be a surcharge for a credit card, would there? Charming. This chicken thing had better be worth it!

    It was. Well almost. John’s reaction to it was, certainly.

    Which was the highlight of the whole month, really. Then the icy July ticked over…

August. The weather: freezing. Could one possibly spend a whole month in bed with the room heater cum air conditioner on plus an electric fire in one’s room? Possibly one could try. Since the Aussies apparently had never heard of steam heat or double glazing. My God!

    Oh, well, it wasn’t all gloom. Everyone (except Karl) had survived the winter sports saga unscathed. And I had always known that John had bags of energy, always had to be up and doing, so I might have expected the skiing thing, really. But at least the break was over and he wasn’t throwing himself down icy mountains any more!

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendsdownunder-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/05/all-change.html