More Embarrassing Scenes

15

More Embarrassing Scenes

March (ctd.) Horse riding in the Australian Outback? The Britten white teeth flashed. It’d be great fun!

    Yes well. He’d learn. And if the studio expected Mum to actually ride, they’d jolly well better re-read that contract of hers. Her idea of “riding” was sitting elegantly on the animal in very expensive brand-new gear, the hair and make-up perfect, natch, the lighting just right.

    That was it. Period.

    Absolutely no motion would then take place. This attitude might have been justified if she got vertigo when perched on anything that high, like me, but she didn’t. True, there was that episode of Patrizia in the Pampas (the telly series of the book Life of the Pampas By Lady Patrizia Fullerton-Browne) in which she rode with the gauchos in full South American panoply complete with, um well, South American lassos, they have a special name, with lots of galloping over the rolling plains. Not her, no: stuntwoman. All those close-ups of a perfectly coiffed and made-up, gaily smiling Nature photographer on a gallant steed with flowing mane and tail? Those ones where the horse didn’t so much as take a step? Yes of course they were her. Tho there is no guarantee that they were shot on the actual Pampas, or indeed, further Abroad than, well, stretch a point, not Kew this time, no. The Berkshire downs? Mm.

    The truth is she never learned to ride. This of course is directly contradicted by all that bally publicity about her early youth as the daughter of the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ Earl of Hubbel. –Not a single word of it: no. Grannie broke up with him when Mum was only little and whisked her off to France.

    Firmly I declined Britten’s eager invitation to come with them, they could provide suitable riding gear! No, the mere thought of getting on anything that high terrifies me. No, thanks, Dan, I get vertigo on a horse. Er… ugh. Okay (weakly), by all means send me some stills from the shoot. Smart phone? Um, no, I didn’t have one out here. Email? No computer access out at the winery, Dan. (Both untrue: naturally Greg’s enterprise used computers.) I gave in and admitted that he could send them to the Bean’s phone—and serve him right if it used up all its whatsit!

    He was as good as his word.

    I’ll say this for the shots of the intrepid lady rider that arrived: they looked good, whether or not she was actually on a steed, and were cooed over admiringly by firstly Janine Stuart, arriving at the house after brekkers for work, and a little later Silvia and Judy, down at the Cellar Door (self ipso facto a little late for work, with apologies). They all promised fervently to watch the series—they were sure they’d get it out here! Mm, well that depended on how desperate the Australian networks were for new content, didn’t it? I didn’t point out that this was not Sir D.A., with, as my siblings had long since assured me, his team of hugely experienced, efficient and genuinely intrepid Nature videographers (and their helicopters, eh, Bean? Thanks for that). They’d learn. If they did ever get the thing.

    “What’s it going to be called?” Judy asked brightly.

    Uh—yes. Well. Thereby hung a tale or two. Very bitter ones indeed.

    “Dan Britten Down Under,” I admitted.

    “Ooh, without your mum’s name on it?” gasped Silvia.

    Exactly.

    “Mm. There were huge rows over that, of course, but the studio wanted something snappy, and it’s him who’s their star, not her, you see, so they won in the end. But her agent got them to agree to ‘With Lady Patrizia Fullerton-Browne’ on the actual title screen, right under the title, very large. He’d have given in and agreed to the second screen but she dug her toes in and said she’d only do it if she was on the title screen, so it was the studio’s turn to cave in.”

    “Boy, ya can just imagine it!” Judy decided with feeling.

    Yes, especially after that time Mum insisted on having lunch in the restaurant and favoured us with some of her most condescendingly kindly remarks on its quality and presentation. Tho even she couldn’t criticise the freshness of the ingredients, however covertly.

    “Yes,” Silvia agreed faintly, going rather pink.

    “You can laugh: we all do,” I said generously. “It’s that or cry, really.”

    They both smiled weakly. Then they exchanged glances and Judy, by far the firmer-minded and more decisive character of the two, said brightly: “Never mind, dear! No-one can help their rellies! And we’ll make it up to you. You’ll see!”

    Er… I couldn’t see how, really. I mean how could one compensate for dashed Lady Patrizia F.-B. at her most graciously condescending? But I smiled and thanked them anyway.

    And they nodded at each other in a sort of kindly conspiratorial way, bless them, and we got on with the lunch prep.

    Possibly riding in the Outback was intended to be a mere sliver of whichever timeless epic it was to appear in? Because before we’d realised it she was off somewhere else entirely. Bean got one of the dreaded phone calls just when we’d settled down to drinks and telly after dinner, the lads all pretty exhausted, as the vendange was now in full swing and on getting home from their classes Bean Minor and Trelawney had plunged right in to help—and the Bean, of course, had been up since dawn.

    “Is that you, Michael dear? You’ll never guess where I am!”

    This was true. Nobody tried to guess and she prompted: “Well go on, darling!”

    On her past form, anywhere? “Um, still that place in, um, Victoria, was it? With the horses?” the Bean fumbled.

    “Nowhere near it! I’ll give you a clue! Lobsters,” she produced deeply.

    “She’s on the coast of Maine,” I suggested drily.

    “Is that you, Mel darling? Why don’t you ever ring me? Trisha was saying just the other day that we never hear from you!”

    Oh really? When did the squashed Trisha ever stick her neck out to that extent? Um, unless someone had given her alcohol. Okay, least said, as the saying goes.

    “They do catch lobsters off the coast of Maine,” said Bean Minor quickly into the expectant silence.

    “Is that you, Tommy darling? You might ring me now and then! After all, you are my baby boy!”

    The Bean at this was driven to roll his eyes wildly, I made a face, Trelawney was seen to flinch, and Bean Minor shrugged and mouthed: “Gin?”

    His fellow Junior Drones all nodded hard in response to this last, and Greg choked.

    “We can’t guess, Mum!” said the Bean loudly.

    “Don’t shout, Michael, for goodness’ sake! You’re getting terribly coarse and Australianised, dear, you need to watch that. After all, think of your heritage!”

    Er… On the one side—hers—a nutty old grandmother who was still living in the 19th century complete with its seventeenth-century fast-deteriorating wine barrels, plus a sour old grandfather who’s never acknowledged our existence, so much for the whatsit of earls—some English saying, I’ve forgotten it, politeness or something? Anwyay he doesn’t have it. And on the other side, Dad’s side, not that we can remember them, he wasn’t young when he married Mum and they weren’t young when they had him, two suburbanites, he a solicitor in a small country town, she a former primary-school teacher. Our heritage there consists of our grandmother’s being a china-painting hobbyist and two pretty floral china Christening Mugs, the one labelled “Michael,” the other “Melisande” (without the accent), not by her own hand, no, but by her china-painting teacher. Bean Minor missed out, maybe she’d died by then or maybe no-one bothered to alert her to the fact that she had another descendant, especially not Dad.

    “The Château LeBec will come to putrid Gérard, if that’s what you’re thinking of, Mum,” said the Bean in a bored voice. “It and its leaky roof; he’s welcome to it. So are you going to tell us where you are with these lobsters or not?”

    “Of course, darling, what are you on about? You’re getting as grumpy as your frightful father! I’m not precisely with them! And naturally I’m still in Australia.”

    Oh naturally. Like one week she wouldn’t be in the Caribbean and the next in South Africa. It was my turn to roll my eyes wildly.

    “It’s terribly exciting! Surrounded by the most macho types!”—Loud giggle, ugh.—“Huge burly chaps in yellow slickers, and enormous boots! –Sea boots, of course!”—Loud giggle.

    Okay, we were blank. Tho lobsters and sea boots would seem to go together.

    “I’m back in South Australia, darlings, up at Port Lincoln!” she announced to the manor born, or rather, in the manner of one born to the jolly old purple in another manor entirely. “With the lobster fishermen! –What, darling?”—Not to us. Loud giggle. “Of course, yes, Laurie, darling! Rock lobsters!—It’s raa-ther fascinating, my dears, because they don’t have the big claws that our lobsters have, and one wonders why! Of course Dan swears he’ll get a scientist on the show to tell us why, but it’ll be just like that seahorse man, delightful, but one has to admit, no social graces at all: endless polysyllables and impossible Australianisms, and totally incomprehensible.”

    At this point, tho it’s always safer to ignore her completely, I felt compelled to correct her: “Seadragons, Mum.”

    “What, darling? Oh yes, well, it’s the same thing, isn’t it!” she trilled happily.

    No! Part of his polysyllables—rather a mistake, one felt, to have used their scientific nomenclature in order to clarify his discourse, but however—part of the chap’s polysyllabic peroration was intended to elucidate just that point! They are related, and probably about the same size (tho that was never stated, no wonder I had a bad dream about a giant one)—but they are not the same!

    “Well of course their big rush is over: they do a tremendous trade at Christmas, you see, tho one can’t but feel it’s somewhat odd, I mean, the month has an R in it, so one would think that seafood of any kind must be a no-no, given that one is in the Antipodes to Us! Don’t you think? But Laurie swears that the refrigeration takes care of all that and it’s all completely safe! And their great big king prawns, likewise. Tho naturally one would have to be rather careful which restaurant one chose, wouldn’t one? That first place Dan dragged me to was appalling! –Where was I?” (No-one knew: we were all silent.) “Of course: the rock lobsters! Yes, no big front claws at all. Isn’t that odd? If they don’t all need them, why did some of them develop them? I said to Dan, You ought to find out, it would give the show such an authentic touch, but he claims no-one could possibly be interested! My dears, if he dares to go on scene and announce once more that of course he’s not a scientist, he’s just what he calls a ‘Naturist’, I swear I shall tell the world the lot! My agent’s been nagging me for some unique copy, you know! –Where was I?—Stop that, Laurie, naughty one!—Oh yes, the rock lobsters. That idiot Trisha has refused absolutely to eat them! Such an insult to our kind hosts! She claims they’d bring her out in hives! I ask you! Hives? Last time time darling Gordon B. asked me to dinner he insisted on asking her too, tho I warned him she’d be a complete wet blanket, but anyway she came, and you should have seen the way she scoffed a plate of scampi—with olive oil and garlic, what’s more, the hypocrite! And not a trace of a hive afterwards, let alone the indigestion she claims garlic always gives her! Slept like a log for ten hours solid!”

    —During this speech Greg had dashed out of the room and dashed back panting with a pen and a piece of paper. He then passed them to the Bean who shook his head, wrote something and passed them back. The paper was then generously passed round to us all. By the time it had got to Bean Minor, who was last because of where he was sitting, she was well away again.

    “Well never mind her. No-one wanted her to come on the boat with us in any case. But naturally I went, and the darling fishermen insisted I wear a yellow slicker, too! Fabulous fun, darlings! And Maurie has let me have some super stills, so I’m sending you one, and of course some to my agent, that’ll shut him up! My fans will adore them! So totally authentic, darlings!”

    “But as I said, their big season is over,” (Had she? Okay, if she said so) “and so we didn’t stay out for very long. And you’ll never guess, darlings! The famous Naturist” (huge depths of scorn in the voice) “made the most abject fool of himself! Sick as a dog! My dears! He ordered them to stop instantly, of course, him all over, but naturally the skipper paid no attention at all, one does not order the captain of a boat around, and then, it was the poor man’s livelihood, as I pointed out. So Laurie said they could transfer him to one of the other boats, who’d take him back, but of course for that he’d have to go in the dinghy—my dears, totally straight-faced, I nearly died!—so then he went into a terrific sulk on top of the mal de mer. But I had a simply wonderful time and darling Laurie said I’m a born sailor and the sweet captain called me ‘Mate Pat’ and said could they take a snap of me kissing his cheek! There!”

    By this time, as may be imagined, we were all just looking numbly at one another.

    Finally the Bean managed: “Poor old Dan. How is he?”

    “What? Oh—in his room feeling sorry for himself, dear. So of course Tony said We’ll cut in a voice-over with him admitting he’s hopeless on a boat, it’ll be all yours, Patrizia!—What? Oh, is it ready, darling?—Must go: darling Laurie—it’s short for Lorenzo, darlings, they’re all terrifically ethnic up here, he’s got a real old Italian Nonna!—Laurie says that dinner’s ready and it’s his mother’s special lobster bisque!—What, darling? –Oh! Of course!”—Loud giggle.—“Zuppa di rock lobster, of course! –Good Heavens, darling! Zuppa da-what? –Laurie darling, I don’t think I can possibly pronounce that. Say again, sweets? –Gracious!—Darlings, must go, the zuppa awaits! Ciao, bambini!”

    She rang off. The silence was heavenly.

    Eventually Bean Minor said heavily: “Aragosta is rock lobster. So I suppose it’d be zuppa d’aragosta.”

    “Yeah?” Greg replied kindly. “Bet it’ll be delicious.”

    “One can only hope it’ll choke her,” said the Bean sourly, “or give her hives. I mean to say, poor old Trisha! Gets a decent meal for once in her life and all the woman can do is criticise her!”

    “She’ll have slept so well because old Sir Gordon will have filled her full of booze along with the scampi. Chablis, probably, he’s rather fond of it,” I put in.

    “So Michael’s right, then?” said Greg in disappointment. “He’s not the Gordon B. I was hoping he was?”

    “No,” Bean Minor agreed, grinning.—Greg had written: “Who is this Gordon B?” and Bean had replied: “Not who you think.”—“He’s a rich old arms manufacturer.”

    “Reliably reputed to sell guns to the Israelis,” Bean elaborated sourly.

    “Yes,” I agreed. “Rather more to the point, Greg, he’s divorced and Mum’s been after him for ages but he’s far too fly to let himself be caught. Hence the dinner invitation including Trisha.”

    “Goddit!” he gasped, collapsing in happy sniggers.

    After a few moments Trelawney said thoughtfully: “I say, stop me if I’m out of line, you chaps, but how old would you say this ‘Laurie’ is?”

    Her ladyship’s offspring eyed one another uneasily. And the Bean admitted sourly: “Any age from eighteen up, Trelawney. She isn’t particular.”

    “That’s it,” Bean Minor agreed, making a face.

    “Hear, hear. That’s a quorum, no, I mean a consensus,” I corrected myself. “My bet would be less than half her age. Let’s see… She was twenty-four when she had the Bean. And he’ll be that next month.” I shrugged.

    Bean Minor gave his pal a kindly look. “If you’re thinking that’s what the modern generation, besotted with American buzzwords that are forgotten within the year, would call a ‘cougar’, you’re not wrong, old chum. She’s got the claws, too.”

    Greg got up. “That’ll do, I think, son. –Not that I’m arguing with you,” he noted drily. “Let’s all have a drink and forget her, eh? Cold beers all round!”

    “Um, Greg,” I said weakly, “we had some of old Mr Manning’s fizzy white with the salads and Janine’s yummy cold baked chicken, remember?”

    “The beer’ll take the taste away!” he replied with a robust laugh. “But you can stick to that if ya like, love!”

    “Um yes, I think I will, thanks.”

    “Come on, then, give us a hand, eh?”

    And we went out amicably to the kitchen. Where Greg said kindly: “It can hardly get worse, pet. And loads of people have odd rellies, ya know.”

    “Um yes, Judy said something just like that… She’s still awfully embarrassing, tho, Greg,” I admitted glumly.

    He patted me kindly on the shoulder. “No-one minds, Mel. Now, how’s this for an idea? Ribena with fizzy white!”

    I goggled at him.

    “I came across this article on a French drink that mixes a blackcurrant liqueur with white wine, ya see. So I thought, well, Ribena’s made from blackcurrants, so maybe with fizz?”

    I laughed suddenly. “Like a Kir Royale! What an inspiration! Yes, I’d love one, thanks, Greg!”

    … Mmm! Amazing. Even tho it was only Ribena-flavoured Australian fizzy Chardonnay by old Kev Manning, it did an excellent job of banishing all thoughts of Mum’s latest performances…

    It wasn’t until next morning over breakfast that it occurred to me to ask why on earth Greg had a bottle of Ribena in his cupboard.

    He laughed. “It was last winter: Janine thought I wasn’t getting enough Vitamin C, and as I didn’t fancy orange juice for breakfast on a chilly morning, she decided a hot Ribena at night would be just the ticket! I did stick it out for a while, but after a bit it occurred that a slug of vodka would just brighten it up nicely, so it kind of defeated the purpose. But I can recommend it as a bracer on a cold night!”

    “That doesn’t sound too bad,” said Bean Minor with interest. “I’ll remember that, Greg!”

    Oops. He would, too. He’s like that. Oh, well! There were worse things to remember from the last few days, that was for sure!

    I think it was two days later, anyway it was before my birthday, that Bean Minor reported glumly, switching off his phone: “She’s moved on.”

    “To somewhere handy like Iceland?” asked the Bean, tho without much hope.

    “No. Queensland. They’re doing a segment on parrots.”

    “I think you mean cockatoos, Bean Minor.”

    “Um, yes, I suppose they are… She said parrots.”

    “She would.”

    “Um, yes,” the minor legume replied. “Um, only I think she’s coming back, they haven’t got enough pink ones up there.”

    At that I put in, unable to stop myself: “Pink ones?”

    “She’ll have meant galahs,” said the Bean firmly.

    Okay, he was the one with a scientific bent, if he said s— Oh! “You mean those darling pink and grey ones, Bean?” I cried.

    “Yes. Galahs,” he repeated heavily.

    “Well let’s hope one bites her,” Bean Minor concluded, scowling.

    “Pecks her, I think you mean, old chap,” Trelawney corrected him.

    “Yes!” all three of her offspring replied with relish, and he collapsed in splutters, nodding madly.

    The day after that (they must have got on a plane straight away, I think), she called again, this time on Bean’s phone just as we were putting the salads on the dinner table.

    “Darling, you’ll never guess where I am!” (“Not Iceland,” Bean Minor muttered glumly.)

    She’d actually paused, so the Bean said heavily: “Mum, we’re just about to have dinner, so can you for Pete’s sake spit it out?”

    “Really, Michael! Must you be so vulgar and Australian? We’re in the Outback! All terrifically ethnic, and there’s the darlingest man who looks just like Crocodile Dundee! But he doesn’t catch crocs, as they say here, he’s a genuine cowboy! We’re staying on the hugest ranch— What was that, darling? Oh, of course!”—Loud giggle.—“A huge station, Michael darling, it’s what they call them here, isn’t that extraordinary? But it’s very comfortable, all air-conditioned, thank God, goodness knows how they manage it, we haven’t seen a power line for miles and miles!—What, darling? Farm generators? Good gracious!—They do it all with farm generators, Michael dear, so ingenious, but then the Aussie Outback is known for that, isn’t it? But between you and me, darling, ra-ather too much sheepy lamb for lunch, far too fatty, tho one wouldn’t dream of saying so to one’s kind hostess, of course!” (“That’s a first,” Bean Minor muttered sourly.) “They have this lake, you see, well I don’t think it is strictly theirs, but anyway quite near in their terms—my dear, there’s nothing, but nothing, for miles and miles! Worse than the pampas! And darling Cam is going to take us out to the lake tomorrow, first thing. He swears there’ll be hundreds of birds there, parrots and swans—black swans, darling, isn’t that intriguing?—and guess what!”

    She was waiting, so the Bean said sourly: “Sparrows?”

    “What? No! Don’t be silly, dear! Budgies! He swears there’ll be great flocks of them, isn’t that extraordinary? Wild ones.”

    “He’s pulling your leg, Mum.”

    At this point Webber, who’d been listening with interest, put in: “No, he isn’t. That’s right, the flocks are huge.”

    “Michael! Are you there? Michael!”

    “Yes, I’m here. Okay, flocks of wild budgies. I thought you were after ga—pink ones?”

    “What? Yes, of course, them too. Such a pity we can’t bring you all out here, darling, Cam swears it’s a wonderful sight. –Ssh! Don’t be silly!” –Loud giggle.

    “Mum! I’m ringing off, it’s dinnertime here!” said the Bean loudly.

    “Really, dear? How odd, we’ve just had lunch.—Ssh! Don’t say that, he’ll hear you!—Tho we were ages getting here, I suppose it was a very late lunch.—Ssh!—Must go, darling! Hugs!”

    “Hugs to you, too,” said the Bean sourly into the resultant silence. “And if that was Cam suggesting the sort of dessert that one can imagine, she needn’t have bothered to shut him up, we’ve heard worse than that, all our lives.”

    Greg had been carving cold beef throughout but he now looked up and said mildly: “I dare say, but ya didn’t need to say it, mate.”

    “How would you like to have her for a mother?” Bean retorted crossly. “And I’m damned sure she’s forgotten it’s Mel’s birthday at the end of the week!”

    “Bean, she always forgets,” I said quickly. “You know that. Let’s just have our nice dinner and forget about her.”

    “Yeah,” Greg agreed. “Tho if Webber’d like to tell you a bit more about the word ‘galah’, I won’t stop ’im.” –With a wink at the said Webber.

    Webber grinned weakly. “These days it usually applies to blokes, not dames, tho. Well, yeah, if you haven’t heard it before?”

    We hadn’t, so Webber proceeded to enlighten us as we sat down to a large dinner of copious cold beef, stupendous salad mounds, and bounteous buttered bread rolls. So to speak. Choice of mineral waters, still or sparkling, or beer to wash it down. I chose the sparkling mineral water, the jolly old bubbles are always irresistible. But the boys plumped for beer, natch. Well they had been working hard.

    … Hilarious! “Silly galah,” was the popular one these days, eh, Webber? Good show! She was that, all right.

    Much later that evening I used the generous Greg’s landline and rang Egg, I’m not sure why. Well needed to talk to someone sympathetic and consoling after Mum, was probably it.

    “What-ho, Sister Bean!” he greeted me cheerily. “That your host’s phone, is it?”

    “Spot-on, old man,” I agreed. “It’s not too early to ring you, is it?”

    “No, no: just got in after exercising the first lot!”

    “Oh, good. So how’s tricks?”

    “Oh, rolling along, y’know! I rounded up Crumpy and Flossie last weekend and we shot off to the provinces in search of stuff for Le Club: sourced some spiffing brass door handles and matching engraved finger plates!” he said with a laugh.

    “Finger plates?” I groped.

    “You know, old thing! Those metal or china strips one sometimes sees on old-fashioned doors, just under the handle, about where the jolly old greasy paw is apt to grab, so to speak.”

    “Oh, got it! Jolly good, well done those Junior Drones! So how’s Le Club coming along?”

    He laughed. “A nightmare of painters and plasterers, at the moment! Albert’s praying they won’t get paint smears on his beautiful antique panelling. –Country-house auction. He was dashed lucky to find it, it’s like hens’ teeth these days. It’s not installed yet, he couldn’t face it, one look at these chaps covered in white gunk from H. to T. was more than enough, so he’s got it piled up in a couple of rooms, slathered in heavy plastic wrappings. But he claims the average British painter or plasterer is more than capable of ruining it nevertheless.”

    “Oh dear: nerve-racking,” I said sympathetically.

    “I’ll say!”

    “But couldn’t he have put it all in the cellar?”

    “No: it’s being cleared out, refloored—it was a mixture of cracked old bricks and cracked bits of concrete—and replastered, subsequently to be whitewashed in the bally old trad. style. Before the jolly old barrels of port and the wine racks are installed!” he said with a chuckle.

    “Got it. Gosh, it’ll be a proper cellar.”

    “Of course! But the kitchen’s nearly done: it looks spiffing. Carrie-Ann and I had a good look at it just the other day. Splendid shiny industrial stove, and the jolly old nunky took Tante Louise’s advice on board and had it floored in nice clean vinyl with a layer of thick underlay—on top of springy floorboards. So it won’t be hard on the staff’s feet.”

    “Great! And, um, has he sorted out the question of a chef, yet?”

    “Er—no,” the Egg admitted. “Had a row with one of the English LeBec cousins, we gathered.”

    “Help! Not Oncle Fifi?” I gasped. –This genial gent, more properly François Fernand LeBec, is the head of the London branch of the LeBec family and runs a nice little resto in Soho. His younger brother, Luc-Alain, managed the dingy old nightclub that used to occupy Le Club’s premises. The which, incidentally, the family company owns in toto—the entire building, I mean. Acquired just after the War, when no-one but the very savvy, like the head of the non-château branch of the LeBecs of the time, an Oncle Albert clone by all accounts, was snapping up shabby bits of bombed London streets. The freehold is now worth a small fortune, of course.

    “No, no,” the Egg reassured me. “They’re still hand-in-glove. No, it was Fifi’s younger brother, Luc-Alain. He was pushing for some chap who’d been working for one of those frightful new wave places: you know, a Michelin star and the plates composed of a meagre spoonful of nasty froth, tiny specks of green somethings and an unspeakable sliver of a semi-burnt indistinguishable topping the lot, on immense stretches of white china. Not food, in other words!”

    “Ugh.”

    “Quite.”

    “Well Luc-Alain always was a twit,” I admitted.

    “I can well believe it. The upshot was, he and this chef chappie pushed off to Portugal, where they’re planning to open a select bistro. –Don’t shoot me, Sister Bean, I’m only the reporter!” he added hurriedly.

    “I won’t. Um, why Portugal?”

    “Er… one gathers your Uncle Jimmy had something to do with it. That would be right, wouldn’t it? The chap who’s a mad-keen sailor.”

    That’s Mum’s brother. Terrifically genial chap, but not a brain in his head. “Yes, that’s Uncle Jimmy. Well he does know a lot of nobs over there with posh villas like his, I suppose a frightful bistro would go down rather well with that crowd. Tho I can’t see Uncle Jimmy wanting to eat there himself,” I admitted. “He’s all for solid nosh.”

    At this point the Egg had a delighted sniggering fit, concluding: “Jolly good show! I say, old girl, stop me if I’m too frightfully tactless, but surely his old pa is about due to pop off? Won’t he have to dash home to the jolly old ancestral acres and all that?”

    “Um, I suppose… Well, yes, horrid old Grandfather must be about ninety-nine by now. Well I’m not sure whether Uncle Jimmy spends most of his time in Portugal because he can’t stand him—I mean, I know he can’t, if you see what I mean, but it might be because he can’t stand the English weather, as well.”

    “Oh—right. Well that’s understandable. –You know the yearlings’ paddock?”

    “Yes, of course!” I replied eagerly.

    “Yeah,” said the Egg wryly. “At the moment it’s a bog. Unusable. Dad’s talking about draining and ditching. But it’ll cost so much that he might just leave it, put the yearlings somewhere else in future.”

    “But Sid just loves going down there to lean on the fence and moon over them!” I cried.

    “I know,” he said with a smile in his voice.

    “I suppose nothing stays the same, not even in the country,” I said sadly.

    “Uh—no. Something up, old thing?” he asked cautiously.

    I sighed. “Not really, Egg. It’s Mum. She’s being as frightful as ever.”

    “Er—yeah. Yesterday when Mrs Terry turned up for work she brought that dashed scandal sheet she gets—the Daily Yell or some such—to show us a publicity shot of the two of you on a beach. –Don’t worry, they hadn’t identified you, you were just glamorous background, and of course the print quality was rotten, as usual: if we hadn’t known it was you we’d never have recognised you. Mum’s been in one of her vague fabric-art fits but she came out of it long enough to glare at the poor woman, grab the paper, announce it’d do nicely under the new fabrics while they were drying, it’d save the worktops from getting stained, and march off with it!”

    “Good for her!” I cried.

    “Yes, we all thought it was a good one,” he agreed. “Never mind, old thing, it can’t last. And it’s not your mum’s show, is it? It’s the bounder Britten’s.”

    “Yes, but that’s making her all the more desperate to get her face all over the media!”

    “Ugh. See what you mean. So where is she at the moment?”

    “In the Outback. Shooting parrots.”

    He choked.

    “Sorry, old chap, that came out rather ambiguous. Filming parrots in the wild. And budgies.”

    “Budgies? In the wild?” he groped.

    “Yes. We’ve now learned that they’re native Australian birds and the green and yellow ones are the original ones, and they naturally live in huge flocks. I’ll never be able to look at a budgie in a cage again without cringing!”

    “Ugh, God, yes… But I suppose the poor little objects are descended from generations of cage birds: they’d die in the wild.”

    “We decided that, too, but it didn’t help, really.”

    “No,” he agreed nicely.

    “I was sort of thinking a budgie might be nice,” I admitted wistfully. “You know: in the cottage…”

    I could hear him swallow as he realised I meant John’s cottage. “Mm. Well, uh, l tell you what: a cat!”

    Right, like the dreaded Cat Ovenden. She had now passed on: she must have been about a hundred in person years, so to speak. Cat was Mrs O.’s, from when Egg was about seven, and she and Bean Minor were the creature’s only human admirers. The sort of cat that sneered at all of humanity.

    “Um, well, I usually like cats,” I said very cautiously indeed.

    He laughed. “Okay, not from the same line as Cat Ovenden!”

    “No,” I agreed gratefully. “I’ll think about it. Tho I think John prefers dogs.”

    Cheerily the Egg replied: “Well, a pup’d be fun, and you could make it quite clear that it’d be up to him to train it!”

    “I say, old thing, do you think that’d be sporting? I mean, jolly bad form, what?”

    I think he was shaking as he replied: “Oh, abso-bally-lutely! Go for it!”

    At that point his mother’s voice said very clearly in the background: “Who are you talking to, Alan, dear?”

    Quickly the Egg replied: “No-one you know, Mum. –Got to go, old thing. Keep your pecker up, never say D., and carry on Jeeves, what?”

    “You, too. Love to Carrie-Ann! ’Bye!”

    And I hung up feeling, as usual after talking to the reliable Egg, much better.

    … A Scottie dog might be nice. Did John like Scottie dogs? Well he’d given me my darling red plastic Scottie dog brooch, so he must do!

    Yes, a Scottie dog. Why not?

Next chapter:

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