Southern Hemisphere Hospitality

20

Southern Hemisphere Hospitality

May (ctd.) Well not unexpectedly everyone was so excited to have John arrive at last that they decided that they’d have a welcoming lunch for him. Not that Silvia, Judy or Janine had even been aware of the full story before, but that didn’t stop them. They all three agreed with me that he did look too thin, which was possibly an excuse for the spread which they produced on the following Saturday. The Cellar Door’s facilities were called into service once again, and tho we were open for tastings in the morning, by eleven forty-five there was a brutal notice on the door: “Closed for Private Party”. And we had it. The weather was still warm and very pleasant so the terrace doors were open, but we all sat at table in the restaurant. Everybody came: of course Brad from the Cellar Door, and not just Greg, Webber and Duck from the winery, but also nice Vern Peters in Dispatches, plus Kev and Matt Manning, and old Robbo, absolutely thrilled to be asked. And of course Charlie Lewisham, and Silvia’s pretty daughter Jamie. The optimistic Bean sat himself down beside her but one couldn’t honestly say she really noticed him.

    The cooks had surpassed themselves. A phenomenon which, one had perceived some time since, was apt to occur when there was an attractive hetero male needing to be succoured. Or in this case, as he put it himself afterwards with a laugh, undoing his belt and collapsing onto the bed: “Stuffed like the traditional Strasbourg goose!”

    It was very like that, yes. There had to be roast lamb, of course: traditional in Australia for welcoming visitors from overseas, returned travellers and etcetera. True, their May was hardly the time of year for spring lamb but this did not apparently stop the Aussie meat suppliers. Janine, on the other hand, had opted for a slightly less trad. offering, unless one was Greek: an enormous dish of totally delish. moussaka. Yes, there were still aubergines in the shops, Mel, these ones were probably from Queensland or the Territory. (The usual explanation for the presence of out-of-season fresh produce.) Apparently neither Greg nor her hubby were fond of it so she hardly ever made it.

    Of course neither of these large offerings would have been enough, so there were also innumerable quiches (Silvia with Judy’s help) and Judy’s cousin Etta’s recipe for a leek flan—no, well, they were a winter veggie, of course, but these ones were probably from— Mm. Naturally there had to be roast potatoes, roast sweet potatoes and roast pumpkin to go with the lamb, and besides them carrots done in lemon juice and honey (Judy), a lovely fresh cauli from Robbo’s garden just steamed with a sprinkling of parsley and a bit of butter (Judy again), and a huge mixed salad of lettuce, tomatoes (Robbo’s) and cucumber with just a little fetta cheese.

    Not to mention a superb spanakopita made by Judy from Silvia’s recipe (not spinach but Swiss chard, which they called silverbeet here, and fetta cheese again), with the crispiest, flakiest filo pasty ever. Bean Minor said “Gosh!” and they ought to put it on the lunch menu but Judy and Silvia explained, giggling, that it’d be wasted on the customers! At which my darling John noted that if the rest of them were anything like the Colleen woman it certainly would! Which went down very well.

    Well frankly I’d have been satisfied with just the two Greek contributions and some salad, but of course one had to try a little of everything.

    As for the wine—! Well naturally Greg and Duck were thrilled to discover that John admired the Reserve Bin Shiraz, so it was proudly trotted out. I eyed my younger sibling very hard at this point and, thank God, he got the point and allowed that it was rather young as yet, but was drinking well and went jolly well with the red meat. (Which, mercifully, was not even pinkish. I don’t mind English style rosbif, crusty and brown on the outside and somewhat bloody as to the interior, and John loves it, but pink undercooked lamb is something that we both firmly avoid, ugh!)

    Of course I had to drink my very own sparkling Shadow Road Vineyard Melisande 2022! Young Jamie was very happy to keep me company in it and so was Judy, thank goodness, so old Kev was terrifically chuffed.

    And as we had to toast John, nice Webber quickly got up and poured it for everybody before Greg or Duck could cram the hind hoof right down the oesophagus by suggesting something more palatable.

    One might have said that all of this was more than enough, but no, this was Australia, the land of plenty and fervent female home cooks. Not to say of male infantile tastes, the which does not imply that our lot were immune to the puds. They all lapped up the towering palaces of cream-topped pavlova (decorated with blueberries, probably from the Terr— Quite), the richly oozing slices of Black Bottom Pie, and the exotically glowing fruit salad of fresh pawpaw (yellow and pink), pineapple, passionfruit and bananas (all from Queensland or the Territory), tinned peaches and lychees, and more blueberries. Said puds supplied variously by Silvia, Janine and Judy. Extra whipped cream on the fruit salad optional.

    Well frankly I just couldn’t, not even the wonderful pavlova, so I had a very small helping of fruit salad and followed it up with a black coffee.

    Afterwards collapsing onto the big bed in the loft beside John and admitting: “I’m worse than a Strasbourg goose. There’s a good Aussie word for it, Webber used it just a couple of days back, he was talking about Robbo’s rather awful old dog, after he stole the poor man’s steak that he was going to make a casserole out of that was supposed to last three or four days. Um… Stonkered!” I produced proudly.

    He laughed. “That’s it, by God! …I say, darling, talking of steak, thought Australia went in for beef in a big way these days? Huge ranches, isn’t it?”

    “They call them stations, John. –Yes. But we’ve found out that serving roast lamb to overseas visitors is supposed to be traditional, and dates back to well before the Second World War. ‘When Australia rode on the sheep’s back’ was the phrase used.”

    “I see,” he said weakly. “It was very nicely cooked.”

    “Mm. Not pink.”

    “Er… Do I dare ask why the strong Greek influence, darling?”

    “I could just say ‘No’, John Raice,” I noted.

    “Aw, go on!” he said with a laugh.

    “I think—now don’t quote me on this—but I think, that those two dishes, especially the spanakopita, have become so much part of the modern Australian home cook’s repertoire that they don’t even realise they’re Greek any m—”

    He was laughing so hard that the bed was shaking, so I stopped.

    “I once read,” he said, outing with the pristine pocket hanker and blowing the nose, “a comic thing that purported to be written by an immigrant—I think Italian rather than Greek—at the time, must’ve been the Fifties, when Australia was begging for European immigrants. It was very funny about the contemporary Australian dialect, which was pretty clearly largely its purpose, but it certainly chimed with other stuff I’ve read. The immigrants all had a bloody hard time of it, poor things. Their wonderful foods being greeted with deep suspicion, not to say loathing, without exception.”

    “Yes.”

    “Mel!” he protested somewhat weakly.

    “Well times have moved on. It’s fascinating, tho,” I conceded.

    He smiled. “Mm. Was that exquisite fluffy meringue thing named for the ballet dancer?”

    “Pav-LOH-va. Yes.”

    “Thanks, darling!”

    “Any time,” I replied graciously. “Got any more like that?”

    “Er—well yes! There seemed to be a preponderance of fresh produce from Queensland or the Northern Territory. I mean, one would expect the tropical fruit to come from those parts, but—er…”

    “Well if it’s out of season further south where else would it come from, John?”

    “Got it,” he said weakly. “I must say the fruit salad was impressive.”

    “Yes? That wasn’t the half of it. Queensland is teeming with tropical fruits, lots of them much more exotic, but most Australians don’t eat those, they’re foreign, you see.”

    “Not really,” he admitted, looking at me incredulously. “I’d have said that that delicious pink papaya was— Never mind. Er—shall we have a nap, darling?”

    “I’m certainly not up for anything else, in fact there would be positive danger if you were to roll on my tummy at this juncture.”

    He winced. “Yes. Okay, nice nap?”

    We did that.

    … Well talk about your old married couples! I reflected on groggily coming to, to find him still flat out. Yes well, fingers crossed the idea would also occur to him.

    Well it was all jolly marvellous of course, but he had to get back to Canberra!

    I stared at him in dismay.

    “Er—it’s not the 19th century, darling. They won’t object if you come wi—”

    “Not that, John! You mean… Luh-leave Silvercreek?” I faltered.

    He made a face and muttered: “Oops.” And said: “Darling, it was only a stop-gap measure, after all.”

    “But they’ve all been so kind… And they’re relying on me to person the bar.”

    “Judy and Brad are used to doing that when the restaurant’s not serving meals, aren’t they? I’m quite sure they’ll manage. And their slack season’s coming up, of course: June to September, isn’t it?”

    “Um yes, the kitchen’ll be closed… Oh, dear,” I said lamely.

    “Er… It’ll be quite safe, Mel. The bloody bombers are all dead as doornails. I’m not saying the social scene in Canberra will be exciting—more like exasperating, really,” he admitted wryly, “but at least we’ll be together. That is what you want, isn’t it?’

    “Yes, of course. I just thought you’d be able to stay here for a bit longer…”

    “Mm,” he said, giving me a big hug. At which of course I bawled all over him like a goop.

    So we went. Of course I didn’t have much luggage but that was okay, we could buy me some warmer things over there, and Sydney with its shops was only a hop, skip and jump away, unquote. Er—yes. How cold did it get in Canberra, then?

    It was just terrible having to say goodbye to everyone at Silvercreek and tho I’d firmly decided I wouldn’t, of course I ended up crying my eyes out. But Bean finally bundled us into the car and took off for the airport.

    … “And don’t say,” he ordered grimly as we left the Barossa Valley behind, “that you’ll never see them again! You can come over for the mid-year break, or we can come over there and get in some skiing, it’s very near Mt Kosciuszko, you know.”

    “What?” I replied soggily.

    “Mel! That’s their highest mountain! Canb’ra is only about two hours from the New South Wales ski fields.”

    Skiing. My God. John throwing himself down precipitous mountains was what the blighter meant. Not to say, closely followed by Bean, Bean Minor and Trelawney. Male idiots one and all.

    I blew my nose hard. “Have you ever been on a ski in your life, Michael Fullarton-Browne?”

    “One doesn’t say ‘on a ski’, y’fool. It’s ‘on skis’. Plural. And yes, of course I have. With Oncle Fernand. Loads of times. Bean Minor as well. –During the Christmas break, chump!”

    “But— Help,” I muttered. “You mean all those times when he told Grannie that he was going to visit some old pal with a ‘de’ in his name he was actually skiing down mountains?”

    “Henri de Montauban. Yes,” the dashed sibling replied succinctly.

    Promptly my beloved went into a sniggering fit.

    Omigod. Skiing down mountains. That was it, I,T, then. Why had I thought that once I was with John we’d all be safe?

    … “Take care of Tommy,” I said soggily to the sibling as we joined the queue of travellers waiting for their persons and assorted carry-on traps to be scanned by a stout lady with a handheld putative scanning device as well as by a giant gate that reliably let off a horrible noise every time someone wearing a large metal watch attempted to pass through it.

    “Yeah, yeah,” the Bean replied in bored tones. “Go on, you’re holding everyone up as per usual.”

    Ignoring that, I kissed him firmly. One cheek, two cheek, one cheek again. “Au ’voir, mon chéri.”

    “Ciao,” he replied in uninterested tones. “Go through!”

    I went through.

    “Here we are,” said John, unlocking a door on the first floor of a very ordinary-looking two-storeyed brick apartment block. “It’s all the previous inhabitants’ taste, I’m afraid, Mel.”

    I looked around dazedly. Finally I managed to gulp: “They were awfully fond of cabbage roses, weren’t they?”

    “Yes,” he said shakily. Our eyes met and we both broke into roars of laughter.

    “What were they?” I asked weakly at last, mopping my eyes.

    “Homesick expats,” he replied succinctly.

    I nodded dazedly. They must have been! The sitting-dining room, quite large, was a nightmare of Ye Trad. Englishe Looke. Featuring a huge over-padded sofa and two matching armchairs smothered in floral linen, a soft pink predominating, with touches of lilac, a little grey and soft green. The long curtains matched. A couple of upholstered occasional chairs sported a different floral pattern: less pink, more blue. The dining chairs—six of them—were your trad. mahogany balloon-backed look. Very, very shiny. Padded seats in a floral linen. Darker pink. The floor qua floor was unexceptionable, being pale polished wood, but a fair amount of it was obscured by thick rugs. Pinkish and greenish floral garlands on an oatmeal ground. Very trad., yes.

    “Um, are these dining chairs—”

    “Approx. 1990, darling.”

    “I see.”

    “And if one looks closely one discerns that the floor is not timber, but bamboo,” he said in dreamy tones.

    “What?”

    “Yes.”

    I looked closely... “That was an obscure joke, was it?”

    “No, ’fraid not. The flat belongs to the High Commish.—accommodation’s at a premium here, so they bit on the bullet and invested in some boltholes for their staff. This place and its brother and sister in the building were all done at the same time. Extremely environmentally friendly—the stuff is fast-growing, you see.”

    I peered… Nope. “Okay, if you say so.”

    “All the furnishings are entirely the work of the previous occupants, however,” he added smoothly.

    “How does that work? I mean, if they leave them in?”

    “Er—they just wrote me a note which said ‘Have the lot, old boy, Martina can’t wait to get home to Wimbledon and our old stuff. Best of.’ –More or less.”

    “Wimbledon? Wouldn’t they have had to pay megabucks in taxes while it sat empty?”

    “Er—you mean rates, I think, darling. No: they had tenants in for the duration, with their furniture safely in storage and a letting agent keeping a strict eye on said tenants. Well I suppose one doesn’t give up a decent place in Wimbledon, having once managed to acquire it.”

    “No. You wouldn’t want to live there, would you, John?”

    “No, I’d like to live in the cottage, you chump!” he replied with a laugh.

    I sagged. “Oh, good.”

    “Um, ’tisn’t worth spending money on redecorating, really, darling. I mean, I’m only here filling in, y’see.”

    “That’s okay, I’ll just ignore it! Is the bedroom horrible?”

    “Rather pink, but not too bad. Tho I’m afraid after a couple of nights here I rushed out and bought the plainest duvet cover I could find.”

    “Understandable.” So I plucked up courage and ventured into the bedroom…

    Yes well. The bedhead must have been one of those detachable ones, there wasn’t a foot to match. A kind of white trellis effect. Um, painted cane? Or very likely painted bamboo. The wide double windows featured, as to their innermost integument, dusky pink Venetian blinds, they must have had to scour Australia for those, in the 21st century! Next, flimsy, frilly and looped-back white net curtains. And finally, pink floral heavy linen curtains, also looped, but with the sort of tasselled cords (dusky pink) that were possibly meant to be untied at will. The valance round the king-size bed matched the curtains, as did the dressing-table skirt and an upholstered chair. The flooring was again pale bamboo overlaid with thick rugs: pink garlands on oatmeal, how surprising. And the walls were painted a very soft pink and hung with white-framed reproductions of Redouté’s roses. Rather a lot of them.

    The desperate John had insulted all this feminine frippery with a dark brown and white checked duvet cover, but who could blame him?

    “I really need to pee, so you’d better warn me what they’ve done to the bathroom.”

    “Not a thing. Still entirely in its basic High Commish.-ordained shiny white. Oh—and matching laundry appliances.”

    I looked in cautiously. Phew! So it was. Those hideous brown towels would be his choice, I’d noticed before that he was one of those men who always fall back on brown if required to do anything at all in the interior décor line. But at least they were an antidote to all that pink and floral how-de-do.

    We had the rest of that day to ourselves, and then the invitations started to come in. The more so as I (apparently) had to come in to the office to get “squared away”. I think he meant my passport or possibly my visa. Okay, we’d go to the office. John in a neat dark suit, very conservative white shirt and boring Old School Tie, me in my best pair of jeans, now rather tired, the lovely broderie Anglaise blouse from Silvia and, the ambient T. being definitely on the cooler side, my Junior Dones alternative blazer. Black with the pink trims, yep, that one.

    “Is that the only jacket you’ve got?” the poor man croaked on being presented, perhaps assaulted is a better word, with this somewhat non-High Commish. sight.

    “I like it.”

    “Er—darling, those are the Worcester College Rowing Eight colours.”

    “Goodness, that’s just what Miss Pinkerton at School said when she saw me in it!”

    He winced. “Mel, stop trailing your coat this instant!”

    “I will, John darling, but it was irresistible! –Is there anyone at the High Commish. who was at Oxford? Or Cambridge, I suppose. Assuming rowing appealed.”

    “Yes.”

    “Oops! Tho really, you know, it’d be a test of their mettle. We tried it at a putrid Marbledown sports day, and then later when Mireille and I popped over to Oxford, and absolutely all of them failed it miserably!”

    “You can certainly add the ones at the Commish. to that,” he said with a sigh. “And yours truly, I presume.”

    “Not really: you realised that I was trailing my coat. No-one else did! Tho some of the ladies at the Marbledown sports affair laughed when their lords and masters choked,” I recalled happily. “I’ve only got one other jacket—it’s a blazer, too. It’s blue and black vertical stripes.”

    “Don’t you own a cardigan?”

    “C’est quoi, un ‘cardiganne’?” I replied artlessly.

    He sighed. “I suppose blue and black could be anything… Go on.”

    I duly assumed the object.

    “Mm,” he said drily. “The other one looked a lot better on you, I’ll concede that. Okay, shopping on the agenda ASAP.”

    “I have got plenty of clothes. At least… Well some of them are still in Paris, they’ll be okay. And there are still some at the cottage. But I did leave quite a lot in Mum’s flat. She’ll have thrown them out by now, unless Trisha managed to save them.”

    “I see.”

    “Um, don’t be cross, John. We were travelling with the horses, we couldn’t bring very much, you see.”

    “No, of course you couldn’t. I’m not cross, darling; I’m just envisaging the bitches at work or the chaps’ bitches of wives having a go at you.”

    Good grief! That all! “Let them! I did spend several years incarcerated at putrid Merrifield School with its putrid classroomsful of mindless bimbos, you know!”

    He grinned. “So you did! Right, let’s go! Non carborundum!”

    That’s one of his jokes. It’s a favourite saying in his family. I think it means something quite different in Latin but he translates it as: “Don’t let the B.’s grind you down.” I asked the Bean about it and he said the “grind” bit refers to carborundum slash silicon carbide, a chemical compound discovered back in the late 19th century and used for grinding and in heavy-duty “sandpaper” ever since. Plus a lot of other intel that didn’t seem relevant as it had nothing to do with grinding. Okay Bean, just very hard stuff, got it.

    Oh, goodness me, a fair amount of grinding did take place! How surprising. (Not, however, by the chaps, who oddly enough seemed quite keen.) The receptionist in particular was very superior, but then that’s their thing, isn’t it? That’s all they know how to do, poor things, apart from telling one that Mr So-and-So is not available. She was all over John, of course. Calling him “Colonel Raice” about sixteen times in the course of one sentence, kind of thing. Breathlessly.

    Next, having penetrated to an almost-inner sanctum, I was introduced to a few chaps. Grinning eagerly. Unclear what if anything they did. The invitations started then and there, with the decision that yes, we would “tie on the old nosebag” this lunchtime with Benny. –The said Benny did actually say that, one wondered if perhaps he ought to be put up for membership of the Junior Drones on the spot.

    After that it was the Personnel office which rather unfortunately was rather full of over-lipsticked, over-mascaraed young ladies. Well! This was such a surprise, Colonel Raice!

    “Would it astonish you to know,” he said drily as at long last we were ushered tenderly into an innermost inner sanctum to await Mr So-and-So with the door mercifully closed upon us, “that I did in fact give them warning that I’d be bringing you in?”

    “No.”

    “No!” he agreed with a laugh and a shudder. “Sorry!”

    “So what are we in here for?”

    “Oh—signing a few papers, that sort of thing.”

    Okay, I was about to have to swear my soul away on a stack of FCO red tape that I wouldn’t give away any British State Secrets.

    … Yes, I was. Mr So-and-So turned out to be a pompous man in his mid-forties, terribly serious. Not the Old School Tie type, so perhaps that was why.

    Once we were safely back in John’s office I managed to utter: “I did it but I still don’t believe it.”

    “No, it does tend to stun the mind, rather,” he agreed.

    “I suppose,” I added evilly, “that they’ve already done the requisite background checks?”

    “Er—mm,” he admitted on a guilty note.

    “Months back, I presume. That wasn’t a question, John, not even a rhetorical one. Was this before or after your enemies blew your flat up?” I enquired delicately.

    He cleared his throat. “Both.”

    Promptly I gave a shriek of laughter.

    “Yeah,” he said with a silly smile. “Classic. Well, you’re all official now, darling, and the Aussies can’t chuck you out, short of formally requesting deportation. Or strictly speaking it’d be repatriation, I sup—”

    “Stop now, John Raice.”

    Grinning broadly, he stopped.

    After that it was not all hunky-dory, because then, the morning being suitably advanced, we had to meet some very high-up persons, culminating in Sir and Lady, what she was doing in the building I have no idea, since she didn’t work there. Bossing him around, best guess. Naturally she had the perfect nose for looking down, but she wasn’t nearly as bad as Sir’s P.A., one “Do please call me Harriet”, a most superior young lady indeed.

    I particularly admired the line: “Lovely to meet you, Melly-sand. Such a charming name. Quite unusual in this day and age, isn’t it, John?”

    Boy, did that take me off with my cloak over my face! What, precisely, I  wondered, was I supposed to do? Besides retiring silently into the background, natch. Er… decide I was too mere ever to be a suitable helpmeet for John and resign him into Harriet’s tender care? Burst into humiliating tears and run home to Mummy in England? Except that I wasn’t English, that passport to the contrary. Born in France, of course. English parentage, yes. Sort of, given that Mum’s half French. Um… merely simper gratefully for the notice? Ooh, that was a thought! Like the toadies at putrid Merrifield School when smiled upon by luminaries such as Melissa Canning-Foulkes or the frightful Angela Purviss, she of the Engagement Ring scored from the Boyfriend during the last Christmas break in our final year.

    So I said without interest: “How’d y’doow, Harriet?”—sounding like Mum at her worst, alas. Adding to John in what one might have believed was meant to be an undertone had one been half-deaf as well as blind and stupid, what time I hugged his arm somewhat pointedly, to rub it in even further: “Encore une Anglaise qui ne connaît ni le nom ‘Mélisande”, ni ce que signifie l’accent aigu en français.”

    To which he gallantly replied: “Darling, thought we’d agreed that you would try not to lapse into French in front of those who haven’t had the advantage of growing up in France with a French grandmother? What on earth would Lady Patrizia think of you?”

    Uh—give me a medal? Oh!

    “Oh, dear; yes, Mum might be rather cross with me. Sorry darling, I forgot, it must have been the excitement of actually being at the High Commission. –Do forgive me, Harriet, won’t you?” I said terribly, terribly sweetly.

    Well what could the poor female say? By this time she was rather red. What she did say was, very stiffly: “Not at all. It’s rather a lovely language, isn’t it?”

    Er—at Merrifield the consensus was that it was like listening to a crowd of parrots chattering in a tree—not that any of them had ever heard a crowd of parrots, of course. Even Alysse not dissenting.

    So once we were safely back in his office I was able to say: “Thanks for backing me up with ‘Do please call me Harriet’, John.”

    He eyed me drily. “It wasn’t entirely altruistic: the female’s been chasing me ever since I set foot in the place. Six invitations to a casual meal, by my count, three to assorted cocktail does, and two offers to keep me company at frightful receptions where I wouldn’t know a soul. Unquote.”

    I took a very deep breath. “Got it. Well thank you anyway. That casual mention of Mum’s dashed title was superb.”

    He grinned ruefully. “Can’t really take the credit. The brain sort of did it automatically. Response to stimulus, I suppose. Like fending off a jab in the eye.”

    “Well it was good.”

    “Mm, well, afraid it’s a foretaste of things to come, Mel.”

    I almost said—by this time I was admittedly feeling slightly frazzled—that in that case he could go to all the cocktails, dinners, receptions, etcetera by himself. Help! That would have been the height of stupidity! No way was I going to let him fall prey to “Do please call me Harriet” or any of her ilk!

    “Right, well, we’ll keep fending them off,” I stated grimly.

    “Jolly good!” he said with a chuckle.

    You better believe it, John Raice!

    Well my goodness, after that first day it was all social highlights! So-called cocktail parties at which the ladies mostly sipped white wine and the gents knocked back the whisky, what time revolting little dampish things on sticks circulated, one wouldn’t go so far as to call them sushi. Sushi-like, perhaps. Certainly not canapés, no, and Grannie would have had seven fits at the mere sight of them.

    Fortunately before the first of these putrid occasions took place I had managed to score a rather nice little black number, suitable for cocktails or dinner. Possibly a trifle on the youthful side, but on consideration of the superior tarty hags who thus far had eyed me evilly, with or without a veiled titter, a knowing smirk at the Best Friend, or a lift of the plucked eyebrows, possibly not a Bad Thing after all. In especial as on reaching home after one of these excruciating entertainments John collapsed on the bed with a loud laugh and the remark: “They hated you in that delicious dress, darling!”

    Jolly good, that’s what I’d worn it for.

    Of course John had to be at work during the week, tho he admitted that he could have done a lot of it online from home, but that would entail security checks, secure connections and “the complete folderol”, and he didn’t think they’d wear it for someone who was just filling in. Which left me free to explore exciting Canberra, Federal capital of the Commonwealth of Australia, didn’t it?

    Um… yes.

    Okay, most of the diplomatic corps were said, or so the grapevine had it, to get dirt money for a posting to Canberra, and one began to see why. Unless one favoured a rather indifferent museum and art gallery, tho one had to concede the latter had a good café, there was nothing to do in Canberra. Yes, there were sightseeing buses. Two. I mean, two routes.

    One took you to the War Memorial Museum, so that was a weekend jaunt, since John wanted to come, too. Er… Help. Surely one of the most hideous buildings in the entire Commonwealth of Nations, not just the C. of Aus. In front of it was a large parade ground, and yes, this was where they had the Anzac Day Dawn Service, John admitted.

    Mm. It had all looked a lot better in the less than half-light.

    “Don’t want to look round the museum, darling?” he asked nicely.

    “Um, well, I have been to Les Invalides, John.”

    He shook slightly.

    “Well yes, le tombeau de Napoléon an’ all,” I admitted. “Flossie had to dash out.”

    “One sympathises,” he said in a hollow voice. “But there’s some good stuff in the museum proper. See the suits of armour?”

    Ad infinitum: Bean Minor, rather young at the time, was very, very keen.

    “Yes. Some of them were pretty.”

    “Ah—yes. The later ones, yes. Meant for jousting. Did you see the ivory horn?”

    Ivory… Ivoire. Um, horn… Oh! “Bien sûr! On aurait dit, l’olifan du sire Roland! For-mi-dable!” I beamed.

    “Sire— Oh; I get it: Roland’s horn: exactly!” he grinned.

    “Um, it was all a lot older,” I ventured.

    “Er—got it. We’ll just look at the view, then, shall we, sweetheart? Quite a panorama from here.”

    One of the gents on the tour bus had a brochure. Eagerly he explained that from here one got a view straight down the Axis (this was beginning to sound sort of Hitlerish, yes, but it wasn’t what was meant) to Parliament House!

    Er… quite. In the distance. That was frankly as close as those with sense slash eyes in their head would wish to be.

    The bus would take one there, it was part of the tour! My goodness, yes, so it would! To a dark, echoing, gloomy and unlovely grey concrete carpark area somewhere in the bowels of the building.

    Topsides, this pride of the federal capital is a strange white erection in which “the bloody pollies waste the country’s money shouting at each other, pack o’ nongs” (Charlie Lewisham). The sort of building which gives the phrase “modern architecture” a bad name. If approaching from outside, which John and I made the horrid mistake of doing one weekend, the view is of a low, sweeping hillock of greensward with beyond it, peering over the rise, a sort prong poking up from a sort of lowish sweeping something that might be a building but the greensward effectively prevents one from being sure of this.

    Closer up it did not get better.

    “Benny claims that the old Parliament House is charming,” my beloved said limply. “Rather Colonial in style, he said: the Raffles touch.”

    “Raffles?” I groped.

    “I think he meant the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, darling. Sounds worth a look, mm? Not sure how to get to it, but I suppose one could always call a taxi.”

    “Good idea. But let’s go home first and have a nice strengthening cup of coffee.”

    We did that, and then somehow became distracted…

    Okay, next day!

    The taxi driver at first was sure we meant like, the new Parliament House, like where they meet, ya know? But in fact navigated us to the right place very competently. Tho not without the remark, now alas expected when in John’s company: “English, are ya, mate?”

    “But this is lovely!” I cried in astonishment. “Charming! Why on earth did they give it up?”

    “Er… the perverseness of the human spirit?” John ventured.

    “Gosh, yes!”

    “Nah,” said the driver in friendly tones. “They wanted a new place, ya see. Modern.”

    O-kay. That was as good as it was going to get. So we got out and just admired the lovely old seat of the federal government for quite some time.

    After that it was all downhill, really. The weather got colder and the hospitality likewise.

    Embassy dinner. Looked at down the nose by all females present of whatever nationality, starting with the Ambassador’s wife and right on down the line to Benny’s escort. I mean, ostensibly the amiable Benny was escorting her, but in actuality it was contrariwise. Much-handled food served in minute dainty piles or possible mini-stacks, sprinkled with minuscule somethings. On very elaborate china. Porcelain, really? Uh—German? Oh, one sees! Danke to that German person seated next to me—possibly on account of being very low down the pecking order and very pink as to the ears and nose, positively unfledged. Tho with a lovely white tux and a spiffing little bright blue bowtie which Benny’s escort had already sniggered at, with a whispered remark pitched just loud enough to be heard by all those within a radius of deux mètres. No, the pinkish German chap didn’t know what the strange pudding was, either. Fawn in colour. “Fluff?” I suggested, poking at it with the small implement provided. He didn’t know that word and went pinker than ever. Given that the object on my other side was not John (that sort of dinner with that sort of hostess, yes) but a large yellowish-brown person who apparently spoke neither English nor French, both my attempts at conversation having been met with blank stares, that was that. The pudding was destined to remain a mystery until I could ask John. …No idea, darling! Putrid, wasn’t it? No argument there, John. Er—yes. Sorry, Mel. Yes well. Could there be worse to come?

    High Commission reception (not the British one this time, no). Gents in dress uniform, cor. John looking extra-handsome in his, natch. With most certainly the flattest stomach in the room. Nothing to eat. Lots of standing around. Sixteen ladies eagerly fawning on John, whether severally or in concert, charming. A plethora of little black dresses. Gosh, that narrow but slightly draped look was still in, was it? A la “Kate”, quite. Discreet but elegant? Or boring. What a good thing that I hadn’t worn my lovely black dress, but something quite different!

    Very pastel. Peach, one might have called it. Rather luckily my complexion can take such shades, tho I must admit the overall effect was a trifle much. Not that it was a fussy style, no, that would have been far, far too obvious, It was very plain, narrow, with just a little crosswise draping over the rather low-cut bust. Possibly designed for a less-endowed lady than I, so to speak.

    John had looked at it dubiously, cleared his throat and managed: “It’s very pretty, Mel, but is it what they’re wearing?”

    “The style is,” I replied evilly. “Wait and see.”

    He duly saw. Well what with the pitying glances that turned to doubt, the looking down the noses that turned to ditto, the indignant indrawn breaths, and the just plain jealous glares…

    … “Darling,” the poor man concluded when we’d tottered home at long, long last, “I admit the soft impeachment, and the dress was a triumph, the more so as all those chaps who goggled happily at you were very evidently unaware of the whole bit, but my nerves are shattered! I was trying not to laugh the whole bloody evening! Just promise you won’t do it again.”

    “Well,” I said temperately, “they’ve seen it now, so it won’t work again.”

    “That’s not what I mean,” he croaked.

    “Oh isn’t it?” I replied artlessly.

    “Mel, sweetheart, I know your motto’s always been ‘No quarter’, but please! If I eff this up too horribly they may decide to post me as military attaché to Darkest Africa or some hole in Central America with régimes popping in and out like fleas on a dog.”

    “Colourful,” I noted. “Can they?”

    “Yes. I’d resign my commission, of course, but then I’d be scratching to earn a crust. And I’d lose a lot of my pension: need to put in a few more years, y’see.”

    “Help. Okay, I promise I won’t do anything obvious, will that do?”

    “It looks as if it’ll have to, you horrible woman!”

    “So what’s next on this delightful list of what constitutes entertainment to those banished to the Antipodes?”

    “Dunno. Look in the diary. But it’s bound to be something putrid,” he sighed.

    “Surely not!”

    Okay, I looked anyway. The tome referred to was his home diary. There was undoubtedly another one at the office, but I wasn’t asking: this object was bad enough. In it he conscientiously entered all the frightful does to which he’d been invited. To most of which I had to go, too. Diplomatic entertaining is like that. He also helpfully entered my social engagements. (Having discovered that I wasn’t bothering to write them down and it was hit and miss whether the invitation, note or card, would be resurrected in time.) No, he wasn’t a control freak. Just organised, he’d explained mildly.

    … Ugh. Ladies’ lunches and ladies’ afternoons. Charming. Oh, and the American and Canadian embassy ladies had also offered coffee mornings. Quite casual. Unquote.

    As May neared its end the weather was getting colder, so I emailed Mireille to see whether my manteau BCBG was still in Paris, it being a heavy black thing chosen by Grannie and thus eminently suited to the current circs. Meanwhile, the local shops were offering what they considered the latest in winter wear but frankly, no. Okay, John, remember that suggestion that shopping in Sydney would be the go?

    He couldn’t get away.

    No? Well oddly enough Benny was quite keen to accompany me. His pal Will, equally young, unattached and not unattractive, likewise. And Lionel Chernovsky from the U.S. Embassy had very kindly offered to escort me anywhere at all.

    Poor John went very red as I imparted this last morsel and spluttered: “Lionel Chernovsky’s a married man!”

    “Yes, but he doesn’t let that stop him. –Don’t get agitated: I stopped him in his tracks by saying artlessly: ‘But won’t you get awfully bored while Bettina and I are in the dress shops?’”

    He sagged. “Good for you, sweetheart,” he said limply.

    “I tell you what: Bettina’s really nice: we could go together!”

    “Er—yes. Well why not?” he agreed with a laugh.

    So the nice American lady and I went shopping in Sydney. And she spent an awful lot of dashed Lionel’s dough, good for her!

    All in all it was a most successful expedition indeed, and so I was well kitted out.

    An afternoon with Mme Pouligny? Delightful! “Oui, d’accord, madame,” I agreed to the lady’s aside: “en France on dirait ‘un five o’clock!’” –Diplomat-style laughter, no amusement either implied or understood.

    Madame was not the French ambassador’s spouse, no. She was the wife of the next man down in the pecking order. So of course I wore my new afternoon gear, complete with hat. One would not attend un five o’clock en cheveux!

    Naturally it wasn’t for five o’clock, this being a Commonwealth country imbued with two hundred-plus years of British notions of the right way to do things. It was at three-thirty. John had warned me that in Australia this meant three-thirty on the dot.

    Hein?

    Yes.

    Okay. So I rolled up at three-thirty-eight, to find everyone else assembled. Never mind, I was in my very new, charmingly sophisticated afternoon ensemble. Black. It had had to be: it was the only one on offer that had looked as if it knew the word “sophisticated.”

    “Well?” said my beloved, having greeted me on his return from work later that day with a big hug and kiss. “How was the afternoon? Serve petit fours, did she?”

    “Don’t joke, John. When I think how dear old Tante Émilie and Mme de Bérard from next-door used to just pop out to their favourite little pâtisserie in Paris—!”

    “Oh, lawks,” he said, pulling a face. “No delightful cherries on tiny blocks of chocolate-coated cake, then?”

    “Just don’t,” I sighed.

    “We are Down Under,” he conceded. “I’m sure Mme Pouligny did her best.”

    “Yes. Well there were three other French ladies there and none of them said or looked anything, so she must have done. Tho frankly I’d have said she should have broken down and served the sort of yummy Australian afternoon tea that Silvia and Judy produce at the drop of a hat!”

    “Or at the drop of a dozen or so of the famous Barossa Brown and White Eggery’s brown and white eggs!” he said with a laugh.

    ‘You’re never going to forget that name, are you?”

    “No,” he agreed with relish: “it’s destined to become part of Raice family folklore forever!”

    Which would only work if he produced offspring: had that occurred? I looked at him cautiously but it didn’t seem to have done. Oh well.

    “I say,” he said, blissfully unaware of my train of thought, “there wouldn’t be any dinner going, would there?”

    “There would be fish and chips if one felt like driving for half an hour in the suburban wilderness surrounding Australia’s federal cap—”

    “Shut up!” he choked. “Well, uh—have a drink first, then decide if it’s going to be fish and chips or pizza?”

    “There’s at least one Chinese place and an Indian one that deliver, but Benny says the Indian one uses the same sauce in all its curries.”

    “That’s out, then. Fancy a Martini? G&T?”

    No, actually, at that instant I fancied un kir. Oh, well. I settled for a Martini. Or two. And pizza. Yes well. We were a very, very long way from lovely warm South Australia and Janine’s, Silvia’s and Judy’s cooking.

    Never mind, on the morrow there would be a lovely dinner hosted by the British High Commissioner and his lady in person!

    We had to go, of course. The only viable excuse would have been a fatal illness. So we went. I draw a veil.

    But I shall just mention that I wore my lovely black dinner dress, which had become my absolute favourite. And was rewarded after the frightful do was over by John’s saying, as he helped me out of my coat and gave me a big hug: “Mmm, I do love you in that dress, darling! Adorable!”

    Which pretty well made up for the bally awful diplomatic ordeals masquerading as hospitality in the federal capital!

Next chapter:

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