Swings And Roundabouts

9

Swings And Roundabouts

December (ctd.) The following few weeks were a jumble of good and bad feelings—emotional ups and downs, really. Or rather, some good things happened which one couldn’t fail to be pleased about, but in the other hand, as Christmas approached one’s thoughts did tend to turn gloomily to those who were on the other side of the side of the world and in one case, couldn’t be contacted for months to come…

    Well one jolly good thing followed on the consultations over the Silvercreek Cellar Door: Crumpy looked at the end of the year figure for the wines from Shadow Road Vineyard sold by the Cellar Door, and realised that, dividing it by the number of working days the place was open, there would really be very little to record each day! What a relief!

    Silvia of course could have been a real problem, but the Egg exercised supreme tact, not to say a considerable amount of the deliberate charm of which he was more than capable, and pretty soon she was eating out of his hand. Well one had to admit that the syndrome was not an uncommon one when the distaff side encountered Alan (Egg) Ovenden. Crumpy’s summation was: “Sickening but good, what?” and one had to concede that that pretty much whanged the old iron pin on the bonce.

    And Barry’s Barossa Printery came on board with a new set of sales slips for both the restaurant and the bar, on the latter of which one had merely to fill in the slots marked Red or White, a task which even Brad could manage. And the till did the sums, one had merely to punch in the prices.

    Meanwhile Egg and Crumpy were investigating computerised tills which could store one’s sales data and print out the name of the item sold on the receipt, rather than merely the figures. Greg’s till dated from the Dark Ages and, it was revealed to our starting eyes by the chatty Mrs Janine Stuart, had originally belonged to her Gran and Gramps, used in their grocery as their first “decimal” till back when Australia “went decimal”… “The nineteen-sixties?” croaked Crumpy, having been driven to resort to the technological nuisance instrument. One tended to doubt the validity of this intel but no, it came from the Royal Australian Mint itself. Shaken, the Egg admitted that the till could certainly not be counted as a capital asset of the business any more—no, Mel, even tho it still worked: such assets were considered by the accounting community to depreciate every year. Er, yes, including the taxman.

    And we settled into a daily routine, Crumpy helping Greg with the office work, and Egg and I helping out at Silvercreek Cellar Door in the restaurant, bar or kitchen as required.

    And the Great Silvercreek Cellar Door Egg Mystery was solved! Judy’s brother-in-law turned out to own the “Barossa Brown and White Eggery”—I am merely the reporter—a smallish commercial venture which sold only genuine free-range eggs. Brown and white, obviously. With a lovely selection of different coloured hens pottering around in its green meadows! Er, chooks. And paddocks? Gulp. Okay, paddocks, one stood corrected.

    His payment was three quiches a week, plus any leftovers Judy dropped off at the end of the day, free lunches, wine included, whenever he and Judy’s sister liked to turn up—they didn’t often, they were of course busy working people—and a certain amount of wine every three months, which had been worked out together by the brother-in-law (Dane), the sister (Angie), Judy, and Silvia…

    Well predictably Greg clutched his head and moaned: “What?”

    “Um, you see, it’s so convenient, we don’t have to order lots at a time, if we look like running out Judy can just pop down the… road,” ended Silvia miserably.

    “I’m not questioning your choice of supplier, Silvia love, merely your method of paying him,” he sighed. “For one thing the wine prices change every year! Have you taken that into—” No of course they hadn’t. Nor anything else that smacked faintly of commerce. Further investigation revealed that Dane and Angie sold their lovely eggs to most of the local restaurants, receiving therefrom actual Australian currency, or at least the electronic transfer of its equiv. But because some weeks Silvia only used a couple of dozen it hadn't seemed worth the time and effort to— But they agreed meekly to accept the normal remuneration and bill Greg in the normal way in future. No free quiches, tho, it was eating into the Cellar Door’s profits. Uh—yes of course they were welcome to the leftovers at the end of the day (weakly). And to a free lunch whenever they liked to turn up: Silvercreek offered that to all their suppliers! –As Greg retailed all this to us I must admit the word “Robbo?” appeared in my mind in glowing letters approx. ten metres high, but I gallantly refrained from speech.

    More detailed paperwork was drawn up by the helpful Crumpet…

    Greg looked at the results dully. “Yeah well,” he concluded at last: “that muck ole Robbo drinks isn’t worth bothering about, really. Okay, we’ll forget about him. Can’t see the ATO querying where our tomatoes come from.”

    “The wine itself will have to be accounted for, tho,” Crumpy pointed out. “It’s included in Vern’s figures as going out to the Cellar Door.”

    Greg ran a hand tiredly over his face. “Breakage,” he said heavily. “Okay?”

    “Yes—well one carton of Cab-Sav-Shiraz,” said the Crumpet brilliantly in the vernac., “every six months is reasonable, I suppose!”

    We looked at one another and laughed weakly. Yes, one case of his favourite tipple every six months, it turned out, was what old Robbo had been charging for his lovely tomatoes—not to mention other garden produce: he also had a superb line in “zucchinis” (i.e. courgettes), which went into some of Silvia’s most delicious quiches. Oh well, if he was happy, and Greg was happy—!

    It still wasn’t commerce, but as the Egg observed with a laugh, it was working and we really had gone about as far as we could go, without losing Greg his entire Cellar Door staff.

    Well quite!

    Egg was keeping in touch with his dad and with Oncle Albert, tho all parties were careful not to mention the names of any of us three Fullarton-Browne siblings, let alone John’s, and Crumpy likewise was keeping in touch with his dad. So Oncle Albert and Clive Lamont were duly regaled with the story of Silvercreek Cellar Door. Much loud laughter ensued—Egg was a considerable raconteur, when he put his mind to it—but Oncle Albert was also horrified and immediately pointed out fifteen ways in which profits and/or efficiency could be increased without incurring any notice from officialdom. Limply Egg admitted that of course he was right in principle. but there was real difficulty in finding and keeping good staff here, and if Greg lost Silvia and Judy the whole enterprise would collapse. Bon Dieu! Wasn’t there any unemployment in Adelaide? the uncle asked crossly. Er, yes, as a matter of fact the State of South Australia’s unemployment figures were rather high, but people didn’t want to travel that far… And public transport wasn’t very good at all: the whole of Australia was completely geared to the car. No, there was no train service—and no, Albert, Adelaide did not have a Métro (weakly). The exclamations of horror and scorn at the French end would have done credit to Grannie at her worst, it must be a LeBec gene, one could only conclude. But the uncle quite saw—calming down—that “Alain” had done well! Now, did he want to hear about the progress of the clubs?

    As I may have mentioned, these two establishments, very recently renamed “Le Club” (in London) and “The Club” (in Paris) were Oncle Albert’s old and frankly rather seedy nightclubs, now being thoroughly refurbished so as to turn them into high-class gaming clubs, in the style of the traditional English gentlemen’s club. In the wake of a coincidental visit to Paris when the planning had just started, the Junior Drones had got involved, and Egg and Crumpy in particular had become very keen, the Egg in fact proposing the idea of two high-class, exclusive gaming establishments with the English gentlemen’s club look. They were both looking forward very much to participating in the management of the clubs when they got back from Australia, and the business management and hospitality courses they had done online during the pandemic had been undertaken with that goal in mind.

    Of course Egg wanted to hear all the latest details, as did we all, and so they were purveyed on speaker-phone. Oncle Albert was very pleased with the way things were coming on, and M. Eames from England had been over to look at the renovations at “The Club”, and said it was excellent progress!

    Er, yes. “M. Eames”, one Christopher of that ilk, was the older, very sophisticated gent with whom I had once attended Henley Regatta… And other joints. Well as I’d met him initially when he was thinking about investing in the clubs, I suppose it was only to be expected that his name would— Um, yes. The Egg eyed me thoughtfully. I smiled weakly…

    Mr Lamont, having a flat in London as well as his nice 1920-ish house in the country, was able to report on the progress at “Le Club.” They were working on the inside, given the English weather, of course.—Heavens, yes: it was winter over there! “Winter,” mouthed the Bean helpfully at this point, Crumpy’s instrument also being on speaker-phone. I made a face at him.—The back regions had been completely gutted, it being a wonder, evidently, that the old kitchen hadn’t been closed down by the Health Inspectors. Well I did realise that the place had been very shabby indeed, but, uh, what was “gutted?” Or, er, “guttered”? Dubiously I wrote “gutted = d’un poisson?” on a handy piece of paper and passed it to the Bean. He snorted. Bean Minor peered at it. Kindly he took the paper and wrote: “fig. of speech: emptied out, comme the guts d’un poisson.” Oh. Ri-ight… I passed it back, having written: “guttered = ?” The minor legume shook his head blankly and handed it on to Trelawney, who wrote, and handed it back. “Guttered = gone out: candle”. Er…

    When I came to again the Bean noted acidly, as Crumpy rang off: “You missed most of that, Mel.”

    “Yes, and those are my estimates for Silvia’s sales this summer!” the mathematical Crumpet cried, retrieving the now distinctly the worse for wear piece of paper. And smoothing it out lovingly.

    Oops.

    “Sorry,” I muttered. “Well it was getting rather detailed and, um, actually I can’t remember what the back regions of the place in London even looked like.”

    “Grubby. Marthe would have said that kitchen was a disgrace,” pronounced Bean Minor.

    “I don’t think Mel was with us that time, actually,” the Bean recalled hazily. “Uh… We stayed with John, and Oncle Fifi shouted us all to lunch at the resto in Soho. Tante Marianne did a delicious millefeuilles for dessert: ring any bells, Mel?”

    Other visits to the London branch of the LeBec family were quite clear in my mind, but… “No. When was this?”

    “Um, a long weekend—Easter, was it, Tommy?” he groped, looking at his junior.

    “Oh, yes: she was gated!” the dashed boy remembered brilliantly, and Trelawney, not expecting this fate to have befallen my entirely disciplined, obedient, impeccably-behaved self, gave a surprised snort of laughter.

    “What had you done, Sister Bean?” asked Crumpy eagerly, apparently bearing me no ill-will for not having hung breathlessly on his progenitor’s every word.

    Scowl.

    “Go on!” prompted the Egg with a laugh.

    Let me see: gated over Easter, not just the usual weekend… Oh, yes! “Well they were making the poor miserable Juniors read Le Petit Prince. In class: they used to give the vols. out at the start of the lesson and then put them back. I mean, no kid should be forced to read that sickening stuff, poor little souls! Um, I glued the putrid things to the shelf,” I admitted.

    Well it was rather gratifying that my entire audience fell about howling with laughter. And one had to admit it was an exploit to be proud of. Tho the fate of being caught and ignominiously gated was not.

    “How did—they—catch—you?” gasped Crumpy, mopping his streaming eyes.

    Scowl.

    “Do tell!” urged Trelawney.

    “Very well, dear boy,” I said loftily. “But solely so as you can pass it on to your descendants as a dire warning, should they wish to undertake a similar venture.”

    He looked rather disconcerted, no doubt being far too young to think of himself in that patriarchal light, but urged: “Yes?”

    “I got glue on my putrid school uniform and it wouldn’t come off.”

    More howls of laughter. And Egg expressed a fervent wish to be able to tell Flossie all about it.

    “You can’t: it might give away that she’s out here!” gasped Bean Minor.

    “Mm; realise that, old chap. –Anyway, Sister Bean, the interiors of Le Club are coming along nicely, given the usual speed of the English workman, and the architect’s very pleased with the progress so far. Pretty much the same as in Paris, really!”

    “Good.”

    “Did you miss the bit about Dad and Flossie and Uncle Flossie?” asked Crumpy. “—Right. Well they all had an evening at that gaming club he sometimes goes to, but the coffee was putrid—bad as that place where we were working, Mel—and the so-called Glenlivet definitely wasn’t, and most of the other drinks were watered. Don’t think they’ll be any real competition for Oncle Albert’s Le Club!”

    Good show! Er, the shaky syntax apart, but that was English for you.

    Bean Minor was looking at my face. Silently he got his pen out again, produced the notebook in which he wrote important oenological notes and reminders to do his laundry—that sort of significant stuff—wrote, and pushed it over to me.

    “Le Club de I’Oncle Albert.” Well quite!

    So everything in the garden was rosy, so to speak, as far as the future of the clubs and Egg’s and Crumpy’s future employment went…

    “Um, Egg,” l ventured next morning, the hemisphere-to-hemisphere exchanges having taken place at convenient times in the morning, Greenwich M.T. and French Time, and rather late in the evening, South Australian Summer Time (not the same as New South Wales and Victorian Summer Time, nor yet Queensland Time, where they’d refused to go onto summer time, very sensible given the stiflingly humid heat there at that season of the year, and of course not the same as Western Australian putative summer time, they were in any case something like two hours behind—I think behind—SA Standard Ti— No, forget it).

    As I was saying, I ventured: “Um, Egg, I suppose we couldn’t possibly have a Zoom meeting of the Junior Drones, could we?”

    He shook his head. “’Fraid not, old thing. Internet connections just aren’t safe, you see.”

    Not really, but I took his word for it. Tho whether the crazed terrorists who’d bombed John’s flat would be listening in to Flossie’s and Mireillie’s computers, to name only two… Oh well. Better safe than very sorry.

    “We’ll see them very soon: they’re definitely coming out for Christmas!” he reminded me.

    Yes. Well Flossie and Mireille were: Oncle Albert had insisted on shouting her to the trip, claiming that she never had any fun, she had her fulltime office job in Paris and as well her damned Tante Louise (worse in French) kept her busy in the evenings and weekends helping out in the resto’s kitchen, claiming that a girl needed to learn such tasks—whereas in his opinion what a girl needed was to go out and have some fun and meet some boys! But our young cousin Colas hadn’t persuaded Oncle Albert to cough up for a trip for him, the more so as, having struggled to get his bac technologique during the last academic year, he’d just embarked on a tertiary qualification in something terrifically technological and the French educational institutions did not have huge long summer holidays in the middle of winter! As it were.

    One might have concluded that this would result in Flossie’s and Mireille’s travelling out alone together, which was good if it made him, conceited and self-centred as all who knew and loved Mr James (Flossie) Nightingale, Hon. Sec., Junior Drones, admitted he was, take a hard look at himself and realise he couldn’t do better than our sweet, pretty and thoroughly nice-natured Mireille. But bad if he continued to deny to himself that he'd fancied her ever since first setting eyes on her and she became thoroughly miserable.

    But this wasn’t going to happen, was it? Because Uncle Flossie and Clive Lamont had both wanted to be made Auxiliary Hon. Members, Junior Drones, and they were coming out, too! And as these two genial senior gents, tho more than old enough to know better, were extremely fond of young, pretty and sweet members of the opposite sex, there was probably no hope that Mireille would even get to sit beside Flossie! …Again, good or bad, selon. One didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, really.

    Well time flowed on, taking us poor human ants with it, and we’d settled into a peaceful routine, the more so as the customers at the restaurant didn’t even seem to notice that the prices had shot up and that a glass of wine with their lunches was no longer free. Nor that, to be strictly accurate, one could buy a whole bottle of old Kev Manning’s plonk for about the price of a glass. Of course bottles were also on offer at lunchtime, and there was a wine list, its prices now severely edited by Egg and Crumpy, but few couples ever opted for that. –It was still almost entirely retired couples.

    Then came the day that we got what Egg later described as “a captious one”. A word which I hadn’t encountered before. Kindly Bean Minor looked it up for me—well probably he didn’t know what it meant either but he wasn’t admitting it, bless him. Oh: got it! Good word. Yes, she had been.

    We weren’t privileged to know her name. She and the hubby, as Judy relentlessly referred to a male spouse, tho on consideration I didn’t think it was meant to be pejorative, it was just the vernac. of her socio-economic group, so to speak—as I say, the couple arrived together, looking just like any other ordinary suburban retired couple in search of a nice lunch and free tastings. She in a pale lemon floral-patterned blouse and lemon cotton slacks, and he in a pale grey short-sleeved shirt and pale grey cotton slacks.

    Well it started at the tasting bar. “Just remember you’re driving, Martin.”—“Very nice, dear,” (to me) “but I don’t think we will, today.”—“That white wine is chilled, is it?” (Standing in a bucket of ice as it was.) “We’d like to try it, thank you. –Just a drop for him!” (Sharply.).—“Martin! You’re meant to taste it, dear!” (as the luckless spouse got away with it while he could.)—“Oh, dear: not very exciting, really, is it? Let me see…” (More tasting and rejecting.) “Excuse me, dear,” (acid-sweet) “but must that man keep staring like that?” (The inoffensive Brad, who often helped out at the tasting bar, he was very good with the names of the wines, tho it must be admitted he had no palate. Well yes, he did tend to stare, rather, but if a customer caught his eye he’d grin amiably, it was obvious he meant nothing by it. Well what could one say? So I asked the poor chap to pop out and bring in a carton of the Silvercreek Cabernet-Shiraz “just in case,” and he ambled out, grinning obligingly.) “Slow, is he, dear? Yes well, equal opportunity is all very well, but one needs to consider the effect it has on the clientèle, when one’s running a business.” (What? My God, had the woman actually said that?)

    So I offered to open a bottle of Shadow Road Reserve Bin Chardonnay 2020 for her. –Reserved to spare the wine-buying public, according to Duck, because it was “the worst wine the old joker had ever produced.” Both over-oaked and far too sweet.

    … Well no, I had to report regretfully, as the other Junior Drones hung on my words, so to speak. She hadn’t actually bought any, but she’d certainly lapped it up. Tho Martin had got it in the neck for gulping it down quickly, her word was “golloping”, before she could stop him.

    “I don’t think it’ll be in the dictionary,” ventured the Bean, as Bean Minor offered to look it up.

    “It might. Grandpa used to say that old Roger used to gollop his food—he was a spaniel,” said Teddy Trelawney on a sad note.

    “So you remember your Grandpa, Trelawney?” I said kindly. “That’s nice.”

    “Yes: I used to stay with him in the hols. when I was at Prep. School,” he explained sadly. “Only he died when I was twelve.”

    Right. Got it. Never saw hide nor hair of the parents even when he was little! I had already taken several vows never to do that to a child of mine, but now I renewed them.

    Meanwhile the minor legume had found a definition. And read out: “‘Gollop: dialectal variant of gulp’.”

    “What?” groaned the Egg. “Let me see that! –It’s Merriam-Webster, y’fool, that’s American!”

    “Oh,” he said sadly. “They usually have jolly good definitions, tho.”

    “Not in this instance.” The Egg perused the instrument. “I won’t try Collins, they make you disable your ad blocker—at least, they try to when I use my laptop, so I’m boycotting them,” he noted by the by. “Hang on: it’s in Wiktionary. Here we are: ‘(colloquial, England) To eat greedily or quickly’. That’s it, more or less. –Typically accompanied by loud gulping noises, Mel: QED!”

    “That was good old Roger, all right,” said Trelawney wistfully.

    “You could have a dog, Trelawney!” I encouraged him. “As soon as you have a place of your own!”

    He blinked. “Um, yes, I suppose I could.”

    “Getting previous, Mel,” murmured the Egg, his eyes twinkling. “Next thing you’ll be finding the poor chap a wee wifey in a flowery pinny!”

    Poor Trelawney had gone very pink, so Crumpy said soothingly: “He’s got years ahead, yet, to think about that sort of stuff. So was that it for the frightful woman, Mel?”

    “What? Oh: no, she was putrid at lunch, too.”

    “Figures. Go on, then,” he prompted. “Spill the jolly old beans. Tho we may have to be stayed with flagons!” he warned.

    “I could do with one! Well she didn’t get worse… No, well it was like this…”

    “It’s rather vegetarian, isn’t it?” –Looking at the menu without approval.

    Me (taken aback): “Um, well there is ham or smoked salmon in the quiches, madam, and a choice of sliced beef, ham or smoked salmon on the bruschetta.”

    Sniff. “I dare say. –It’ll be that awful dry supermarket sliced beef, Martin, you know what that’s like.” –Warningly.

    Spouse (meekly but uncomfortably): “Yes, dear. I was thinking of the eggplant caviar for a starter.”

    Snort: “Caviar!”

    Spouse (very lamely indeed): “Well I suppose it’s just a name, dear…”

    Sniff. “It’ll be that stuff we had at that awful Lebanese place, Martin. Burnt.”

    Me (very nearly losing it but not quite): “Baba ghanouj. It is a classic Middle Eastern dish, madam. Made by singeing the aubergine skins until they blister.” –Realising too late I’d used the word “aubergine” instead of the Anglophone “eggplant” as on the menu. Oops.

    “Really!” –Indignant movement, very hard to describe, compound of a wriggle and a shrug and a near-toss of the head, plus a sort of, um, swallowed sniff? Well something like that. Perhaps the English word “dudgeon” would come near it. Or was it what the more baffling type of English novelist meant by “bridling?” “Well it’s up to you, Martin, but don’t blame me if you’re up all night.”

    Spouse: “Um, maybe I’ll just have the hummous.”

    “What’s in it?” she immediately demanded of me.

    What? The menu explained what was in it! Carefully I replied: “Chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, a little garlic, madam. Made on the premises.”

    “Salt?” –Suspiciously.

    Me: “No added salt, no, madam.”

    More consulting of the menu. Then (irritably): “I can’t understand why they don’t offer a hot dish with their own wine in it!”

    Spouse (sycophantically): “Yes; it is a bit of a pity; but it wouldn’t be as good as your coq au vin, dear.”

    Light laugh. “It’s hardly the weather for that! –No, but surely a nice escalope with a wine sauce!”

    —At this point I paused my narrative, to let it sink in… The more so as I had echoed the woman’s pronunciation: “ess-scall-up”.

    The Crumpet gave a yelp of laughter and smote his thigh hard. “By George! That’s the ubiquitous Aussie ‘snitzle’ of their pub lunches, or I’m a Dutchman in his clogs, in his tulip garden!”

    And after the consequent hilarity had more or less died down, I was able to acknowledge evilly: “Exactly! Not as posh as she fondly imagined she was!”

    “What did they eventually eat, if anything?” asked Bean eagerly.

    “They both had the hummous starter, which got condemned as ‘ordinary’, and then she had the smoked salmon quiche with the ‘fresh greens’ side salad, that she tried to make me bump up to a full salad for the same price, and he had the ham quiche with the tomato side salad that she pinched half the tomato out of.”

    More hilarity.

    “Hang on, tho!” said Trelawney the Exact with an arrested look.

    He’d spotted it, all right. “Doesn’t the ham quiche have eggplant in it?” he croaked.

    “That’s right, oh wise beyond thy years.”

    “But didn’t she stop him?”

    “No; she didn’t realise it was the exact same mixture as they put in the eggplant cav—”

    Shouts of laughter.

    —caviar. Quite.

    “What did they drink, Mel?” Bean Minor then asked eagerly.

    “Guess.”

    At this point the Egg went into a choking fit, gasping: “No! Too much of a cliché!”

    “No, respected Hon. Chairperson, women like that never vary from the expectable pattern,” I sighed. “She had a glass of one of Mr Manning’s Chardonnays, Tommy, and she wouldn’t let him have wine because he was driving and he’d already had far too much during the tasting!”

    The younger lads and Bean all loved it, and Egg grinned like anything, his acumen having once again proved unimpeachable; but Crumpy said disgustedly: “Well that takes the bally biscuit! Poor bloody chap! Three groans for the putrid woman in lemon, Junior Drones!”

    “Seconded!” the Bean agreed.

    “Boo-ooo! Boo-ooo! Boo-ooo-ooo!”

    What’s that sporting expression? Or possibly a gambling expression. Um… “You win some, you lose some,” that’s it! That December was certainly like that, because, thanks be to the Gods of Cricket, the Ashes were NOT on in Australia that summer! (Their summer, I mean.) So Bean Minor and Trelawney would not incur sunstroke sitting in the bleachers. Um, possibly not the right cricketing term, I think it may be American, but anyway, sitting out there in the blistering sun. The Bean, now having regained and retained possession of his dashed S. phone, had ascertained that it was not unusual, in all of the Australian states in which the accursed competition was played, to have heatwaves which went up to forty-three degrees for perhaps two or three days on end, after having previously hit thirty-eight for five days or so. The latter being, according to those who hadn’t spent a large portion of their formative years in France with its sensible decimal systems and, um, whatever the right name for the temperature system is, a hundred degrees Fahrenheit! As the mathematical Crumpet did not fail to scream.

    “Yes, but quarante-trois is a lot more, Crumpy!” I pointed out.

    That stumped him, to use the appropriate figure of S.

    “Forty-three,” said the Bean in a bored tone. “Wouldn’t have stopped these two chumps sitting out in it, tho.”

    “People wear hats and take bottles of water with them!” retorted Trelawney crossly.

    “People who are used to the climate!” I countered swiftly.

    “Yes, well never mind that, they’re not on this year,” said the Egg hurriedly.

    “No; praise be!” I beamed.

    “Honestly, Mel!” protested Bean Minor. “You can be a real kill-joy!”

    “That or sensible, you benighted clot,” said Crumpy heavily. “Sitting outside for hours in a bally heatwave?”

    “Exactly,” I said firmly, getting up—this conversation having taken place at the breakfast table. “I’m going to go down to the Cellar Door and taste Silvia’s new ice cream sauce!”

    “One approves the notion but hardly the implementation thereof at this hour, Sister Bean,” noted the Egg.

    Trelawney emitted a loud snicker. “You’re getting old, Hon. Chairperson! Come on, Tommy, we’ll go too!”

    The Crumpet and the Bean exchanged a swift glance and rose to their feet.

    “No, you won’t!” said the latter, seizing his sibling by force.

    “Nor you!” agreed Crumpy, grabbing Trelawney.

    “Hey!” “I say!” And: “Let go!” they both cried—words to that effect, as I exited rapidly.

    Hah, hah, hah! A red-letter day, really, as far as I was concerned.

    … Coffee-flavoured. Actually she could just have poured some hot, very strong espresso on the scoop of ice cream, as dashed Bean Minor did not fail to point out later, but she added sugar and something to thicken it and cooked it all up in a little pot, then storing it in the fridge until wanted, at which time Judy would pop it in the toaster oven to warm up; she was a whizz with the toaster oven, but on inspection it struck me as too horribly technological for words, so perhaps I wouldn’t  suggest that John get one for his…

    … cottage. Bother. Just when I was feeling really cheery, too!

    Oh well, the sauce was, of course, lovely. And became quite a seller, tho personally I would have refrained from decorating the result with a blueberry and a fleur de bourrache—“borage flower, dear”. Judy’s idea. Well it was pretty, yes, but blueberries surely must cost— Actually I wasn’t going to go into that one in case I didn’t like the answer.

    No well on the whole, red-letter day for me, yes.

    The contingent from Europe was due on the 20th, but I wasn’t allowed to go to the airport to meet them. And on my objecting vociferously to this proscription, Egg and Crumpy promptly decided that it would be safer if my siblings didn’t come, either. Loyally Trelawney offered to stay with them, which didn’t have the intended effect, really, as of course he didn’t actually know any of the meet-ees. (There should be a proper word for that but I can’t think of one.) Well he remembered Flossie from School, of course, but given the age gap he’d never actually spoken to him and certainly never been addressed by him: lofty chaps like Flossie (James) Nightingale don’t take any notice of small fry.

    Greg and Webber, who were both present, as the altercation took place over the breakfast table, were very puzzled.

    “Why on earth can’t she go?” asked Greg.

    “And why do the boys have to stay behind?” asked Webber. “There’s stacks of room in the minibus!”

    Oh, dear. We looked at our fearless leader.

    “I—uh— Damn,” he said, looking at his watch. “Look, we really must go, we’ll have all the city traffic to get through. Uh—look, I’m sure we can trust them: you can tell them. Come on, Crumpy!” And they hurried out.

    “What the Hell’s he mean, trust us?” groped Greg.

    “Whaddare ya, then: Royals in disguise?” asked Webber, grinning.

    “That’s a good guess!” I approved. “Michael is actually the real heir to the throne, our dad was the product of an unfortunate incident of Charlie-boy’s in his misspent youth, and Tommy of course is the Spare, and Teddy is their gentleman-in-waiting, he’s an illegitimate cousin, descended from a little accident of Princess Margaret’s!”

    “Shut up, Mel!” cried Bean. “You’re not helping!”

    “I thought it was pretty good, actually,” Webber admitted, on the broad grin.

    “Yeah, nobbad for a spur-of the moment story,” Greg agreed. “Well don’t tell us if you’d rather not; we’ll just remain mystified and mention it to Janine. Then it’ll be all over the Barossa before the cat can lick ’er proverbial and the cousins in Victoria’ll have it two secs. after that.”

    “Yeah, and I’ll tell Mum: that’ll be all she wrote,” noted Webber. “Takes care of Queensland, ’cos she’s up there, and Tazzie, ’cos me Aunty Jill’s down there, and WA, that’s me Aunty Helen. –Leaves the NT, dunnit?”

    “Nah: Silvia’s sister. Katherine,” said Greg.

    “Aw, yeah. Forgot. Right: that’s the whole of the country, then. And the Kiwis’ll have it day after tomorrow: Judy’s niece Whatserface in Auckland.”

    Abruptly Greg collapsed in sniggers, gasping: “Too right, mate!”

    When the fit had died down I was able to note with interest: “I didn’t know Silvia had a sister called Katherine!”

    Greg’s and Webber’s jaws might have been observed to sag slightly. “Uh, no, love,” said the former on a weak note. “Katherine’s a town in the NT. Well—middle of nowhere, strictly speaking. The sister’s name’s Deb.”

    “Gosh,” I said in awe. “A town called Katherine!”

    “Come to that, Adelaide’s a girl’s name, too,” Greg pointed out, grinning.

    “Yes, I suppose so…”

    “They’ve got a river called Murray, so why not a town called Katherine?” put in Trelawney with a giggle.

    “A Town Like Alice, too!” noted the brilliant Bean.

    “Cripes, maybe ’e is descended from old Charles,” croaked Greg. “That was about that brain-level!”

    Sniggers all round, possibly at the Bean’s expense but even more possibly at that of the House of Windsor.

    “Anyway,” said Webber on a firm note, “are ya gonna tell us why you’re not allowed to go to the airport, or not?”

    “Yes, of course,” replied the Bean, going rather red and awarding me a glare. “Ignore Mel, she’s just being silly because she doesn’t want to think about it.”

    This was probably true. I scowled at him anyway.

    “Um, well… Blow,” my sibling then produced. “It’s hard to know where to start, really.”

    “The big bang?” suggested Bean Minor.

    Austerely his senior replied: “That’s not funny, Tommy, in fact it’s damned crass, and if you can’t be sensible, just shut up.”

    He scowled, but did shut up.

    The Bean took a deep breath. “Well there’s this chap, y’see, called John, that we’ve known for ages. He’s got a cottage near Alan’s family’s place. And Mr Ovenden stables his horse for him. Well horses, really, he’s got a racehorse as well as his hack, or is it only a leg? Um, can’t remember. Anyway, we used to spend the long vac. with them, um, that’s the summer holidays in England, y’see.” He ran down.

    “Uh—so ya got to know this John bloke?” groped the unfortunate Greg.

    “Yes, that’s it. And, um, Mel developed an almighty crush on him.”

    Both Greg and Webber were now looking at me in concern and alarm.

    “Bean, you benighted clot,” cried his junior, “now you’ve got them thinking that poor John’s a child molester or something!”

    “Eh? Rubbish!” he spluttered, sounding for a moment horribly like Oncle Fernand when one has just purveyed one of Grannie’s pottier edicts to him. In French, of course.

    “Okay, so he isn’t,” said Webber weakly, what time Greg just swallowed. “So what is he?”

    This got the illuminating reply: “A Colonel, actually. But he’s not on active service, exactly. I mean, not in the field any more, he’s been with the MOD for a while now.”

    “I think you’re muddling them more, old man,” ventured the intrepid Teddy Trelawney at this point. “He’s with MI5, actually, you see.”

    “Yes,” I burst out, “and it might’ve been a crush when I was a kid, only I really am in love with him, it’s serious!!”

    “Okay, pet,” said Greg weakly. “You’re serious. –Hang on: MI5? Ya mean he’s a flaming James Bond?”

    “No!” said the Bean crossly, glaring at poor Trelawney. “Just shut up, Trelawney, you barely know him!”

    “He does know him, we stayed at Mum’s dump when we left school, and John was there with Mel,” Bean Minor objected. “And he’s been frightfully decent to us.”

    “Yes, apart from kindly storing your stuff in his flat,” I pointed out.

    “Shut up, Mel!” cried the driven Bean. “Um, sorry,” he said to the two unfortunate Aussies. “He’s not a spy: that’s MI6. He’s in counter-intelligence, that’s what MI5 does, and usually he just does intelligence analysis, only a few months back—”

    “A few?” I cried indignantly.

    “Shut up, Mel, stop interrupting!”

    “Don’t shout at your sister like that, Michael, can’t you see she’s upset?” said Greg heavily. He got up. “I’ll make you another cuppa, pet,” he said to me. “In fact we’d all better have one, I think, and calm down.”

    “Good idea,” said Webber in relieved tones. “With plenny of sugar, Greg.”

    “Yeah.” He refilled the electric jug and turned it on.

    Silence then reigned, apart from Trelawney saying in a lowered voice to Bean Minor: “That ‘big bang’ was a bit on the nose,” and his peer replying with a scowl: “I was only trying to lighten the mood.” And me sniffling a bit and being supplied with Webber’s nice clean hanky and a kind pat on the shoulder.

    When we were all sipping sweet milky tea, Greg noted drily: “I presume this is all tied up with what Alan wouldn’t say back at Dad’s when that bloody golf ball hit the upstairs windows and scared poor little Mel rigid?”

    “Um, yes,” the Bean agreed uncomfortably.

    “It’s always happening, Mel,” Webber explained kindly. “There’s a ruddy golf course over the road and they let these cretins play that can’t hit a ball straight.”

    I smiled gratefully at him. He was an awfully nice chap, actually. Tall and lean, and very tanned—well walking back and forth to the winery every day would do that, all right, in their climate—and if not precisely good-looking, with a very pleasant face, a bit crooked, and a lovely lopsided smile. And perfect teeth: most Aussies seemed to. Tho his weren’t the long, horse-like ones that some had. All right on a horse, like lovely Little Princess or Mr Ovenden’s gorgeous gentle old Lady Aurelia, but not in a human. Um, yes.

    “Yes, I know now, Webber,” I said, “only it was very loud and—and unexpected.”

    “Yeah; ’course it’d give you a shock. –Ya shoulda warned them, Greg.”

    He sighed. “He gets at most nine or ten a year, how likely was it— Forget it. Go on, Michael: what about this not-spy?”

    The Bean took a sustaining gulp of his tea. “Um, well he and Mel were sort of together—”

    “We were together!”

    “Um, yeah. They were staying at John’s flat in London for a bit, you see, and Tommy and Teddy and I had gone on down to the country to stay with Egg—sorry: Alan.”

    “This was last summer—our summer,” put in Bean Minor.

    “Uh—this year, ya mean?” groped Webber.

    “Yes. I mean, if the Ashes had been on, Teddy and I would have stayed in town.”

    “Yeah, all right, little mate, just let yer brother tell it,” sighed Greg. “If ’e can.”

    Feelingly the Bean responded: “I can if they’d stop interrupting me! Um—where was I?”

    Greg scratched his head. “Buggered if I know.”

    “John and Mel were still in town at his flat but we’d all gone down to the Ovendens’ place,” said Trelawney the Exact.

    “Oh—right,” Bean agreed. “Um, then John and Mel came down to his cottage.”

    “Hang on!” cried Bean Minor. “You haven’t explained the background properly!”

    “What?”

    “You haven’t explained what John had been up to!”

    “Uh—damn.” –Very crestfallen.

    Quickly I put in: “John usually works in at the office, you see, doing intelligence analysis, but according to him there was some intel that looked suspicious, so his bosses decided he’d better go out there and, um, check it.”

    “Out where?” asked Webber.

    I swallowed hard. “We don’t know: he’s not allowed to say, in fact he’s not supposed to talk about his work at all. But, um, his languages are Arabic and Pashto and a bit of Farsi.” I swallowed again.

    “Arabic? Shit,” noted Webber.

    “Yeah,” Greg agreed. “We get the Arabic bit, too right; but what are the others?”

    Bean gave me an annoyed look. “Clear as mud, Mel! They speak them in Afghanistan and Iran, Greg.”

    “Hell’s teeth,” the winemaker responded simply.

    “Puts it well,” the Bean agreed, looking very sour. “And while he was down at his cottage with Mel, the blighters blew up his flat. –Thinking he was in it, y’see.”

    Dead silence.

    Then Webber croaked: “Ya mean they bombed it? Arab terrorists?”

    “Well Muslim, anyway, we don’t know what sort. Yes,” the Bean confirmed.

    “Yes,” the rest of us agreed.

    “I get it,” said Greg grimly. “Then presumably the buggers realised they’d missed him, so you mob decided to get Mel well out of it; that it?”

    “That’s it, yes!” the Bean replied thankfully.

    “That’s not all, Bean!” I cried indignantly.

    “Well almost all, Mel,” said Bean Minor quickly. “The dashed MOD sent a couple of chaps down to the cottage to grab John and shove him into some sort of Witness Protection: you know, squirrel him away in a safe house, kind of thing. For at least six months.”

    “Yes, and they wouldn’t let me go with him because girlfriends don’t count!” I cried, then stupidly bursting into tears.

    Webber was sitting next to me, so he put his arm round my shoulders. “Come on, love, you’re safe here. Blow your nose, eh? –Ya better grab the brandy, Greg, mate: I don’t think the tea’s cutting it.”

    When I’d blown my nose and was sipping the remains of my cold tea with a generous slug of three-star brandy in it—an odd combo but cheering nonetheless—Bean Minor explained:

    “We talked it over, you see, and decided that they might not have a go at Mel, but it’d be stupid not to take precautions. Because if the terrorists can’t get at John himself they’d be likely to go for anyone close to him.”

    “Yeah,” the two Aussies croaked.

    “And Mr Ovenden was sending some horses out for the Melbourne Cup anyway,” added Trelawney, “so we decided the easiest thing’d be to disguise her as a stable lad and come with them. Just in case the ports and airports were being watched.”

    “Aw, right! So that’s why Alan didn’t want her going to the airport!” Greg realised in relieved tones.

    “Yes,” Trelawney confirmed. “It’s highly unlikely that they could have traced her to South Australia, but with her friends and her French cousin coming out… Well there is a risk. The terrorists could have contacts out here that they could alert to watch all the airports. It’s not likely, but it is possible.”

    Greg sighed. “Yeah well, ya don’t wanna take senseless risks if there’s no need to, no.”

    “Exactly,” the Bean agreed. “Tho I don’t think Tommy and I would be recognised. Anyway, that’s the full story.”

    Looking dry, Greg replied: “Yeah, well, thanks for telling us—I suppose.”

    I blew my nose a touch resentfully. “I wouldn’t have.”

    “No, you’d just have bawled all over the show for no apparent reason and upset the poor chaps!” the dashed Bean retorted.

    Greg’s mouth twitched. “That’ll do. You’re safe here, Mel. Pretty much as obscure as you get round these here parts, unless ya wanna hive off down Shadow Road to ole Kev’s dump!”

    “Yes,” I agreed, operating on the nose again. “Thank you very much, Greg. I love it here. But, um, if you start feeling uneasy of course we’ll leave.”

    “He won’t!” said Webber on a bracing note. “Now, lessee… Yeah. You pop off and wash your face and fetch your hat, Mel, love, and I’ll walk you down to the Celler Door—oke?”

    Well a nicely brought up young Englishwoman would doubtless have replied politely: “Thank you so much, Webber, but you really don’t have to.”

    Not having been nicely brought up in England, and Merrifield School not having managed to inculcate a properly modest and ladylike mode of behaviour, what I actually did was gasp: “Yes—please—Webber!” and rush out, bawling.

    When I returned to the kitchen Webber was still there. Well as I said, a really nice chap. In his shoes, many of them would have chickened out.

    “Come on, then,” he said mildly, taking my arm in his big warm brown hand. “Got plenny of sunscreen on? –Good-oh.”

    And off we went, him holding my arm all the way.

    “Thanks so much, Webber,” I said when we got there. “I feel a lot better.”

    “No worries,” he replied on a wry note. “That John’s a bloody lucky bloke. And I tell ya what: if he lets ya down after all this, I’ll knock ’is block off for ’im!”

    “Will you?” I said with a shaken laugh—the more so as I had noticed, more than once actually, that he wasn’t undisturbed by my presence. So to speak. While being nice enough not to blatantly make eyes at me like dashed Duck. “That’s lovely of you!” And I tiptoed and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

    Well Heavens, he deserved it! And if I could have duplicated myself and given one of me to him I would have done it on the spot!

    Well take it for all in all it had been a really up-and-down sort of day, and it was still barely nine o’clock! But at least I could look forward whole-heartedly to seeing darling Mireille, and Flossie and dear old Uncle Flossie and Clive Lamont again! Um, provided the horrible terrorists hadn’t been tracking them…

    Nonsense. And having greeted Silvia and Judy and the beaming Brad cheerfully, I sat down at the kitchen table and got on with it. Slice zucchinis for a quiche? Good, I could do that: just my culinary level!

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendsdownunder-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/05/a-merry-down-under-christmas.html