Made In Australia

2

Made In Australia

October (ctd.) The Egg collapsed onto a sofa in the sitting-room of the palatial guesthouse allotted to us by our genial host and hostess.

    “Whew!” he said with a laugh. “Well chaps, we made it, the horses are safely bedded down, no-one so much as glanced sideways at Mel, and even Sid’s conceded that the stables here aren’t entirely bad!”

    Crumpy grinned. “No, right. Golly, were my bally nerves on edge or what! But, um,”—he looked round warily but there was no need, our kind hosts were nowhere in sight—“who the Devil are these people, Egg?”

    “Uh—thought I said, old man? Racing friends of Dad’s.”

    “Y— Buh— They live in a dashed palace, Egg!” he hissed.

    “Yes,” I agreed. “Um, are they owners, Egg?”

    “Well I dare say they may own a leg or two, yes,” he replied airily.

    “A leg or two! If that isn’t prime horseflesh out there in his stables, I don’t know what is!” spluttered Crumpy indignantly.

    Egg’s cool grey eyes twinkled. “Those are only his eventers and a couple of hacks, Crumpet. The legs are with his trainer, of course.”

    “Right. Now tell me that one of them isn’t running in the Melbourne Cup!”

    “No I won’t tell you that,” he murmured.

    Exasperated, Crumpy threw a cushion at him.

    The Egg had always claimed total lack of interest in organised games at School but he caught it neatly.

    “I must say, I thought we’d have to sleep with the lads,” I noted.

    “In the bunkhouse, yes,” Crumpy agreed, sitting down with a sigh. “I say, it’s bally hot, what?”

    “Dashed hot, yes. I thought Australians always had enormous ceiling fans and air conditioning,” the Egg admitted.

    “Well the bunkhouse seemed cool enough,” Crumpy allowed.

    “Yes—in fact it was positively palatial!” the Egg added with a grin.

    “Maybe there is air conditioning here only it hasn’t been, um, switched on, does one say that?” I ventured, looking round for it. Er…

    “I think that thing over there’s an electric fire of some sort,” noted Crumpy after quite some time.

    “Mm. –I know, I’ll ask Trelawney!” I got up.

    “Eh?” groped the Crumpet.

    As I exited I heard the Egg say: “Does one deduce that that brilliant suggestion is because of his being about to embark on an engineering degree?”

    “God help us!” was the Crumpet’s reaction.

    I was right, tho, and Trelawney came back with me to report: “There is air conditioning: didn’t you chaps listen to what Mr and Mrs Pearson said?”

    “Er—there was rather a lot of it, old man,” replied the Egg. “I was concentrating on the bits about the accommodation for the horses and the lads, actually.”

    “Me, too. And praying that Sid wouldn’t take a scunner to the head groom here, anything working under him, the stables here, the rest of the facilities, and in short Australia,” added Crumpy with a shudder.

    “So was I,” I agreed. “And looking round for—” I broke off hurriedly.

    Young Trelawney awarded me a kindly, superior look. “You’re perfectly safe here, Mel, I’m sure. I’ve never seen anything so peaceful-looking and—and cheery!”

    “Not to say bright—well, Scott Pearson’s shirt alone would have done it—but yes, cheery, bright, peaceful and completely indifferent to any- and everything on the other side of the world!” said Egg with a laugh.

    I had to swallow. It was rather like that, yes. No-one had asked us anything about England at all, and the kindly enquiries of “How was the flight?” had been a mere form. Whereas several people had imparted a great deal of largely incomprehensible information about such things as what we were looking at (blank incomprehension), what we could expect to see (blank ditto, by and large, tho the Egg seemed to recognise the words “Opera House”), and what treats were in store, possibly in some cases and almost definitely in others, in Victoria. Which hadn’t made sense until someone mentioned Melbourne sort of in that connection and it dawned that it was in the State of Victoria and we were in a different State! Tho no-one mentioned what, and on the journey to the Pearsons’ place the Bean had been driven to look it up on his bally smart phone. New South Wales, Sydney was in New— Right; got it, a different State. Was that like a département? Not really, given that the whole of France could have been dropped into New South Wales and lost, my sibling determined, googling madly, drat him.

    … Exactly why no-one ever explained anything, I eventually decided after quite some time, was that in Australia everyone took everything completely for granted and never stopped to realise that foreigners might be completely dépaysés and at a loss not to say bewildered. Well doubtless in France and Britain it applied too, but of course we wouldn’t have noticed it. After we’d been there a while the Egg admitted that he hadn’t expected Australians to be so dashed insular, then correcting this to: “Perhaps parochial would be a better word, it’s bally big for an island.” Well yes, one had to admit it, parochial is what they were. At the same time very kind and welcoming, certainly the ones we met.

    Trelawney had, apparently, been listening to the Pearsons’ intel about the air conditioning in the guesthouse. Which was what we were in, he added, perhaps redundantly. The controls were in the back passage, by the kitchen.

    Uh—kitchen? He led the way. We followed him out, sheepwise.

    Well yes, there was a kitchen, all right.

    “Gosh,” said Crumpy in awe. “Acres of it!”

    It was rather like that. Very, very shiny: white cupboards, white vinyl flooring, giant stone-clad bench in a lovely shade of pale fawn which would surely mark terribly, I could just hear my French relatives’ opinion of it. Ranks of shiny-doored appliances. And a huge white-painted table surrounded by white-painted chairs with seats in natural cane. The only spot of colour was provided by a large pot-plant on the windowsill over the sinkbench.

    “What’s that?” croaked Crumpy, goggling at it. “A triffid?”

    “That or an ampelopsis,” replied the Egg.

    “Hey?”

    He grinned. “Good, eh? I got it out of that D.L. Sayers book of short stories I found. –You know, Crumpy! By the dame who wrote about that rather Bertie-like chap in that book of Bean’s with the um, body on the beach,” he finished on a somewhat lame note, glancing at me.

    “Oh—that,” Crumpy recalled. “Too dashed clever for me. Don’t know why that chap had to come on like Bertie, really; I mean he was obviously the world’s worst brainiac.”

    “Uh—yes,” the Egg agreed weakly. “Anyway, that plant’s the definition of an ampelopsis in its third stage: all over the show,” he clarified.

    “Oh abso-bally-lutely, old man!”

    Egg’s mouth twitched. “I dare say that Maeve Pearson popped it in here initially in its immature form, and her cleaning lady’s been watering it conscientiously ever since!”

    “That’d do it.”

    “But what is it?” I groped.

    “Er—this thing or an ampelopsis, Mel?” replied the Egg somewhat weakly.

    “An ampy-thing.”

    “Ampelopsis. It’s an ornamental vine that looks like a grapevine except that it has multicoloured berries—I mean the berries are of different colours all on the same bunch. Very pretty but highly invasive. Takes over the whole garden before you can blink. Sort of thing that destroys the habitats of other species.”

    “Ooh, help. That isn’t one, is it?”

    “No. Some sort of tropical something, I’d say.”

    Well that was good, tho admittedly the thing looked capable of taking over entire gardens, too!

    And we retired to the passage, where Trelawney now had his head in a cupboard.

    “One just flips the switch,” he reported. “Mr Pearson said it’s ducted, you see.”

    “Hey?” groped the Crumpet.

    “May I join my voice to that of the last honourable speaker?” I asked.

    “What?” replied our Auxiliary Hon. Mem. “Oh—I see! Ducted means there’s just the one control and it air conditions the whole house. The alternative would be to have individual air conditioners in every room, you see,” he added kindly.

    Er… Sort of.

    “Yes, we get it, old chap,” said the Egg on a distinctly weak note. “Well, you game to throw the switch?”

    “I just did,” the Auxiliary one replied in mild surprise.

    Gulp!

    Smiling weakly, we thanked him and retired to the palatial sitting-room and its enormous white canvas-covered sofas, its brightly coloured cushions, its numberless brightly covered modern easy chairs, its plethora of white side tables, coffee tables and you-name-it tables, and its hugely tall squared-off white plinths on which stood tall glass vases holding immense tropical stalks, one to each vase, of immensely tropical flower spikes. Spikes being the operative word.

    “Surely not many people in Australia can afford to live like this?” I groped as we sat down again.

    “I think a fair number do,” the Egg admitted.

    Mm. Those who owned legs of Melbourne Cup contenders, presumably.

    And lo! The blessed air conditioning began to do its stuff and we all relaxed, to the point of being able to admit that we felt almost strong enough to trot off and have before-dinner showers in our palatial individual bathrooms, each of which was connected to a palatial bedroom. At least, Egg and Crumpy were sharing a double room, likewise Bean Minor and Trelawney, while Bean and I had both been awarded smaller rooms, but each of these four rooms had its own— Quite.

    … Gosh. My bathroom featured not only the expected shower with unexpected gold fittings but also two hooks from which depended huge terrycloth bathrobes in dark brown, the one embroidered on its breast pocket with the word “His” the other, natch, with “Hers”.” I duly showered and got into the appropriate one. And staggered out in it and tapped on Egg’s and Crumpy’s door.

    “I say, have you chaps—” I collapsed in helpless giggles. The Egg had opened the door and he was in one, too. Dark green in this instance. “Hers”.

    “We tossed: Crumpy lost,” he explained blandly.

    “Stop—it!” I gasped helplessly.

    “Don’t you just love Australia?” he replied enthusiastically.

    “Well yes, on present showing, Egg, but what does one wear to a barbecue dinner with hosts who own a modern palace and legs?”

    He made a face. “Something clean, we concluded, Mel. Best one can do, really, with what we brought.”

    “Mm. Um, I don’t suppose our Junior Drones things would do?”

    “’Fraid not, old girl, they wouldn’t understand, might feel the Pommies were getting at them.”

    Oh help. “Well I’ll do my best.”

    … Er, yes. It would have to be the Junior Drones cream bags, after all our hosts wouldn’t know they were, plus quite a pretty lightweight blouse.

    The chaps had opted for clean jeans and clean if faded Tees all round. And we staggered off to the big modern house, through the tropical plantings, past the acres of patio and GIANT swimming-pool completely deserted and onto, um more patio? Terrace? It was certainly edged by an enormous array of sliding glass doors.

    … Yes well. The middle-aged Pearsons had invited several couples of their own generation, we never did get their names straight, all terrifically brightly clad, especially the men, those must be Australian-Hawaiian shirts, worn with shorts, tho with those legs one wondered why. And rubber flip-flops, to a man. The wives were ultra-smart in glowing draped creations, necklines ranging from relatively modest halters with bare suntanned shoulders to deep plunges from shoe-string straps with bare almost everything. And huge shoes, possibly technically sandals but I wouldn’t have taken any bets. The hairdos ranged from a fiercely-controlled bright yellow crop to attempts at long, waving curls which given the middle-aged faces between them were not quite brought off in spite of the several pounds of make-up liberally applied. I was going to say especially in the region of the eyes but that would have been misleading. All over. The colour and shading on some of the cheeks would have done credit to Mme Vigée Le Brun in her heyday. Or possibly Francis Bacon.

    The gents were all immersed in horse talk and the ladies in what was presumably local gossip, not a syllable of it intelligible. The booze was already flowing like water, in fact more so, there didn’t seem to be any water, except the turquoise liquid cricket pitch out there. Egg and Crumpy seemed to be okay with the horse talk but the rest of us just gave up and stood in a huddle wondering silently when we were going to get something to eat.

    After a while a slim dark-haired girl in very new jeans and a bright pink shoestring-strapped top over a shoestring-strapped purple bra of the sort worn by those requiring no support came up to us looking wary and said warily: “Gidday.”

    “Hullo,” I responded.

    “You the types from England?” she enquired morosely.

    “Yes,” we all agreed.

    “Mum said I hadda talk to you but I’m not interested in horses.”

    “We are fond of them, tho not really as a topic of conversation,” I explained. “We’re friends of Alan Ovenden’s. We just, um, came along for the ride.”

    “That’s right,” the Bean agreed, speaking for first time since we entered this huge, possibly teak-floored, possible sitting-room.

    “Aw, yeah? Good on ya,” she replied morosely.

    After which we all sank into silence.

    “I say,” the intrepid Trelawney ventured after a while: “what’s your name?”

    “Belinda. Don’t call me Lindy,” she replied on a sour note. “What’s yours?”

    “Teddy. We call these chaps Bean and Bean Minor, and this is their sister, Mel, but we call her Sister Bean.”

    “Yeah? Good on ya,” she replied morosely.

    More silence.

    “Um, did someone give ya something to drink?” she ventured.

    A fair question, since my glass was empty and the others had discarded theirs.

    “Yes, thanks, your father gave us, um, he said it was Planter’s Punch,” replied Bean.

    Belinda presumably Pearson made a rude noise. “So-called!”

    “What’s in it?” asked Bean Minor. “Pineapple juice and rum?”

    “Bundy, yeah, and she usually puts pineapple juice. And I think this lot’s got that orange and mango juice muck in it as well.”

    “Oh yes: that’s the tropical after-taste, then; I didn’t think it was the pineapple,” the palate replied. “And what is Bundy, may one ask?”

    “Eh?”

    “Um, sorry. I think it must be something Australian that we don’t have in Europe,” I said hurriedly, as poor Bean Minor, who had been very polite, bless him, was now looking horribly disconcerted.

    “It’s rum, of course,” said Belinda flatly.

    He brightened. “Oh, right! A dark rum: I see. So it’s a local brand, is it?”

    “Local?” she groped.

    “Australian,” the poor lad muttered.

    “Aw—yeah,” she returned without interest.

    “But isn’t rum made from sugarcane?” ventured Bean.

    Belinda awarded him a blank stare. “So?”

    “Well, um, I mean—that’s a tropical plant!” he stuttered. “Does it grow here?”

    “Nah. In Queensland.” Possibly it registered that we were all goggling at her because she added impatiently: “Well they godda do something with all that sugar!”

    “I see,” Bean managed very faintly.

    Unnoticing, Belinda went on: “Anyway, be warned: Dad’ll go on pouring the stuff into the punch behind Mum’s back until it’s ninedy-nine percent Bundy and one percent juice, goddit?”

    We all nodded fervently, our eyes very round.

    “Yeah,” said Belinda Pearson with some satisfaction. “Happens every time but when her and those hens get going”—disparaging glance at the brightly-clad matrons—“she doesn’t notice a thing.”

    We managed to smile weakly but as no-one could think of an appropriate reply lapsed into silence.

    Finally Belinda spoke. “You mob hungry?”

    Those who had never been addressed as a mob heretofore blinked slightly but rallied and managed to admit that yes, we were rather.

    “Right; I’ll tell Dad to get a bloody move on.” With this she marched off determinedly.

    “Gosh,” said Bean Minor weakly.

    “Do you think she’s typical of Aussie girls?” ventured Trelawney.

    “Let’s hope not,” said Bean sourly.

    “I thought she was okay,” I offered weakly. “I think she must only be about sixteen.”

    “She seemed to know all about the Planter’s Punch, tho,” Bean Minor objected.

    “All right: go and chat her up on the strength of it!” grinned Trelawney.

    “Very funny. –I say, why on Earth didn’t she understand when I said local? I mean, they must have the word, surely?”

    Er… “I think it’s going to remain a mystery for all time, Bean Minor,” I admitted.

    “Hang on,” said the Bean. He produced his dashed smart phone and began tapping at it.

    “Now what are you looking up?” hissed Bean Minor crossly. He peered at the screen. “What? Can’t you take anyone’s word for anything/?”

    “I am! I just wanted to see where they grow it!”

    “Grow what, for God’s sake?” asked Trelawney.

    “Sugarcane. Um… Oh, I see! The rum distillery is in a place called Bundaberg! …Oh yes: they produce sugar as well. …Golly. Huge statistics. I wonder how that compares with the stats for sugar beet production in Europe. Tho that would be broken down by country, I suppose…”

    “Australia is a country,” I sighed, “and for Heaven’s sake put that dashed piece of hardware away before Belinda comes back!”

    “Well it’s interesting; Queensland must be very tropical,” said the Bean mildly, but he did, thank God, replace the dashed apparatus in his pocket.

    Silence fell again and we looked hopefully in the direction in which Belinda had vanished.

    “Ooh look: progress!” said Trelawney in relief.

    Sure enough, with much slapping of the back and loud laughter and/or loud rude remarks from his peers, the genial Mr Pearson was heading for the terrace. Or possibly patio.

    After some minutes Belinda returned to us looking sour. “Come on, we better take the stuff out to him, if ya wanna eat before midnight, thaddis.”

    The boys were looking blank so I said quickly: “Yes of course we’ll give you a hand, Belinda. Lead the way!”

    Forthwith she led the way down acres of passage to a GIGANTIC shiny kitchen. And we’d thought the one in the guesthouse was huge! She opened an enormous double-doored shiny grey metal cupboard to reveal—

    “Crumbs! It’s a fridge!” gasped Bean Minor.

    “Fridge-freezer,” she corrected without interest. “Yeah. Industrial, they call them: barmy, because they only flog them to deluded housewives like Mum that think they’re trendy. –Grab the steak, wouldja?” –Thrusting a huge plastic-wrapped platter upon the minor legume.

    “All of this?” he gasped, trying not to stagger.

    “No, hang on, there’s more. Um… Yeah, these are the lamb chops.” Another huge platter was foisted on the startled Trelawney.

    “Right, that leaves the sausages for you. –Not Jewish, are ya?” she asked casually, awarding the third giant mound of protein to Bean.

    “Uh—no!” he stuttered.

    “Just as well. Dad bought these. Mum told him to get beef ones just in case but he’ll of just let the butcher sell him anythink. The bloke sees him coming, personally I’d of said To Hell with him and gone to the supermarket but Dad reckons his meat’s better. –You and me can take the plates and stuff, okay?” she ended, turning to me.

    “Uh—yes fine, Belinda.”

    “Aw—hang on,” she grunted, bending down to the bottom of the fridge. “Forgot,” she explained, standing up with two giant pineapples.

    We goggled at her, but she didn’t seem to notice our stupefaction.

    By this time I was wondering madly what the crockery might turn out to be but it was merely a great pile of paper plates and paper napkins plus a huge amount of cutlery, which she shoved into a plastic shopping carrier.

    And ordering us: “Right! Come on!” she forged ahead.

    We followed her numbly…

    My God. A barbecue it was not. It was a barbecue array.

    Scott Pearson in person was in charge, brandishing a selection of giant implements or prongs. The heat source seemed to be bottles of le Campingaz, so they had that in Australia? But as well another sort of fuel was added and began producing smoke, and as we watched in awe various other large, genial gents joined their host and judicious opinions were given and loud comparisons made with other barbecues (the equipment, not the meal or the social function), and etcetera…

    And eventually the meat began to be dumped onto the um, bars or whatever they are, and a smell of charring arose…

    At one point Maeve Pearson erupted from the house and screamed at him—something about sausages, why had he got so many, was it?—and disappeared again… At another point a large, genial gent in a glowing yellow and orange shirt cordially forced more glasses of Planter’s Punch on us, and disappeared again… And at yet another point a lady guest pressed helpings of potato salad on us while another pressed chopped tomato, cucumber and lettuce on us. Without dressing: had they forgotten it in their excitement, or did Australians think that was salad?

    As the meat began to be dished up along with large rounds of grilled pineapple—the things having been slashed across with a hefty chopper by our host—we discovered the absolute impossibility of eating a mighty piece of steak, well over deux centimètres thick, that’d be a good inch in English, I think, off a floppy paper plate while standing on a flagged terrace. Help!

    Egg couldn’t come to our rescue, a huge red-haired, red-faced gent in giant blue shorts and an amazing tent of an Australian-Hawaiian shirt had his beefy arm round his shoulders and was expounding something with much waving of a fork, but good old Crumpy came over to us, saying: “There are some steps over there: come on.” So we all followed him gratefully and sat down on the steps and put our plates down and positioned our knives and forks and at last were able to EAT.

    Well the verdict was that Australian steak was splendid, the lamb chops were excellent in themselves tho rather charred on the outside and pink on the inside, the sausages were good of their kind (i.e. British), Australian potato salad was average, okay if one liked commercial mayonnaise, and the Australian idea of a mixed tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad was not a salad at all. But it was nice to have fresh vegetables and after all, as I pointed out, it was summer. And slices of fresh pineapple, grilled, were extraordinarily good! Tho to those unaccustomed, did strike as odd with meat.

    “It’s not summer, Mel, officially it’s only spring, I looked it up,” noted the Bean.

    “Just drop dead, will you?” sighed the Crumpet.

    “Hear, hear!” I agreed.

    “Seconded!” agreed Trelawney.

    “Rhubarb, rhubarb!” agreed Bean Minor. –This strange expression was culled from ancient but sacred recordings of those English icons, the Goons, belonging, I think, to Egg’s dad. Or possibly late granddad. Anachronistic, not the Junior Drones’ i.e. Bertie Wooster’s era at all, but allowed, nay approved, by all male Junior Drones. Likewise “Have a gorilla” and its alternative, “Have a statue of Queen Victoria.”

    Unmoved by our disapprobation, the Bean repeated: “Spring. –Anybody want more meat?”—We did.—“I’ll get it, stay there.” He disappeared in the direction of the singeing and the scrum.

    “How’s he going to carry it?” wondered Bean Minor.

    “Let him cope,” said Crumpy brutally. “I must say, that hit the spot!”

    We all agreed, wondering what was coming next, if anything…

    Good grief!

    Bean lowered his tray, panting slightly. “Mr Pearson said we must be hungry after the long journey and the unloading and stuff!” he panted.

    Er… That hungry?

    But we proceeded to make inroads nonetheless.

    … Replete, is the only word, really. And since our hosts now seemed, judging from the noise level coming from the house, to be completely unaware of our presence, we sloped off to the guesthouse and fell onto our beds…

    “Well that was a New South Wales welcome, one presumes!” said the Egg with a laugh as we convened in our giant kitchen for a rather belated brekkers next morning.

    “New South Welsh,” corrected the Bean.

    “What?”

    “I looked it—”

    “Yeah, yeah,” we all groaned.

    “—up,” he finished, unmoved. “I say, they’ve got Rose’s marmalade!”

    Ooh, so they had! I picked it up eagerly.

    Er…

    “Made—in—Australia!” I gasped, collapsing in an uncontrollable fit of the giggles.

    It may be ungrateful to say so, but somehow this final incongruous touch just set the seal on what had been, take it for all in all, a thoroughly surreal experience.

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendsdownunder-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/06/sydney-and-beyond.html