Gracious Living

5

Gracious Living

    “You’ll see a bit of gracious living, now,” explained Pete. He winked. “Well, gracious Livia, eh?”

    The McLeod sisters had now been privileged to meet Livia Briggs. Jayne collapsed in a gale of giggles, clapping her hand to her mouth.

    “Stop it, Dad,” said Libby weakly.

    Pete winked again. Libby collapsed in strangled guffaws.

    “Yeah,” he said with relish. “Now, I gotta warn yer—”

    “For pity’s sake stop warning them, they’re in hysterics already,” said Jan.

    Pete winked at his daughters again and they collapsed in further hysterics.

    “Yeah,” he said happily. “See, she’s done the place out in—what was it Max Throgmorton said?” he asked his helpmeet. “Young architect type,” he explained to his daughters. “Pom, but he’s quite a decent joker. Aw, yeah: Pasadena Mex, mean anything to—” It must have done, at least to Libby: she was off again.

    “We’ve had a couple of dames from there, I think,” he said reminiscently. “What was it, love? Come out to Sydney on the QEII, nipped over for a look at Ayers Rock, didn’t fancy a bar of it, got on the first flight to Auckland? Yeah, that was it: Business Class, Jake was on the same flight and he told them about our place so they just come straight down. Stayed for ten days: Jan’s cooking on top of no flies was what done it.”

    “Junie Darrow—no relation to Clarence,” said Jan drily; Libby gave a loud snigger—“and Verna Mayberry.”

    “No relation to Andy Griffiths!” squeaked Jayne unexpectedly. They were in the girls’ loft so, as the giggles overcame her, she was able quite easily to bury her face in the duvet on the big bed—given that she and Libby were sitting on it while Pete was sitting on Tamsin’s single bed. Jan had only popped in for a moment: she was standing by the door with a bunch of herbs in her hand and a tolerant expression on her face.

    “Yeah, good one, lovey,” said Pete pleasedly, as Libby choked and Jan gave a rich chuckle. “That was a good show, eh? I liked that funny goggle-eyed deputy. Anyway, look out: it was always sorta fake Spanish outside but she’s had extra Mexican bits added and done it up all Mexican inside. Though she has kept them Indonesian teak floors that set Wal back a packet when he was married to— Uh, forget which one it was. Nothing to choose between ’em, anyway. And look out, when Wal’s out of the room she’ll probably apologise for them—um, forget why, exactly, but anyway, she apologised to me and Max first time I took ’im over there.”

    You couldn’t blame his daughters for looking puzzled at the end of this speech, so Jan said helpfully: “Apologise for the floors, he means, the clot, not for Wal’s fleets of ex-wives!”

    “I see,” said Jayne feebly. “Um, does he see anything of his children, Dad?”

    Pete and Jan exchanged glances and he said: “Um, tries to see a bit more of the boys these days: one of them was in the bloody Boxing Day tsunami, Christmas before last: he come through, and he managed to grab one of his boys, but the other one and the second wife bought it.”

    “How dreadful!” gasped Jayne.

    “Better than losing both his kids, lovey, but yeah, it was pretty bloody.”

    Libby was blowing her nose. “Mm. Lots of Aussies were in it, too”

    Jan sighed. “Yes. Well, I suppose it’s a silver lining that it’s brought Wal and Stewart closer.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Pete. “He’s some sort of accountant—none of the boys went into the law, real disappointment to Wal. The oldest one, Bruno, he’s a kindy teacher.”

    “Yes,” confirmed Jan to his daughters’ startled looks. “Wal bit on the bullet a while back and made him and his wife a loan to set up in business. Evidently there are plenty of working mums in Auckland who can actually afford child care, unlike here. –Stewart’s a cost-accountant, actually.”

    “Same difference,” said Pete briskly to his daughters’ blank faces. “The other one’s an M.P.: real stuffed-shirt—National. Wal’s always been a red-hot Labourite, not that he much likes the present lot, but good ole dykey Helen’s a bloody sight better than that fat-arsed tit Lange, I can tell ya! Never could stand him.”

    “Pete, for God’s sake don’t call her that,” croaked Jan.

    “Eh? Well, shit, ya can’t say she’s the feminine sort, love. Makes ya wonder what types like George Bush make of ’er, eh?”

    “Or John Howard,” said Libby in a hollow voice.

    “Or Janette Howard!” squeaked Jayne. They both broke down in helpless giggles once again.

    Pete rolled his eyes in mystification at his helpmeet.

    “Um, must be John Howard’s wife, Pete,” said Jan in a weak voice.

    Libby gave a shriek, and threw herself on the duvet, writhing.

    “Yes,” said Jayne with a smile, wiping her eyes. “You hardly ever see her and I think she’s only spoken once in public. In support of breast cancer research, I think: you remember, Libby.” Libby shook her head and her sister explained: “It was on TV; she doesn’t watch much TV.”

    “Right,” agreed Pete. “Good on ya, Libby. –What was I saying? Aw, yeah. Wal doesn’t see much of his daughters, the most of them are on the mums’ sides. Not that I’m claiming he was innocent as the driven snow, neither. Anyway, young Panda, she’s the youngest girl, he’s real fond of her and they were real close at one stage but she’s working in England, now.”

    “Pete, she isn’t that young,” said Jan on a weak note. “She must be turned thirty.”

    “Uh—shit,” he said numbly. He rallied. “Long overdue for a holiday back home, then, isn’t she?”

    “Her relationship with that Frenchman’s busted up messily, I don’t suppose she feels much like a round-the-world trip on top of that,” she said with a sigh.

    “He sounded like a right bastard,” he said with a scowl.

    “I dare say he was, yes,” said Jan heavily. “In any case, Wal and Livia went over to see her three years back, if you recall.”

    “Aw, yeah. Livia said they were gonna break up and she was right,” he admitted.

    “She’s usually right about relationships. I know she doesn’t look it,” said Jan, smiling at Jayne and Libby, “but she’s actually very shrewd about people.”

    “Yep. Doesn’t mean she isn’t gonna be draped in silks and satins tonight with shiny bits dangling all over ’er, though,” said Pete with relish.

    “Right. And as for once it isn’t gonna be us that lets the side down, you’re gonna come and have a shower right now,” noted Jan in an iron voice.

    “Aw, heck, it’s only—”

    “Right now. The girls need to get dressed, anyway. Janet’s ironed your dress shirt for you, she’s done a lovely job.”

    “What? Look, Jan—”

    “It’s Christmas, or very nearly, and you’re going to do us credit!”

    Pete got up and shambled over to the door. “Look, it’ll be them and us and the girls and maybe one or two more, but that’s not actually a regimental dining table she’s shoved in there, ya know!”

    “Stop talking crap,” said Jan calmly. “We’ll see you later!” she said brightly. “Get,” she said, giving him a shove.

    Pete got, to the sound of his daughters collapsing in renewed giggles,

    “Do I look all right?” said Jayne nervously, some time later.

    Libby nodded hard, smiling. “Gorgeous!”

    “Oh,” she said, going very red.

    Tamsin had returned from helping Neil Kenny with his water samples at precisely the hour she’d said she would, competently showered, done her mother’s hair, and changed. “Yes, of course you do, Mum,” she said briskly.

    Jayne peered down at herself. “It’s a bit low-cut,” she murmured.

    “They’re wearing them like that,” said Tamsin firmly.

    That was what Jayne had been afraid of. She smiled weakly and peered into the mirror that Jan had had Pete fix to the wall over the somewhat inadequate lowboy the loft featured along with the two beds, a bar fridge, a very small metal table, two matching metal chairs and an extra plastic chair. The mirror wasn’t from his old mate Rog Sprott at Mitre 10, for once, she’d explained, it was from his geriatric mate Steve Garber at Taupo Hardware & Electrical. Libby and Jayne had collapsed in giggles on the spot, causing Jan to break down and grin.

    Tamsin had declared very grimly that her relatives would need one good dress each for the holiday. She’d then vetoed the dinner dresses in Jayne’s wardrobe that had been approved by Bill as fit for the company of the high-ups of the Education Department, the Davisons, et al. In fact she’d taken most of them to the St Vinnies, explaining loftily as Jayne fumbled that they wouldn’t be useful to anyone, dear, that they wouldn’t give them to the needy or put them in their op shop, they’d flog them off to one of those up-market second-hand shops! The new dress was very Today in that it was a soft shade of fawn satin which, though horrible on the rack, looked astoundingly good against Jayne’s light tan and pink cheeks, helped along this evening by Tamsin’s hand with the blusher brush. And very Today in that it had shoe-string straps, a high waist and an astoundingly low-cut front. In fact the bodice was little more than a bra. She certainly couldn’t wear one under it. The rest of it was long, a slim cut but mercifully, in Jayne’s opinion, not too tight. It was cut on the bias, rather like a Thirties design but, as both Jayne and Libby had instantly noticed thanks to Alison McLeod’s early training, not nearly as well sewn as anything in the Thirties. In fact the satin was slightly puckered at the long seams which ran diagonally across the skirt front and back. The hem was very uneven but then possibly it was meant to be.

    The pearl necklace of course hadn’t crossed the Tasman so she wasn’t wearing it. What she was wearing was an artefact of her daughter’s—very Today, yes. A mother-of pearl oyster shell, possibly a small Pacific oyster, about four centimetres across, strung on a thin wire of yellow metal which her aunt, for one, had had much ado not to point out wasn’t gold and would undoubtedly be spotted as such by Livia Briggs and any ladies she’d invited to this up-market bean feast. The thing was very pretty in itself and on Jayne it couldn’t look bad, but— Forget it. At least it wasn’t a tangle of misshapen beads and seeds strung in no particular order. The fair-sized pearl bobbles in her ears were real, and even though they’d been scored on account of Bill Dahlenburg had been after a post at a much better school and had wanted to impress the high-ups on the school board with his wife’s suitability as a gracious helpmeet for an up-market headmaster of a private school, Jayne was very fond of them. Tamsin hadn’t been aware they’d come on holiday but she was tolerantly letting her wear them. The hair of course was in the hairdo, which Jayne had been assured looked lovely. As the mirror also told her so she couldn’t accuse her relatives of lying.

    “You could take those rings off,” noted Tamsin, giving her a final critical once-over.

    Jayne looked at her hands in a bewildered way. She was only wearing her wedding and engage— “No!” she gulped.

    “It’s too soon, ya ruddy nana,” said Libby tolerantly.

    “Stand up,” replied her niece in an iron voice: “Let me look at you.”

    Libby stood up reluctantly. She didn’t have the figure for the sort of thing Jayne was in and surprisingly enough her niece had recognised this fact. What she hadn’t recognised—or had ruthlessly ignored if she had—was that Libby felt extremely uncomfortable draped in fluff. It wasn’t fluff, it was a floaty see-through blouse in a deep blue, a lovely colour, edged with floaty, droopy frills which were extremely Today. Under it was a navy “camisole” top that was a lot closer to the Concise Oxford’s definition than those other things Tamsin’s relatives had been made to wear, in fact it was very probably where the dictionary had got the definition from, oh, God. Sort of stretch-satin. Navy lace all round the low-cut top and straps. All you could say for it was that the latter were not shoe-string. As it hadn’t come from Kmart or Target it fitted Libby’s curves remarkably well, except for having been too loose in the waist, but Tamsin, who was a whizz on her mum’s sewing-machine, had fixed that. Darted within an inch of its life—quite. It came to about six centimetres below the waist, which meant that it sat nicely on Libby’s tummy, but as Tamsin wasn’t the girdle generation she’d declared there was nothing they could do about that and her aunt ought to go on a diet. Libby had sagged with relief, and Jayne had sagged with sympathetic relief. Below that the new skirt swirled out softly in a completely Today look. According to Jayne it was cut in flares and for all Libby knew this could have been quite true. Deep blue gauze shaded to black at the hem, where it was encrusted with sparkly things. Very likely sequins and bugle beads—yeah. Libby had seen such skirts on the streets in Australia, showing the pretty little ankles of the pretty little thin girls aged as much as twenty they were on, but according to her niece was talking garbage, and it wasn’t a cheapo skirt. Libby’s feet were not in the flat-soled lightweight sandals such girls were apt to wear with the cheapo clones of the skirt, they were in the bloody awful high-heeled strappy dark blue things her niece had selected for her. Jayne by contrast was in a lovely pair of fawn suede courts she’d had for years and that Tamsin had spotted immediately the dress would go with.

    “Just shoot me now and get it over with,” Libby suggested heavily.

    “Hah, hah.” Tamsin glared at her neck. Libby winced and put a hand over the rude bulges that showed above the bloody camisole’s rude blue lace. The single mercy was that the bright turquoise bra that was pushing the bulges up didn’t actually show unless she bent over, and she wasn’t gonna do that if her life depended on it. It had been quite bad enough being caught in that flaming yellow singlet over the bloody coral bra the other day by that snooty-nosed A.C. Vine! Serve her right for believing her ruddy niece when she’d said now was the opportunity to start tanning gradually and there was nobody in Taupo that’d stare at her.

    “I know!” Tamsin rushed over to her vanity case—dark green fake Famous Name with little lozenges or something or all over it, Libby’s being tan more of the same and Jayne’s being deep maroon even more so. “Here!”

    “Tamsin, darling, they’ll all recognise it!” gasped Jayne in horror.

    “So what if they do? Abalone: it’s beautiful!” she beamed.

    It was, actually. It was a concave disk, about the same size as the shell Jayne had been favoured with: also shell, but not a whole one: cut out of a New Zealand abalone or paua. The shells were distinguished by a glorious rich mixture of shades of turquoise nacre streaked with purple: really extraordinary in their raw state. Unfortunately they usually seemed to be made into horrid artefacts for the tourist trade, smoothed within an inch of their lives, largely ruining the effect. Tamsin’s pendant, however, was really Today and was just a piece of the natural shell. She forced it on her aunt and immediately the sequins on the skirt picked up and reflected back the shifting shades of the nacre.

    “Oh, Libby, it’s lovely!” gasped Jayne, clasping her hands together.

    “Yeah,” said Tamsin in pleased surprise. “Looks real good, eh? I was gonna give you these for Christmas, but you better have them now.” She ferreted in the vanity case once more and produced a small wrapped packet.

    Libby opened it in fear and trembling. “Ooh! They’re lovely, Tamsin!”

    The earrings Tamsin had chosen for her aunt were not, astonishingly, a huge tangle of glass beads or tarnished spangles, but thin slivers of more paua shell—she had obviously fallen for it in a big way. Less than a centimetre wide and only about four long. Slightly curved, that was how the shells came. Libby put them on dazedly: they just completed the effect.

    “Um, but this hairdo’s too young for me, really,” she said uneasily.

    It wasn’t, and Tamsin wasn’t gonna hear of her wearing it scraped back, so that was that. They were ordered to stay there and not dare to touch anything—and Libby to stop tugging at the blouse, it wasn’t supposed to close, they were wearing them like that!—and Tamsin marched out to see if Pete and Jan were ready.

    “What’s the betting that she’s vetoing every stitch Jan’s got on?” said Libby glumly.

    “Mm.”

    “Um, that’d be what the girls are wearing, would it?”

    “Mm. She looks very sweet,” said Tamsin’s mother gallantly.

    She was so young and had such a nice, slim little figure and such a dear little heart-shaped face, with huge hazel eyes like Jayne’s, that she did, yeah. Though objectively a better word was “grotesque”. Her hair was a mid-brown, a couple of shades darker than her mother’s but not as dark as her aunt’s, and naturally curly. It was cut about three centimetres long all over and for the occasion the crown was bright fuchsia. It was flattened over the scalp, possibly to give the fuchsia more play, which it certainly did, and the ends of the curls were shaped into curved prickles that stood out perkily. The fuchsia was not picked up by either the outfit or the make-up. Or the jewellery, come to think of it.

    The outfit consisted of several layers. Firstly, one semi-transparent beige shoe-string-strapped dress, the crooked hem running from just above the ankles to the opposite knee, and mercifully over a beige slip as to the skirt, though unfortunately over a dark green lacy bra as to the top. Secondly, semi-transparent shoe-string-strapped dress number two—Jayne had murmured something about not crêpe de Chine, which hadn’t connected with anything in Tamsin’s aunt’s RAM. This one was more transparent, but a dull tan, so wouldn’t it have been a better idea to wear it under the other one, not over it? No-one was asking. Its straight hemline cut across the other at about a hand’s span below the knee. They were both a narrow cut but the tops were very different: the beige one’s straps were set widely apart and it had a scooped neckline while the tan one’s straps were set rather closer together and it had a very deeply plunged vee neckline, well below the level of the dark green bra. That did make sets of three straps on each slender shoulder, yes. Over the lot went a floaty, droopy, frilled gauze blouse rather like Libby’s, except that this one was in shades of beige, brown and dirty yellow on an oatmeal background. Those who had expected the pattern to be leopard skin were disappointed: stylised flowers.

    The jewellery discontinued the tan-beige look and, as Tamsin’s relatives had noticed with sinking feelings in their tummies, picked up the dark green shade of the bra. The slender little neck supported a tangle of widely and unevenly separated misshapen dark green glass beads and odd pieces of rock that didn’t quite manage to be gemstones, in no particular order, plus the big round brown pendant that she’d made her mother wear on the plane. The neat little ears she’d inherited from Jayne were defaced by dangling tangles of green and purple beads that didn’t match the necklace. There was more green round the eyes—yep, the whole thing was definitely planned.

    “She did it herself. Put it together, I mean. That beige dress with the uneven hemline is two years old,” said Tamsin’s mother valiantly.

    “Mm. Well, at least she isn’t a plump girl, it doesn’t really look rude.”

    Jayne sighed. “No… Mum’d have ten thousand fits at the sight of that bra.”

    “So much the better!” said Libby with sudden energy.

    They looked at each and smiled. ”Yeah. Up hers,” agreed Jayne with satisfaction.

    “And I must say, Livia Briggs was wearing a bright red push-up bra under a black lacy top when she came over the other day.”

    “Yes!” said Jayne with a laugh. “So she was! You know she’s quite a bit older than Jan?” she added in awe.

    “Mm. The Californian face-lift helps. She’s had the boobs done, too, Dad was telling me. Twice. The first time in California: silicone. Wal made her have them removed when those awful cases were in the news. So she had them replaced with saline ones, much safer.”

    “Help. It must hurt, you know. When you come round, I mean. When I had to have stitches after Tamsin it was very painful.”

    Libby shuddered. “Yeah. Talk about ‘Il faut souffrir pour être belle’!”

    “Mm. –Did Dad really tell you about her boobs jobs?”

    “Yes, when him and Sean were showing me the broad bean patch and you and Jan were looking up recipes in those cookery books her rich friend gave her. Don’t think there was any particular connection!” said Libby with a laugh.

    Jayne nodded in some awe. After a moment she said: “Bill wouldn’t even mention the word ‘breast’ in mixed company.”

    “I dunno that Dad did, for that matter: he called them boobs or tits, I think,” said Libby with a grin.

    “Yes, but you know what I mean, Libby!”

     Libby did. “I’d try and forget Bill and all his little ways, if I was you.”

    “Mm. –Sometimes I wake up with a jump thinking I’m late with his breakfast. You can’t imagine how wonderful it is to realise that I can’t be ever again.”

    Libby thought she could imagine it rather well, actually. She nodded hard.

    “I might go back to uni,” said Jayne thoughtfully. “Do my Master’s, why not?”

    “In history?”

    “Mm.”

    “Yeah, why not? Good on ya!”

    “Libby,” said Jayne after a moment, licking her lips, “do you think that—that they’ll be there tonight?”

    “Who?” said Libby with a frown.

    Jayne swallowed. “Andrew and Aidan.”

    “If they’re the ‘pair of ponces’ Dad mentioned in connection with the house next-door to Livia and Wal, it seems all too horribly likely, yeah.”

    “I—I thought Andrew was very nice,” said Jayne in a voice that shook a little.

    “So did I, actually,” admitted Libby honestly, smiling at her. “Well, if the two ponces are them, he’s divorced, or very nearly. Decree nisi, I think. So you don’t need to worry about being a home-wrecker,” she ended a trifle drily.

    Jayne was very pink. “I wouldn’t!” she gasped.

    No, she was much to nice to, or even to sleep with a married man. Libby was aware that both Jim Cooper, Jayne’s next-door neighbour, and Kev O’Reilly from next-door but one wouldn’t have minded a bit, but Jayne was so sweet that she hadn’t even realised why they were so keen to come over and mow her lawn and fix the sink and help Tamsin clean the bloody pool after Bill died.

    “Libby, dear, I think Aidan quite liked you,” offered Jayne cautiously. –They had discussed the point before.

    Sure enough, Libby replied grimly: “He didn’t like me. He may have momentarily fancied me, but he was looking down his nose at both of us the entire time.”

    “He was quite nice to me,” she murmured.

    “Probably spotted that rock Bill coughed up for when you were engaged,” she returned sourly.

    Jayne looked at her in bewilderment. “What?”

    “Forget it. I wouldn’t have him if you were giving him away with a bar of soap!” said Libby energetically. “But Andrew’s nice, and no pretensions about him. Go for it!”

    Jayne gave a flustered laugh. “Don’t put it like that!”

    Libby smiled, but didn’t press the point.

    Jayne looked at her watch. “Oh, dear, I think she probably is bossing Dad and Jan around,” she murmured.

    “Uh-huh.”

    Silence reigned. Jayne tried not to twitch at the too-low top of her dress and tried not to hope too hard that nice Andrew Barker might be there and might—might notice her… And Libby tried not to think about stuck-up, toffee-nosed A.C. Vine at all, and not to wonder whether he’d think she looked coarse and blowsy in the bloody blue thing.

    “I’ve got it!” cried Jayne loudly.

    Libby jumped, and gasped: “What?”

    “That’s where I saw a recipe for Chinese gooseberry chutney! Mother Dahlenburg’s old recipe book! –Kiwifruit chutney,” she amended, twinkling.

    Libby sagged. “I see.” Good grief, she’d been imagining God knew what! Chutney? Good God.

    Well, the chutney’d go good with that M.A. in history she was planning, that was for sure: old Ma Dahlenburg, who to give her her due had been very kind to Jayne, Bill must’ve got it from the shit of a dad that the old duck seldom referred to, had been born the year of Federation. She’d had bloody Bill when she was thirty, in 1931.

    “What’s the joke?” asked Jayne uncertainly.

    “Nothing,” said Libby, her shoulders shaking. “Give Jan the recipe for old Ma Dahlenburg’s chutney, by all means!”

    “I will,” she said, with a serene smile. “I’ll email it.”

    Libby collapsed in helpless giggles, gasping: “Three cheers for the twenty-first century! Emails on top of Federation chutney!”

    Jayne sagged in relief, trying not to let it show. She hadn’t said it on purpose: the memory of the chutney recipe had just suddenly popped into her mind; but thank goodness Libby had perked up and stopped brooding about Aidan Vine! He’d be all wrong for her, anyway: certainly he more than had the intelligence to match hers, but he struck her as pretty much a clone of that awful top librarian man she’d been mixed up with for ages. Though it was a dreadful pity she couldn’t find someone really nice. Well, perhaps Livia would have invited a nice man for her!

    The first thing that registered as they stepped off the launch onto the vast Briggs lawn under a glorious sunset over Lake Taupo was that Livia had invited the two divorced blokes from next-door. Jan Harper got a sinking feeling under the full-length shocking-pink skirt. This garment had originally been a dress, circa 1970: she could get into because the dress had been one of those rather loose, flared ones, the skirt cut all in one with the bodice in a giant triangle, attached, ye gods, at the neck to a sort of spangled dog-collar. Once she’d hacked the entire top off it, it had made quite a nice skirt, quite snug around the hips. Normally she wore a longish and severe-ish short-sleeved black polyester tunic with it, it mitigated the effect of the pink quite well. Young Tamsin had approved the skirt but vetoed the top. Then she’d gone through Jan’s wardrobe with a fine-tooth comb, discovering some quite collectible items—cringe—and found it. The Bad Buy. Jan’s life had been fairly full of bad buys up until around the time she’d moved to Taupo and given up shopping. Not entirely cause and effect: more like the gaining of wisdom. This was a newish bad buy, so unfortunately she could still get into it. It was a shirt in a fruity emerald satin. Quite tailored, there was nothing wrong with its cut. When on, however, it shouted at you. When on over the pink skirt it was a nightmare of early Seventies kitsch. No, it wasn’t, she was being silly, and pink and green were very traditional together—unbuttoning the thing to a rude point and forcing Jan’s mother’s pearl choker on her. Two rows, pea-sized, made from a long string that had belonged to her mother in the Twenties. Very yellow, and gee, ya know why? ’Cos they were fake pearls, and Livia and any hags she’d invited would know it and— Shit, she was getting as brainwashed as the rest of them! Jan had let Tamsin force the pearls on her, and had left the blouse unbuttoned down to there—well, good old Pete had brightened at the sight of her best black lace slip, also an impulse buy, peeping from under it.

    Pete himself was in his dress shirt, beautifully ironed by Janet as promised. Frills down the front, it had. Little metal bottle tops, it— No, not quite. But it certainly had a row of black pearl buttons. His figure hadn’t changed since he was a lad in his twenties and those ribboned evening trou’ the kid had forced him into—Jan had been going to let him get away with his best grey flannel slacks—proved it. Oh, well, it wouldn’t hurt him. Though Wal looked as if the shock had just knocked a good ten years off his lifespan.

    Wal of course was in his white tux and evening trou’ but that was par for the course. “What’s holding ’em up?” he hissed, drawing Jan aside and goggling at his old cobber.

    “Under that ruddy cummerbund, ya mean?”—She paused to let him get over the sniggering fit.—“Well, they're not the sort that are intended to be held up by gents’ braces, Wal, dinner suits that you went ballroom dancing in in Taupo in the Sixties didn’t have those. Little metal clips and cunningly elasticised whats—” Wal had collapsed in a wheezing fit.

    “—whatsits,” concluded Jan. “Never mind, she’s his only granddaughter and she’s told him he looks sprightly.”

    Wal stopped wheezing and goggled at her in horror.

    “It was a compliment, Wal, she’s barely twenty-one—”

    He was off again.

    Jan looked wryly at poor old Pete, cummerbund an’ all, being gushed at by one of Livia’s tartier mates who thought he was lovely and didn’t hesitate to say so to his face. Oh, well, it was only for one evening and she wouldn’t tell him to get the remains of that flaming broad bean patch dug in tomorrow, she’d just quietly nip out there and pick the rest of the ones that had gone all hoary—Libby’d probably like to give her a hand—and turn them into—well, God knew what, but one of the up-market books Polly Carrano had donated would be sure to have a recipe. “Remember that recipe I did out of one of Polly’s books for broad bean tops?” she said idly.

    “Eh?”

    “Um, maybe you weren’t there that night. Forget when it was, actually. Not that long ago. They were good—young ones, it’s a spring recipe. Jake reckons he’s had something similar in Paris. Maxim’s, was it?”

    “He would,” replied Jake Carrano’s old cobber drily. “Just don’t expect anything like anything that ever came out of Paris tonight!”

    “I’m not,” said Jan simply.

    Wal’s shoulders shook but he managed to say calmly: “Good on ya.”

    His eyes wandered to where Libby was sitting on one of Livia’s Spanish sofas looking desperate while flaming Dawn Murchison gushed at her—why the fuck she’d had to invite the Murchisons don’t ask him: they had nothing in common with them except Wal had once represented Harry M.’s brother in a very tasty case indeed involving two transvestites and a knife fight on a Fridee night up the top of Queen Street where it neared K Road. Sid M. always had been a tit and he’d more than been on the loose, the wife was away in Sidders, shopping up a storm.

    “Um, how’s Libby been, Jan?”

    “About the same as in my last report to Livia.”

    “Yeah. I did try to stop ’er asking Aidan but by then it was too late.”

    “Mm. I don’t think he did anything or even said anything much, I think it’s more that Libby’s taken a scunner to tall, dark and handsome smoothies whose protective colouration is the smooth business suit, Wal.”

    Wal’s ugly basset-hound face creased in a sour grimace. “Yeah. Thought he’d grow out of it, back when he was clerking for me. There were flashes of humanity in between the up-himself-ness. See, some of us that grew up in an orphanage before the North Shore went up-market had the daft idea that if he could be got out from under Sir Simon Fucking Vine’s influence he’d turn into a human being.”

    “I’m sure you did your best, Wal,” replied Jan with complete sincerity.

    The shrewd little brown eyes twinkled a bit but he admitted: “I tried to. There was this lovely girt clerking for me—not a fashionable sort of figure, mind you: plumpish. A really nice girl; bright as Hell, too. Looked a bit like Libby, actually. Bit like my Panda, too, come to think of it. Thought the sun shone out of bloody Aidan’s arse, but the silly young tit thought he was too good for her. Her dad wasn’t a judge, and plump with specs wasn’t what the In set that drove fucking Mercedes sports jobs were getting round with that year, geddit?”

    “All too vividly, Wal!”

    “Uh—yeah. Sorry. Come and have a drink. –Ignore that muck she’s mixed up, there’s a nice single malt under the bar.”

    Jan wasn’t gonna say no to a decent whisky: she accompanied him gratefully, smiling a bit. Wal of course would drink anything, and the “muck” Livia had mixed up was just a standard sangría mixture from a Tex-Mex cookbook that Jan also had a copy of. The expression, as was understood by all parties, was on account of Wal’s annoyance with his former law clerk.

    Dinner was very, very painful. Libby was seated between snooty-nosed Aidan Vine and the hearty, elderly Harry Murchison. He was probably about Dad’s age but that didn’t stop him looking down her front! She was never gonna wear this bloody camisole again, in fact as soon as they got home she was gonna tear it in into a zillion— No, first she was gonna strangle bloody Tamsin with it and then she was gonna tear it into a zillion pieces!

    The dinner itself was a bit peculiar but as Libby wasn’t a gourmet and was too nervous to be hungry she didn’t care. She didn’t eat much.

    Up-himself Aidan Vine left most of his, too. He said to her over the vol-au-vent starters: “What is this, do you know?” Quite quietly, to be fair; no-one else could have heard him, they were all talking and laughing, well away on the gallons of alcohol that the Briggses apparently expected their guests to consume. The vol-au-vents were very pretty: sitting on a swirl in a sort of apricot shade, with a few dots of olive oil beside it and a few marigold petals scattered here and there on the big white plates. Inside them there was something whitish and squishy and on top was a piece of prawn, a feathery sprig of some herb, a tiny blue flower—Libby put hers carefully on the side of her plate—and a couple of chives tied up in loops, with a kind of, um, slice of something. Maybe a very thin biscuit. Anyway, the effect was lovely and just like in a restaurant.

    Libby gave him a good glare and hissed: “Vol-au vents, of course!”

    So he said “Er, no;”—the “er” was on purpose or her name wasn’t Elizabeth McLeod—“the mixture inside them.”

    To which Libby replied grimly: “No idea, I’m not a flaming gourmet.” Which shut him up, hah, hah.

    The second course was trout, and Libby knew that Jan had actually cooked it for Livia, and told her what to do to make it into a salad and given her the dressing. It was absolutely delicious, just a small helping, sitting on some lovely cos lettuce leaves, with a tiny bunch of more of the little blue flowers and the feathery herb at the side of the plate. So Mr Gourmet murmured in a sort of confidential tone, as if he expected her to share a quiet snigger with him: “Cold?” To which Libby returned: “Don’t eat it, it’ll be your funeral, it’s delicious. And I might just add that Livia and Wal are close friends of Dad and Jan’s and they happen to be very fond of them.”

    At which, to her astonishment, he went very red and said: “I’m so sorry—I meant nothing by it.” Libby only just managed not to reply: “Not much.”

    After that he didn’t say anything until the pudding, though she could see he didn’t think much of the main course. She was almost sure the chicken pieces and sauce were microwave lean cuisine, they had that typical taste of cardboard and salt, but some cream had been added to the sauce and there was an extra swirl of tomato purée on the plate and the whole thing was beautifully presented, the chicken and most of the sauce on top of green tagliatelle, sitting in a green china waterlily on a huge white plate, topped with a butterfly of basil leaves, and then you could help yourself to dainty little veggies from some beautiful matching green leaf plates, and hopefully put them on your plate without getting them into the swirls. Of course the tiny yellow buttons of summer squash didn’t taste of anything, they never did, and even the baby carrots didn’t taste of much, but they were very elegant and Livia had gone to a lot of trouble and there was no reason for him to sit there looking superior!

    The pudding was absolutely beautiful: in fat, pink-stemmed bowls, a bit like wine goblets only much bigger, with little bubbles in the glass. It was basically lots of fresh fruit, mainly strawberries and loganberries with some slices of kiwifruit, with kind of slices of crisp meringue and lovely puffs and swirls of cream, some white and some pink, really pretty, and those up-market long curls of chocolate sticking out of it and all he found to say to that was: “Fresh fruit, lovely. Though I think I’d have refrained from the Cherry Heering in the cream.”

    Libby was so fed up with him that she replied sourly: “Greek.”

    Maddeningly, he blinked and then laughed—laughed—and said: “No, Dutch, I rather think! I’ve usually found that ladies who favour Arpège are acquainted with it, though not necessarily fans: don’t tell me you’re not one with the majority?”

    Libby gave him an incredulous look: she’d just tried to cut him down to size, why the Hell was he sounding so pleased with himself?—and said: “I might answer that if I understood the premise on which it was based, Counsel for the Prosecution.”

    At which he laughed again and said: “A Daniel come to judgment!”

    Libby didn’t tell him to go to Hell, she just turned to Harry Murchison, who was lapping his pudding up like nobody’s business, and said: “Isn’t the fruit yummy, Harry? I think she must have got it from Taupo Organic Produce, what do you think?” Which enabled him to look down her front again as he told her a lot about Taupo Organic Produce’s lovely fruit, veggies, eggs and poultry, but it was better than being drawn into a sort of—of sneering, self-satisfied conspiracy with Mr Up-Himself A.C. Vine, Q.C.!

    The coffee was pretty bad but by this time Libby didn’t care, she was just so grateful that they were having it in the lounge-room and she was able to escape from him. She just drank her cup nicely and let the gushing, dark-haired English lady who was an old friend of Livia’s from her show-biz days tell her a lot about some British actors and their shows that she’d never heard of. After some time another lady came up and they began chatting together. Some music was playing and everybody else was talking happily—Jayne was with Andrew Barker, well, good, he was all right, unlike some—and Tamsin was chatting to the Murchisons’ youngest son, Roger, who was divorced and in his thirties and much too old for her, but never mind, they were with Dad and judging by the gestures they were talking about fly fishing. Livia’s elaborate Pasadena Mex sitting-room had a convenient row of French windows all along one wall, opening onto a wide stone verandah, and as the curtains were conveniently half-drawn over them—it was a lovely mild night—Libby seized the chance, and slid outside. Phew! She moved sneakily away from the lounge-room down the verandah and stared out over the lake at the stars and the faint twinkle of lights from the other side.

    “Mexican peso for them!” said a deep voice with a laugh in it out of the dark.

    Libby was so startled that she replied honestly: “I was thinking that when we get home I’m gonna tear this bloody camisole into a zillion pieces.”

    He came up to her side and said: “Don’t do that, it’s a lovely shade of blue and it’s hardly the camisole’s fault that old Harry Whatsisface couldn’t take his eyes off it!”

    “Oh, it’s you,” said Libby feebly.

    “Yes,” agreed Aidan smoothly. “The cacophony of Spanish jacquard rugs, pre-Columbian artefacts and the four differently coloured walls in there was giving me a headache.”

    “Very funny,” said Libby grimly.

    “Now tell me you like it,” he drawled.

    After a moment Libby said honestly: “I like bits of it.”

    Aidan Vine broke down in a spluttering fit.

    “Yes, hah, hah,” said Libby grimly. “At least he lets her choose stuff for the house!”

    Aidan’s experience of the married state—and certainly the example of his closer acquaintances—had suggested that the boot was very much on the other foot. In fact, apart from his study, where Paulette didn’t bother to go, he couldn’t remember having chosen any stuff for any room in his entire house. –Houses, they’d moved several times, in quest of ever more up-market lifestyles. “Uh, yes,” he said feebly. “Um, has there been someone in your life who perhaps didn’t let you choose stuff, Libby?”

    “No, in my sister’s,” replied Libby with her usual honesty.

    “I see,” he said slowly. “Jayne’s a widow, I think?”

    “Yes. Bill was thirty years older than her, she should never have married him,” said Libby, scowling over it and not pausing to wonder why she was imparting this information to A.C. Vine, Q.C. “He was a martinet and a—what’s that modern one? They have to be in charge of everything. Um, control freak, that’s it!”

    “I see. That’s a terrible pity,” he said nicely.

    “Yes. Well, she’s free of him at last.”

    “Mm. Both Andrew and I,” said Aidan carefully—he didn’t want to give the McLeod girls too much encouragement, they were attractive enough but let’s face it, bloody ordinary and he’d got the strong impression during that chat in the coffee bar that Jayne hadn’t opened a book for the last twenty-odd years; but on the other hand he didn’t want to spoil good old Andrew’s chances for a holiday fling with the pretty widow—“were struck by her sweetness.”

    “Most people are,” said Libby simply.

    “Mm. And—uh—well, her docility, I suppose.”

    “Yes,” said Libby with a sigh. “She’s too docile. She wasn’t quite so bad when she was younger, but I suppose, looking back, that that was what bloody Bill saw in her. Most of us—her friends and me—thought that he’d look after her; I suppose I mean be the doting older husband. Not Mum, of course. She’s a control freak, too, but she was right about him. I must say, I didn’t like him but I just thought it was Mum being sour and negative about anything one of us wanted, like usual.”

    “Mm, I see.”

    “I suppose your mum isn’t like that,” said Libby with a smothered sigh.

    Aidan blinked. “No. Well, she died quite some years back—worn out, I think, poor darling. My father’s a control freak, too. Mum was a very gentle person—actually,” he said in a surprised voice, “rather like your Jayne. Very sweet. Looking back, I can see that she did herself no good by never standing up to the old bastard, but— Oh, well. Water under the bridge.”

    “Mm,” said Libby in a shy little voice. “How—how  old were you when she died, Aidan?”

    “Eighteen,” said Aidan with a smothered sigh. “First year at university. Dad had already completely alienated my older brother, who’s gay—a very sweet and gentle person, actually, takes after Mum. He’d already gone to Canada: he lives in Vancouver. He came back for the funeral but didn’t speak a single word to Dad. Went straight back afterwards.”

    “I—I’m very sorry,” said Libby in a strangled voice.

    “Don’t be, Bobby’s very happy,” said Aidan, smiling. “I manage to see a fair amount of him—get over to Canada at least every couple of years. Sometimes we go up to Banff for the skiing: his partner’s a former champion, but I think we’d go anyway!”

    “I see. Do you ski in Australia, too?”

    “When there is any snow, yes. Mt Buller, usually.”

    Libby didn’t know much about skiing but she did know that that was one of the places people did it, so she nodded in the dark and said: “Yes. Have you got any other brothers and sisters?”

    “No other brothers; three sisters. One of them lives in Sydney: I see a bit of her.”

    “I see!” said Libby in more meaning tones than she’d intended.

    “You mean you see that little Aidan was the great white hope of bloody Dad’s life? Yeah,” said Aidan drily. “He nearly choked with delight when I went into law. Gave me a bloody sports car. Didn’t give a stuff that Candy, my eldest sister, had taken it up. –She topped her year, wrote a brilliant paper for the New Zealand Law Journal, married a pleasant guy from Perth who was over here visiting relations, and hasn’t opened a bloody law tome since!”

    “I see,” said Libby, smiling in spite of herself. “So was your father pleased or cross when you went to Australia?”

    Aidan shrugged. “Both. Annoyed that I wasn’t on the straight path to the EnZed bench like him and bloody Grandfather, pleased that I was gonna show the Aussies what’s what.”

    “Cripes,” said Libby numbly.

    “Mm-hm. Don’t let’s talk about me and my bloody boring career; what about you? Got anything special planned for the holidays?”

    “Um, no, we only came over to see Dad,” replied Libby feebly.

    Aidan made a little face in the dark. “Lucky man. Well—uh, get over to Rotorua to gawp at the mud pools and geysers like the rest of the tourists? What about it?”

    She didn’t answer for a moment and he felt a surge of irritation: hadn’t it sunk in, or was she being deliberately coy? Then she said in a small voice: “Me?”

    “Uh-huh. Well, you, me. And Andrew and Jayne, if you insist!” said Aidan with a little laugh, his confidence returning with a rush as he realised that she hadn’t expected it, she wasn’t one of the usual middle-aged bitches on the hunt for fresh meat—which had been one of the thoughts that had filtered through his mind on first meeting her—that she’d been so abrupt with him because she was rather shy and, or his name wasn’t Aidan Cornelius Vine, that the strangled voice he’d noticed quite several times was on account of the fact that she felt as much sexual excitement in his company as he did in hers. –Aidan hadn’t entirely given in but he had more or less decided to take Andrew’s advice and take notice of what his physiological reactions were telling him. Well—follow his prick, yes. In spite of her attempted brush-offs at dinner it had told him loud and clear to go after her when she went out to the verandah, so he had. Well, the ridiculous “camisole” alone would have done it, with its glorious glimpses of the pair of ’em nestled in turquoise lace within the dark blue satin as she bent over her plate at dinner. The outfit was too young for her, of course, and far too cheap, she’d pay for really good dressing—something simple, cunningly draped over the hips but giving the bust and waist their due; but nevertheless she certainly had taste: the dark blue with the touches of turquoise and nacre was delightful.

    Libby swallowed hard. She couldn’t deny he was awfully attractive—and not quite as up-himself as she’d thought; and his father sounded awful, poor thing, and eighteen was very young to have your mother die: it must have been dreadful for him, it was obvious he’d loved her very much. And if he kept in touch with his gay brother—and obviously loved him, too—he couldn’t be all bad! But he was awfully superior: there had been no need to use that tone about Livia’s dinner, he could just have said didn’t it look pretty—which it had done!

    “Um, well, we sort of thought we might go to Rotorua anyway. Um, Tamsin was keen but over the last few days she seems to have taken up with that nice Neil Kenny boy—he’s taking water samples of the lake.”

    Aidan had no idea whom she meant but he replied cheerfully: “Youth to youth—of course! So shall we make up a party?”

    “Um, yes, if you like,” said Libby in a strangled tone. He’d come up very, very close—not quite by her side, now, he was more behind her—and she could feel his warmth and smell his lovely aftershave, and a faint, distinctive smell that must be A.C. Vine himself, and it was impossible to deny that her legs felt all trembly and her blood had gone all fizzy and, help, her panties were really, really damp: she hadn’t felt like this since dratted Terry. She gave an involuntary gulp.

    Aidan bent his head and said more or less into her ear, half-hidden amongst the lovely thick mass of curly hair: “Ooh, good.”

    “Mm!” gulped Libby.

    “’Tis, rather, isn’t it?” he murmured.

    “What?” she quavered.

    “Oh—this and that!” said Aidan with a tiny laugh. He stepped up very close, clasped her left arm gently with his left hand, and pulled her bum against his prick, slipping the other hand round her front and putting it on that very tempting tummy.

    Libby’s belly fluttered and she gave a gasp.

    “Oh-ho!” said Aidan with a grin into the ear. “There and a half, isn’t it?” He caressed the belly softly.

    “Don’t,” said Libby in a wobbly voice.

    “Balls,” replied Aidan softly, pressing them against the bum, too, since it was there and they were there. “Jesus, this is very nearly Paradise!” he admitted.

    “Y—I mean, no, you’re being silly. We haven’t got anything in common, really,” croaked Libby.

    In his saner moments Aidan would of course have agreed with this statement. In fact, far gone as he was, his brain was capable of realising that she was right. As he wasn’t following his brain he replied: “Isn’t it manifestly obvious”—pressing the equipment into her again—“that we’ve got more than enough?”

    As she just swallowed in reply to this he let his hand travel up over the silky camisole and on to one of ’em, Jee-sus! “These are the nicest pair I’ve felt in a long time!” he said breathlessly, fondling the pair of ’em, since they were there.

    Libby thought confusedly that he wasn’t seeing her as a person at all and that this wasn’t a compliment, only she couldn’t really make the idea connect with anything. “Don’t do that,” she said faintly.

    Smiling, Aidan turned her gently to face him. “Mmm,” he said, pulling her against his front. “I’ll do this instead. Gee, it’s nice!” Since her ear was very near his mouth and she hadn’t wrenched herself away he stuck the tip of his tongue in it. She gasped and gave a little squeak. Smiling, Aidan moved his mouth over her cheek—the curves trembled against him all the way down, it was so bloody good he nearly creamed his jeans on the spot—and kissed her.

    Libby closed her eyes and kissed him back frantically, forgetting entirely that they had nothing in common and that this was snooty-nosed Aidan Vine and that she’d decided never to get mixed up with anything tall, dark and superior again as long as—

    “Jesus!” said Aidan dazedly, pausing for breath. “I haven’t experienced anything half as good as this for the last twenty years!”

    “Rats,” said Libby shakily. “I bet you’ve had millions of ladies!”

    “Not millions, but more than my share, probably, yes. Didn’t feel this good, though. Andrew was right!” he said incautiously, laughing a bit.

    “Right about what?” demanded Libby suspiciously.

    “Uh—right in saying you were my type,” replied Aidan on a weak note.

    “Duh-do you mean the two of you have been talking about us?” she stuttered.

    Oops. “Only with the greatest admiration, I assure you,” said Aidan with mock solemnity.

    This didn’t go down as well as it usually did with his brighter conquests: she replied grimly: “Men are all the same.”

    “Well, no, but all the same about one thing, perhaps,” he murmured, pressing it against her belly. “I think you are my type. Wouldn’t you say so?”

    “Y—I mean no, this is silly!”

    He was about to say he thought that they’d decided that on the contrary, it was balls, and get her hand on ’em, or on something in that region, when she hissed: “All those people are just in there: what if one of them came out?”

    Ooh, what if one did? He got both hands on the small of her back and pulled her very firmly onto it. “One would bloody well like to.” Before she could reply he covered her mouth with his. He wasn’t measuring it with a thermometer but he’d have said the reaction was even hotter: after a little she was panting like crazy. Aidan had a nigh-overwhelming urge to get his tongue down there—shit! He bit hard on his lip. “I dunno about you, but I’m bloody nearly coming,” he muttered.

    “Don’t say that,” said Libby very, very faintly.

    Wal and Livia had shown him over the place some days since and that single-storeyed wing running down to the lake over to their right was a suite of guest bedrooms, done out in Mexican peasant style, all opening onto the garden. If the doors were locked, he knew where the keys were hidden. He might not have suggested it but at this moment there was a burst of loud music from the sitting-room behind them and a lot of loud laughter and he realised that Livia was carrying out her threat to roll the Spanish jacquard rugs back and teach them all the tango. They were drunk enough for it, too, in his estimation.

    “Come over here,” he said softly, drawing her away. “They’re gonna be tangoing drunkenly for hours.”

    “Can you do it?” replied Libby dazedly as he put his arm round her shoulders and urged her onto the lawn.

    “I can, yes, and I can almost promise you that anything Livia teaches ’em will not be a tango!”

    “No, I don’t suppose it will! –Where are we going?” she asked in confusion as it dawned that they’d fetched up against the Mexican-tiled wall of the guest wing.

    “Bit of privacy,” replied Aidan, turning a doorknob gingerly. Aw, gee, the door opened. Yeah, well, Livia Briggs did have that sort of tact; he’d take his dying oath the ensuites would all be stuffed with condoms as well as plates of little guest soaps. Just as well, ’cos he wasn’t prepared, he hadn’t been that confident, in fact he hadn’t intended—

    “We won’t put the light on,” he murmured, closing the door. There was a fair amount of light coming in, anyway, it was a moonlit night.

    “No,” said Libby faintly.

    “Come here,” he said huskily, pulling her against him. “Jesus, Libby,” he muttered. He buried his face in them, fumbling for the bra hooks under the ruddy camisole. Ooh, that was better! He eased the cups up, pulled the camisole up and really buried his face in them.

    “Oh, Aidan!” gasped Libby.

    Gee, wasn’t calling him Counsel for the Prosecution any more, what a good sign! Highly encouraged, he managed—while still burying his face in the tits, in fact sort of mumbling between them, tumbling ’em a bit—they were more than big enough to do this and she seemed to like it, so why not?—to get his hand under the skirt. She gasped and grabbed at his shoulders as the hand slid up the inner thigh, so that was— No tights? Where had she been all his life? Uh—that was very, very good! Ooh, she was all hot and damp under here!

    “Juicy panties,” he murmured into her boobs. “Lemme at ’em.”

   “Oh, Aidan!” gasped  Libby.

    Aidan gave in entirely, fall to his knees, ripped the panties off and shoved his tongue up there. She let out a shriek to raise the dead—thank God for the loud tango over there—and, shoving herself frantically up and down, came like the clappers for him. Not one of the “Uh-uh-uh” brigade, by no means. More one of the: “Oo-ooh-aair! AAH-EEE-EEE-AII-EE-UH!” brigade.

    “That was good,” he admitted finally, sitting back on his heels.

    “Mm!” panted Libby.

    Aidan stood up, smiling, and hugged her very hard. She panted and clung to him for quite some time, it was extremely exciting, actually.

    He had meant to say something lightly sophisticated but funnily enough after all that waiting it just came out as a strangled croak of: “Can I?”

    “Yes! Have you got a condom?” asked Libby, still panting.

    Uh—gee, she wasn’t gonna offer a hand job, she was gonna let him shove his dick— Crikey Dick, that sort of lady! “Hang on! I mean, lie down on that lovely big bed, darling, and spread ’em for me, I’m bloody sure there’s packets of them in the ensuite!” he gasped, rushing in there. He had to put the light on, but by this time he was past caring. Shit, packets and then some! He grabbed a familiar-looking one and, only just remembering to switch the light off again, rushed back. Oh, boy, she’d taken her remaining clothes off and was lying on the bed with her legs spread like he’d told her to! “I’m almost there already!” he gasped, tearing his clothes off.

    “Mm,” admitted Libby, looking muzzily at his prick. “Come on, then.”

    Aidan pulled the condom on with shaking hands, knelt on the bed beside her and said in a very sophisticated tone: “Jesus, Libby, lemme in there!” And fell on her, shoved it up there and fucked like blazes. Yelling his head off as he did so. Then he just collapsed on the curves and panted for ages and ages and ages…

    “Um, sorry, you’re squashing me,” said Libby in a strangled voice.

    “Hell! Sorry!” croaked Aidan, managing to roll off her. “Spen’,” he explained, flopped on his back.

    “Mm.

    After quite some time he managed to say: “Thank, you, Libby, darling, that was the most tremendous come I’ve had for years.”

    “Was it?” said Libby feebly.

    Aidan frowned. “I suppose your blokes always come like that, do they? And who can blame them!”

    “Um, well, one, yes,” said Libby honestly. “When I was young they’d mostly just, um, grunt.”

    “Jesus. The Antipodean female’s introduction to sex. –I am familiar with the syndrome,” he said on a dry note.

    “Yes, just never illustrated it,” said Libby, wondering vaguely why her brain was capable at this moment of wondering how many gullible females in their thirties he’d done at conferences, and why she didn’t care if he’d done a hundred.

    “Uh—not since I was nineteen or so, no! Um, well, had a couple of older girlfriends: they very speedily told me what was what. Read a lot of books, too,” he admitted with a smile.

    “Yes,” said Libby with a deep sigh. “Thank you, too. I didn’t mean to come like that.”

    “I was flattered, actually,” said Aidan, picking up her hand and kissing it. “I’ll just get rid of the bloody condom, then what about a drink?”

    “Um, is there anything?”

    “This is Livia’s house!” he said with a smothered laugh. “That there isn’t another Mexican cabinet, never mind the blue Mexican tiles on its door!” He got up and went to the bathroom, came back and opened the little bar fridge. Sure enough, packed. “It’s a choice between beer and those ready-made canned alcohol things,” he said feebly. “Rum and Coke? Or a fruit juice? Er—Livia seems to be supporting the local apple industry. New Zealand apple juice, fizzy New Zealand apple juice, or New Zealand orange juice? –Didn’t know they grew oranges here. Must be climate change.”

    Libby smiled at him. “I’d love a plain apple juice, thanks, Aidan.”

    So would he, on second thoughts. They drank very pleasant plain apple juice from heavy blue Mexican wine glasses, that being what there was.

    “Lovely,” said Aidan, smiling at her.

    “Yes. Red apples, I think. Not Granny Smiths.”

    “Uh—yes. Not that. You, us, the sex!”

    “Um, yes,” she said, going very, very pink.

    “Mmm… You know, the last time a lady let me do her with my tongue,” said Aidan dreamily, “it wasn’t what you might call mutual at all. –Not that I wasn’t willing, as you might have guessed.”

    “Yes!” said Libby with a strangled laugh.

    He picked up her hand and kissed the palm. “Mm.” He put it in interesting place, why not? “Don’t worry, I’m not Superman, it’s just nice and friendly.”

    “Mm!” agreed Libby, again very pink, but smiling.

    “Where was I? Oh, yes. She told me to do it, she told me exactly what she wanted me to do, she gave me continual instructions—corrected my technique, if you like—while I was doing it, and when I’d done it she had a wash before giving me a very grudging hand job. So I told the bitch it was all off, three years of being treated like a cross between a gigolo and a doormat had palled.”

    “Crikey,” said Libby numbly. “I don’t see how she could order you about while you were doing it. … In any case, how could you possibly do it wrong?”

    “That’s very flattering!” said Aidan with a chuckle “Well, dunno, really. Think three quarters of the trouble, just between you and me and this extraordinary turned and mirror-encrusted bedpost, was that she wasn’t wet as Hell to start with, like Someone. You’ve no idea what a lovely, lovely change that is!”

    Libby swallowed hard.

    Aidan laughed and finished his juice. “Want more juice?”

    “Um, no, thanks, I suppose we’d better go back,” said Libby in a small voice.

    “Mm. Tidy ourselves up, eh?” said Aidan, not moving.

    “Yes. I suppose my make-up’s come off.”

    “I wouldn’t worry, darling: along with the prophylactics and the drinks, Livia will undoubtedly have provided emergency make-up for just this sort of contingency. Look behind those ranks of little guest soaps in the shape of roses. Blue roses.”

    Libby got up, looking determined. “That’s apocryphal!” She marched off to the ensuite. Aidan just waited. There came a burst of giggles.

    “Yeah,” he said lying back grinning, with his hands linked behind his head. “Exactly!”

    “You didn’t?” gasped Jayne next morning, going very red.

    Since she’d more or less asked if they had, she must have thought so! “Yeah, why’d ya think we came back inside separately after being out there for an hour?” replied Libby defiantly.

    “Libby, where?” she gulped.

    “Eh? Oh. It wasn’t nasty, we used one of the guest bedrooms in the other wing. Don’t worry, it was all set up for the purpose, Livia’s obviously got that sort of mind as well being very practical: the bathroom cupboard was crammed full of condoms. Rude ones, too.”

    Jayne bit her lip in dismay.

    “He used an ordinary one, ya nana!”

    “Yes, buh-but I thought you didn’t like him that much?” faltered her sister.

    Libby looked pugnacious. “I dunno than I do like him, but the sex was good. Good as with Terry, if ya wanna know!” she added defiantly.

    Jayne didn’t want to know, really. She bit her lip again.

    “He isn’t married, but that just means he’ll have to find some other excuse not to commit to yours truly. Or no, he’s the type that doesn’t bother with excuses at all. Honestly, talk about taking things for granted!”

    “Mm,” said Jayne, swallowing.

    “Don’t worry, I wanted him all right,” said Libby drily.

    “Mm.”

    “So how’d it go with you and Andrew?”

    Jayne cast a cautious glance at the door.

    “She’s gone for a run along one of the trails, she’ll be ages,” said Tamsin’s aunt. “Did anything happen or did he just drive from point A to point B?”

    Andrew had offered to drive Jayne home. “Don’t be silly. Um, he’s not the type to, um, be grubby in cars like an adolescent.”

    “But?”

    “He—he did kiss me,” said Jayne in a trembling voice.

    “That’s good,” replied Libby calmly. “Was it nice?”

    “Mm,” she said, getting her hanky out. She blew her nose hard. “Mm, very.”

    “Then don’t cry!” said her sister with a laugh.

    “Maybe—maybe it’s just sex,” said Jayne in a trembling voice.

    “So? Men are like that, but I’d say he’d make sure you enjoy it—”

    “No! Me!” she gasped, bursting into tears.

    “Uh—oh. Well, um, well, cripes, Jayne, women are entitled just as much men!” said Libby desperately. “Don’t bawl over it!”

    Jayne mopped at her eyes. “I really thought he might—you know. Not in the car, but I thought he might want to come in and—and—”

    “Go a bit further, yeah. Did you ask him up?”

    “Yes, just for a cup of tea, but he said that he thought the rest of you wouldn’t be far behind us and—and he’d ring me,” she faltered.

    “Oh. Blow, you could take that any way… Blow. Um, well, how far did he go?” asked Libby, pink but determined.

    Jayne was even pinker. “Not—not far. Not—you know.”

    The sisters had never discussed sex much, perhaps because growing up in Alison McLeod’s house had never given them the vocabulary to do so, and since then they’d led very different lives. Libby stared at her, baffled. “Uh… Oh!” On one of the occasions when Jayne had come round to her place and bawled all over her old sofa, she had revealed soggily that Bill didn’t “you know” and Libby had eventually got to her to admit that it was “you know—with his tongue.”

    “Oh, shit, did you want to him to, Jayne?”

    Jayne burst into tears again, wailing: “Aw-full—ee—hee!” The hanky was so soaked that Libby found her a box of tissues. Probably Tamsin’s, they were the so-called aloe vera sort. After a lot of sniffling and nose-blowing she said fearfully: “Am I over-sexed, do you think, Libby?”

    “No!” Libby paused. “I’m no expert,” she said weakly, “but I wouldn’t say so. Millions of women like it. Read The Hite Report,” she added feebly.

    “Bill threw my copy out, he said it was disgusting.”

    “That proves every syllable of it was perfectly natural!” retorted Libby angrily. “Look, you’re not over-sexed just because you wanted a nice man like Andrew to do it to you!”

    “He put his hand on my breast,” she said, blushing again. “And—and he said they were lovely.”

    “They are,” said Libby loyally, not mentioning that that dress wouldn’t have left him in any doubt.

    “So why didn’t he want to go any further?”

    “Well, perhaps he thought the rest of us were just behind him, Jayne,” said Libby fairly. “I mean, that English couple had gone home, and Dad and Wal had given the tango crap away and were talking fishing, it was winding down. Um, and maybe he thought if he accepted a cup of tea he’d want more and you might end up embarrassed!”

    “Embarrassed? Oh, I see, if you and Tamsin came in.”

    “Yes, exactly.”

    Jayne stared dully at the floor. “I think he’d decided he wasn’t interested.”

    Libby sighed. “Did you put your hand on him?”

    “What? Oh! No, of course not!” she gasped in horror.

    Libby hadn’t put her hand on Aidan’s penis, either, but then she hadn’t needed to, he’d been more than ready to make all the running. Well, he and Andrew were obviously very different types, sex-wise and in other ways. “Mm. Well, he might have retreated in maidenly confusion—and if he had, you could at least have been sure he was the wrong man for you and forgotten all about him—but it just might have encouraged him.”

    “But I hardly even know him, I couldn’t possibly!”

    No. Libby probably couldn’t have, either. Though with a few drinks inside her— No, but Jayne wasn’t the type.

    “No. Just give him time. You’re right: you do hardly know each other, he’s probably too nice to go that far so soon. But a bloke doesn’t offer to drive a sheila home for nothing, ya know!”

    Jayne smiled a little, but didn’t look entirely convinced. “Mm.”

    Wal leaned in the doorway of the end guest room while Livia briskly removed the kingsize bed’s coverlet. “This the one, then? Don’t tell me that clown didn’t use a rubber!”

    “There’s no need to be coarse, thank you. The bedspread’s merely crumpled.”

    “Uh-huh.” Wal wandered over to the bedside cabinet. There was a torn condom packet on it. “Oh, good.” He eyed her drily. “As far as it goes.”

    “We have to give them the chance to find out if they really suit, Wallace, dear.”

    “Yeah. Well, sex-wise they do, pretty clearly. Dunno about the rest.”

    “Libby’s a lovely woman,” said Livia firmly.

    “Think that’s what I mean,” replied Wal drily.

    Somewhat to his dismay she didn’t contradict him, just replied with a frown: “We’ll have to wait and see.” Shit.

Next chapter:

https://summerseason-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/christmas-cheer.html