Epilogue on the Hibiscus Coast

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Epilogue On The Hibiscus Coast

Jill’s Narrative Concluded

    With the passage of time—not nine months after the wedding, no, but about eight—the Carrano twins arrived. Both boys. You can say this for Polly, when she does the thing properly, she does the thing properly. It’s true twins run in her mum’s family but— Yeah. Jake was over the moon, of course. The sceptics amongst us—largely Madame Defarge, she still hadn’t copped an invite to the Carrano mansion-cum-scene of the Hibiscus Coast Murder-Suicide that they were still living in while the huge new palace on the cliff was a-building—the sceptics predicted that it’d be less than a year after that until she was back to her old habits, but the rest of us wouldn’t have gone that far. The phrase “blissfully happy” was even bandied about.

    Other people did have lives, of course, though back around the time Gretchen’s lot were driving round and round in ever-decreasing circles in the vicinity of Roto-wat it hadn’t felt like it. So things didn’t actually stand still for the rest of us, either. R. Browne, to name only one, was offered that fellowship at his college what he’d given up in order to prostitute his talents at a redbrick in the name of Education, dunno if you remember that, but he had. Where he stuck it out for a year before coming out here. Be that as it may, the incumbent had chucked it in when offered a much shinier job in Yankland. At the same time—think Polly had had word or two—an old Froggy mate of hers (male, of course) suggested he apply for a job in Paris. Gee, guess which one he took?

    Yep, ’course he did. Headed for Oxford like the traditional homing pigeon. The only surprising thing about it, or possibly not surprising to one who’d been exposed to their two personalities, being that Debbie Cohen went with him. Yeah.

    So, round about the time that the Carrano twins were about a month old, and minor mortals had well and truly finished their ruddy exam marking, conscientiously got all their marks in on time and attended bloody Kevin McCaffery’s bloody marking meeting where he tried to persuade us that various cretins who’d got the Ds they deserved should be bumped up to C minuses and thus passes, ostensibly on account of their deserving performances in tutorials throughout the year and/or their lack of basic English while allee same time they were grasping the basic points of the subject (though mysteriously not expressing them intelligibly in any of their written work)—but actually on account of keeping his departmental numbers up and maintaining his empire and his funding—round about that time, Gretchen and I were up at Kowhai Bay for a swim. Since the smothering blanket of humidity wasn’t accompanied, as it not infrequently is in these semitropical climes in December, by drenching rain.

    “Vhat is that you read?” said Gretchen sleepily, raising her head from her folded arms.

    I peered at her over the sunglasses. “Mail. I grabbed it just as I was leaving.”

    “Circulars,” she said, yawning.

    “No; I donated them to the glove compartment of your Porsche,” I noted nastily.

    Gretchen merely yawned. “Kowhai Bay isn’t bad,” she murmured.

     Yeah. “Its rates aren’t bad. either.”

    “Vhat? Oh—no, I mean this actual beach.” She waved at it.

    “True. It has the merit of not commonly being infested by Jablonskis, what’s more.”

    Gretchen raised her head again groggily. “You haff gone off him?”

    “Certainly not. How could one possibly get tired of all that blond, bronzed, blue-eyed beauty?”

    “Very easily, once the curls fall out,” she said, dropping her head onto her folded arms again. “—It’s very sheltered here.”

    I groaned. “Yes, Gretchen: Kowhai Bay is very sheltered, and its rates are more than I make in six months’ slog. Added to which it’s distinguished by a remarkable absence of flats.”

    “Ve could think about buying a house together, ja?” she said sleepily.

    I was rather took aback. So far no one but old Aunty Emmy had given the least sign of being able to stand sharing a dwelling with yours truly, and she only had me for the hols, bless her. “Uh—yeah. If you really want to.”

    Gretchen said into her folded arms: “Ja.”

    “Well, good. I’d like to. –La Defarge and Ma Pretty’ll be pleased,” I noted, rallying.

    Gretchen ignored that, and said: “So vhy do you remark with approval on the absence of Jablonskis?”

    I groaned. “Because with Rog off in the Grate Offshore and Polly incarcerated at Pohutukawa Bay with babies, he’s transferred his bloody pathetic questions about his bloody pathetic thesis to me!”

    “Vhy?”

    “Because bloody Kevin McCaffery has never been known to do a stroke of work that could be pushed off onto a minion!”

    “Oh—ja. Very true. –So iss it pathetic?”

    I was opening a letter. “Mm?”

    “Rod’s thesis. Iss it pathetic?”

    “No. I’d say more... mediocre. A pass, but not a good pass.”

    “That is vhat I would haff guessed,” she said placidly.

    “Mm. –You heard from Gerhard lately?”

    Gretchen swallowed a yawn. “Yes. His new suggestion iss that I would so like to tour the Patagonian tundra with him and Putzi.”

    “Christ.”

    “So I think.”

    “Mm…  WHAT?”

    Gretchen leapt, and gasped. “Vhat on earth is up?” she croaked.

    “Bloody Rog!”

    “That’s from him?” she said dazedly. “Ve know that the little Cohen girl accompanies him for the express purpose off marrying him: if she hass managed it already I would not say it merits deafening me.”

    “No,” I groaned. “Not that, you Aryan idiot. Well, not yet. No, he’s got himself involved in a flaming fight-by-letter with bloody Wolfe!”

    “Er… Oh! Manchester Volfe? Your Volfe?”

    I overlooked the “your”. “Gordon of that ilk, yeah. Can ya believe it?”

    “Ye-es. Vell, would one expect Roger to agree vith Volfe?”

    “Gretchen, it’s futile! The man’s impervious to criticism. He’ll just reiterate his point until Browne gives up!”

    “I get it,” she said, smiling. “Roger certainly sounds happy with his Debbie,” she ventured. “I suppose one could say it hass all turned out for the best.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “Hans and Babs were telling me they went for a drive up here last veekend: they vent along Pukeko Drive—I think, reading between the lines, they vere having an argument about whether there really are any pukekos along there—and guess who they saw!”

    “Collingwood the ex-tec. Complete with cuddly little female body-slave. Very, very stale news, she was with him at the Wedding. –Capital W,” I added in case the Aryan clot hadn’t got the point.

    “But he vas in his shorts only—”

    “Kiwi males of the Good Keen Man persuasion do that, Gretchen.”

    “Ja, but listen! He was in his shorts only, building on to the motel! And when Hans stops for a chat he says—”

    “That he’s building a restaurant, largely with his bare Good Keen hands. I know all about it, don’t go on. –And don’t tell me that the little body-slave came trotting out in a flowery pinny offering cups of tea, I can guess that for myself.”

    “If you know all this, Jill,” she said on an annoyed note, “vhy did you not tell me?”

    “Because it’s boring. I had no idea you’d be interested.”

    “But off course I am interested!” she shouted. “It rounds everything off, can you not see?”

    “I can see it satisfies your Aryan passion for Ordnung, yeah.”

    Gretchen scowled. “That iss a cliché.”

    “Is it, by gum?”

    She scowled at the sea.

    I sighed. “I admit that I’m not sorry Mr Plod’s found a submissive little wee-wifey type, since he couldn’t have Polly. There, you satisfied?”

    Gretchen’s eyes lit up. She ignored the last remark and said eagerly: “So you do think he had fallen hopelessly for Polly!”

    Jesus! I sat up groggily, found the battered canvas hat that was pressed into service equally for beach or golf, and lying down again, adjusted it over my face.

    “You do, don’t you?”

    “Gretchen, I—do—not—know. Get it? I—do—not—know. Because I, unlike Mrs Mitchell, Polly’s aunties, Maisie Pretty, La Defarge and, indeed, ninety-nine point nine repeating percent of the female population of this blessed isle, am not omniscient. Get it?”

    “Ja,” she said, grinning. “—Isles, there are three principal islands off New Zealand, you are not in Britain now.”

    Under the hat, I was reduced to rolling my eyes grimly.

    “All the evidence points that vay,” said Gretchen thoughtfully.

    “If looked at from the appropriate angle: yes,” I agreed from under the hat. “On the other hand, if looked at from another but possibly almost equally appropriate angle, all the evidence also points to the fact of his having known her all her life and never having paid her a blind bit of notice.”

    “This in itself could be significant. As could the fact that he turns to an older, much more maternal type, vhen he cannot haff—”

    “YES! For God’s sake, spare me the amateur psychoanalysis, I get enough of that at work from Defarge!”

    “Term iss over, Defarge hass been in Noumea for months,” replied the Aryan idiot, unmoved.

    “So you’re kindly filling the gap in my life. Thanks.”

    Gretchen grinned but said: “Very well, I vill desist. Only I don’t see vhy you don’t want to talk about it,” she added on a mournful note.

    “Largely because, in case you weren’t looking, we spent all of last year talking about the complications in Mitchell’s love life, plus all of the last bloody summer vac. –Well, I did,” I conceded, in case the Aryan clot had been about to point out that she’d spent most of it touring round Roto-wat. “Not to mention breathlessly watching Browne’s progress with young Debbie all this year, not to mention his shilly-shallying over those two bloody jobs; and I’d quite like not to waste this vac on more of the same!”

    “Added to vhich,” said Gretchen composedly, “you can see something like fifty caveats to every comfortable point I make about things having turned out for the best. Nicht wahr?”

    I didn’t even remark on the superb English grammar. “Yeah. And if you can see that, why are you going on about it?”

    “It must be my typical female nature,” she said tranquilly. “That or my passion for Ordnung.”

     I admit I gulped. “Mm. Sorry.”

    She looked at me cautiously. “It iss at least true that for the moment, things have settled down.”

    “‘Things,’” I groaned. “Yes.”

    “I do not say,” said Gretchen with precision, “that being at home with babies will satisfy Polly’s needs forever; after all, she iss an intelligent women, she—”

    “Shut up,” I groaned.

    “But possibly the macho millionaire vill have the sense to see that.”

    “Let’s hope so, for both their sakes.”

    Silence. I took the hat off my face and sat up, looking moodily at the sparkling blue waters of little Kowhai Bay in early December. “Of course, one could sketch out many other possible and, dare one say it, almost equally probable scenarios. Such as, that being incarcerated in Pohutukawa Palace producing royal heirs will drive Queen Polly rapidly bats and she’ll go off the rails and do something the macho one won’t be able, for whatever obscure reason buried deep in his psyche, to overlook; or that being stuck up the wrong end of Pukeko Drive with an empty-headed little body-slave will drive the ex-tec slowly mad and he’ll go off and do whatever it is ex-tecs do in such circs; or that being back in Oxford will bring Rog to his senses about his own dim-witted little body-slave and after months, nay years, of self-recrimination, he’ll go off the deep end and they’ll have an almighty dust-up—”

    “I haff already thought off all that, and decided that vhile it iss the most pessimistic view, it iss probably not the most likely.” She paused. “So vhat really iss up, Jill?”

    “Nothing,” I sighed.

    She just looked at me calmly.

    “Oh, well, if you must have it, it’s these other letters. This one on the pink paper’s from my Aunty Emmy’s neighbour in Bognor, giving me the good news that poor old Aunty Emmy’s getting visibly more gaga every day: the neighbour’s clinical diagnosis is galloping Alzheimer’s. And this pale blue one is from Aunty Emmy herself, telling me to ignore everything the neighbour might say and adding by the by that she’s got Captain Cutlass to eat the new brand of parrot seed at last.”

    “Ja: und?” said Gretchen, kindly but puzzled. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

    “Gretchen, it’s STUFFED!”

    Gretchen looked at me dubiously. Think she thought it was just my crude English.

    “Literally,” I clarified, swallowing. “She had it stuffed when it died.”

    “I see,” she said, biting her lip. After a minute she ventured: “The old very often retreat to some extent into a fantasy world. This does not necessarily imply Alzheimer’s.”

    “I know,” I sighed. After a moment I broke down and  admitted: “If I put all my savings into a house or a flat, I won’t be able to get over to see her until approximately Kingdom Come.”

    “Oh. Vell, ve work something out, okay? Take vhat you need out off the house deposit, and I vill make up the shortfall.”

    “No.”

    “Then you pay me back, clot. And ve haff not even found a house, yet!” she reminded me with a laugh.

    “Uh—go now, you mean?”

    “Vhy not?”

    I thought about it.

    “You could drop in on Rog and his Debbie, too,” the Aryan idiot ventured. “Iss Oxford near Bognor?”

    “Not all that, no. –Well, depends what your terms of reference are, I suppose. Nearer than Bonn. Or Auckland. –Look, we could both go.”

    Gretchen scratched her short blond hair. “It’s very cold in Germany at the moment. But it iss true I can afford it.”

    I knew that, which was largely why I wasn’t arguing about the loan. Gretchen had inherited a large amount from her wealthy grandfather some years back and had done nothing more exciting with it than leave it in a bank in Bonn.

    “Okay, ve go!” she decided. “Possibly ve cannot get a flight before Christmas, but if not ve go straight after, okay?”

    I nodded dumbly.

    “Good. –Now do you feel better?”

    “More optimistic, strangely enough, yes! Thanks, Gretchen.”

    “That’s okay. –I hate flying alone,” she said in a vague voice.

    She’d never mentioned that before, the Aryan clot. I groaned.

    “And the third letter?”

    “What? Oh! Read it for yourself, there’s nothing private in it. Well, pornographic, possibly, yes: but private, no.”

    She seized the sheets of flimsy pale grey graph paper eagerly. “Green ink?” She turned to the signature. “Leo!” she said in disgust. “Vhy did you even bother to read it?”

    “I’ve been asking myself that.” I clasped my arms round my shins, leaned my chin on my knees and, since it was there, gazed at the sea while Gretchen read the green ink effusion.

    “Expectable,” she said finally.

     “Mm. It seems to be all too true that he’s heading this way for Christmas.”

    “Ve shall try very hard to get a flight before Christmas, then.”

    “Yeah!”

    She got up. “Come along; there’s a travel agent in Puriri.”

    “Uh—okay,” I agreed weakly, scrambling up. We gathered up towels and rugs and, there being no changing sheds at tiny Kowhai Bay, headed for the car. “What about his three-year prediction?” I said in a weak and feeble voice.

    “Vhat? Oh: about Polly?” Gretchen shrugged. “Speculation is fruitless.” She unlocked the Porsche. “And I vill bet my boots on one thing!” she said portentously.

    “Uh—‘bet my boots that’, not— Never mind. Will ya bet the Porsche, though?”

    She thought it over seriously. Then she said: “Okay, I vill bet the Porsche,”—I had to gulp—“that if Polly does haff it off vith someone in three years’ time, it vill not be Leo!”

    I retrieved my blouse and put it on: my bathers were almost dry, except for the inevitable soggy bit round the bum. “I suppose that’s the best we can hope for,” I noted affably.

    Gretchen merely replied firmly: “I shall hold this towel up to screen you, and you may get out off those vet togs.”

    “But—Oh, very well.” Weakly I let the Aryan idiot screen me politely with a towel from the gaze of the completely absent populace of Kowhai Bay while I got out of me damp bathers and into me nice dry knickers and slacks. There’s no use arguing with the Aryan idiot once it’s made its mind up.

    Then we drove on into Puriri and booked our tickets at the travel agent’s and saw the land agent and made an appointment to spend all day Saturday looking at palaces in Kowhai Bay that were way, way out of my humble price bracket.

    Oh, well. Isn’t the essence of life change, or words to that effect? And after all, what was the alternative: stagnation? Words to that effect, mm.

    She did remark as we drove back to town that although the police had closed the Banks case, it had never been proven that Esmé Jablonski in fact did dunnit, but I shut her up. Who cared? Possibly it was a burglar, but he was long gone. And life ain’t an Agatha Christie.

    And as for Polly and Carrano... Well, who knew? At least it was very much okay for the moment!