The Macho Millionaire And The Lady Lecturer

1

The Macho Millionaire And The Lady Lecturer

    Dunno why the Hell I came to this do, really. Well, one of bloody Leo’s bloody parties? All the same: half of them are ruddy queers and the other half are his usual bitches, all teeth and painted claws—Lolitas or not, talking of which: how old is that girl? –Don’t ask. Yes, and half of them—never mind if that makes three halves—are ’is bloody varsity mates: think yours truly is (a) thick and (b) fair game, not necessarily in that order. And what’s more you can take that anyway ya fancy and ya won’t be far wrong, either! If they’re not shaking the tits and cosying up to me on account of me bank balance they’re putting me down ’cos I’m not an intellectual tit from up the varsity like them and don’t subscribe to the latest leftie bullshit like them—dozen of them had a bloody protest outside the Building just the other day, something about cutting down rainforests in Malaysia, they dunno what they’re talking about: I’m not destroying the irreplaceable habitats of the wildlife—bloody screaming monkeys, hordes of mozzies and flaming snakes, last time I was over there—I’m creating employment for the poor miserable locals that’ve never had a square meal in their lives! Not to mention those little village kids with the bellies distended because their dads have never managed to earn a fair day’s wage. Funny how the trendy lefties never seem to mention them when the irreplaceable habitats are in question, eh?

    —Reminds me, better get young Bri to sound out just who else might possibly be interested in that ruddy swamp down Puriri Creek before I let those jokers in Development snap it up. Sound out very, very quietly—yeah. Mind you, don’t think the locals’ll even notice, let alone kick up, but since the Government went and stuck that bloody varsity campus up on so-called University Drive—never mind how many pukeko habitats they mighta destroyed while they were at it, doesn’t count, that was progress of an intellectual sort, see?—since then, the bloody vocal varsity lefties have noticed Puriri actually exists. And come to think of it, there might be one or two retirees of the leftish persuasion, too, these days... Oh, I dunno, though: most of ’em don’t seem to take any interest in anything beyond the TV and their bloody lawnmowers—saw an old joker using one of those new electric ones just the other week, seventy if a day, Roman sandals with walk-shorts and knee-high socks, I kid you not, whacking great electric cord all over the lawn, two inches away from the fucking thing’s blade, not to mention his toes, meantime Mrs is at it, watering the dahlias, three feet behind ’im! And it’s not as if I’m planning to put up a new supermarket complex right next to anyone’s micro-millimetre-high bloody lawn with its bloody dahlias. And gladdies. Well, not in the immediate future. But ya gotta bear in mind, anything that smacks even faintly of development’ll bring on the “I’m all right, Jack” syndrome, never mind most of those bloody retirees have only been infesting the place for the last five years or so. Well, ten, max’. It’ll be: “I’m all right, Jack, in me brand new shiny suburban box that's defacing what used to be a little old-fashioned seaside town, but we don’t want any more of yer dirty Developing round our way, ta.”

    ... Not that the whole of Puriri County isn’t a dump. Wish I hadn’t built that bloody house in Pohutukawa Bay, really. Well, s’pose it’s better than being stuck up Paratai Drive with the Joneses all madly keeping up with each other. But what’s the alternative? Fucking Remuera? Ugh! Or flaming Titirangi? With the Remmers and Titters mob, even more frantically keeping up with the Joneses? No way! ...I could buy and sell ruddy Bob Jones, talking of which. Bloody Leo actually asked me to me face last I time I made the mistake of coming here which was richer. me or Jones... Why the Hell did I come to this do?

    Jake shoved his hands in the pockets of his new light-weight cream suit, your double-breasted, trendy, slightly draped look—not your genuine Armani, no, but from dear old little Mr Ho in Hong-Kong, only hadda show him a pic and he’d make anything for you, and if you didn’t want flaming shoulder pads that made you look like an all-in wrestler he wouldn’t insist on them, either—and mooched across to the bar. What was doing duty for a bar, Leo went in for the minimalist look, claimed it was pour épater les bourgeoises—hilarious, yeah. Presumably he spent all his dough on booze and floozies, because the flat was hardly big enough to swing a cat in. And he’d been on a decent salary for years—Senior Lecturer. The thing behind the bar was either something hired for the evening or one of the little gays that fancied Leo and he let trail after him—or both. It offered him a lovely Manhattan when he asked for Scotch, but that was par for the course.

    “No, Scotch. Shove some ice blocks in it, wouldja?” –It was a mild evening in October but the little flat was full to bursting, the temperature must’ve been pushing thirty Celsius. Not to mention the endemic Auckland humidity.

    Giggle, giggle. “Don’t you mean on the rocks?”

    Jake didn’t bother to squash the poor little bleeder, he just said heavily: “Yeah. On the rocks. Ta.”

    Ugh, why did I come? They’re all Leo’s horrible smarmy friends, I knew they would be! Um, well, that’s that nice Russian man, Peter, from, um, Pol. Sci., I think, I do like him but he’s too plump. If I go and talk to him he’ll keep giving me the eye, it doesn’t seem to’ve sunk in that he’s not my type... Maybe I should’ve accepted Jean-Jacques Casassus’s offer after all... Not that offer! No, the job offer in Paris. But it was only a fellowship, and probably wouldn’t have led on to anything permanent, no matter what Jean-Jacques said: the French don’t like foreign academics. And it would’ve meant accepting that other offer, too, don’t let’s kid ourselves, he is irresistible... The joli-laid type, like Yves Montand. Say he’d actually wanted to dump the wife and make it a permanent thing, would I have accepted? Um... Well, pie in the sky, really, he’s much too comfortable the way he is. ...Yeah, I probably would have, he’s just too sexy. Just as well he never suggested it, Mum would’ve had a fit, he must be nearly her age. Um, well, his oldest son’s older than me but not nearly as old as Vic, so—well, much nearer her age then mine, anyway. Ten fits! And Aunty Vi would’ve had ten million! ...Did the old duck actually believe me when she pounced on that pic of him and me giggling at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and I said very airily that he was just one of the Paris profs that my prof sent me to see? Um, well, she did point out smartly that he didn’t need to show me round, ’cos I’d been to Paris before, but, um, well, when she said that he looked quite old and I said “Yeah, ancient, they all were,” in a very disinterested voice, she sort of looked convinced there couldn’t be anything in it. Put it like this: Mum never rang me and bawled down the phone the instant I got home, so she must’ve been convinced! That or exercising tact and not letting on to Mum— No, not Aunty Vi, I’m dreaming, the word “tact” isn’t in her vocabulary!

    ... I suppose I could have gone off to America with Mannie if I’d really wanted to. Well, it would’ve meant doing the sweet little girlfriend thing and cry-ing, but I’d only have had to put my head in the right shape, it would’ve been easy... Only then he’d have insisted on marriage: I mean, it had been dragging on for five years and there were all those hints that I deliberately pretended not to understand... He was dishy, though those very regular features did sort of seem pretty boring after Jean-Jacques. Well, actually, they’d begun to seem boring before Jean-Jacques, to be strictly honest, and after him they seemed even more boring! Not to mention the mind behind them. Jill’s right, he is a third-rate scholar. No, be fair, second. Um, no, she’s right: third. That last book of his, that got him the job back Stateside, was nearly all ideas that he’d nicked off her or me. Well, the original bits were. It would never have worked: I’d’ve had to go on doing the “sweet little Polly that thinks Mannie Halliday’s wonderful” bit for the rest of my life. That or get a divorce—yeah. Why can’t I meet a man that I can be myself with? And that doesn’t automatically assume that just because he’s a mighty male he’s smarter than me. Maybe ruddy Jill’s right and they are all like that, without exception. Peter Riabouchinsky isn’t, you can have an intelligent conversation with him, but I don’t fancy him. Bugger. To be fair, I suppose Bill Michaels is an exception to the usual rule, too. Well, he does recognise that a few of us on the distaff side have got brains, but heck! Angie Michaels is a lovely person but she’s not up to ruddy Bill’s intellectual weight, is she? Okay, not every engineer wants a wife that can understand his subject, but— Oh, well.

    ... I wonder if Leo’s get anything decent to drink? Last time I came to one of these horrible wing-dings it was a choice of that bloody Russian vodka of his, something Polish his father forced on him, and Pernod. Well, I don’t mind the occasional Pernod with lots of cold water and ice, but not all night! Oh, shit, is that little Sean Whatsisname on the bar? If I go over there he’ll start telling me how devoted he is to Leo and how Leo doesn’t appreciate him!

    Actually, Jean-Jacques is an exception, too, in fact all the Frenchmen I met were, but they’re over there, aren’t they? Added to which, while they don’t suffer from the Anglo-Saxon “must be dumber than me because she’s female” syndrome, they do all suffer from the Froggy syndrome—to an extreme degree. “Can’t be real if it’s not French.” Never mind the immediate attraction, which I don’t say there wasn’t plenty of, on both sides, no Antipodean with a funny accent was ever gonna be real to any of them. –They should try learning a language that’s spoken on the other side of the world in a city with one, count it, one picture theatre that shows foreign films!

    ... Cripes, how many is that? Not counting vanished thicko Yanks that thank God I’ll never have to set eyes on again. Or various little bits on the side, of course! And definitely not counting flaming Leo Schmidt: that’d be a real recipe for disaster. Sexy though he is, the bastard. Well, take up with a bloke that thinks he’s sexier than you do? No way, José! One available but not available enough joli-laid French grandfather, one available but too plump and definitely not young political scientist, and one happily married engineer? Help!

    I’m gonna go and talk to Jean-Paul: at least the gay ones are capable of being nice and pleasant and holding an intelligent conversation—or any conversation, come to think of it: the hetero ones only want to flirt or if married and particularly wimpish, the majority, take one look at this here “Don’t mind if I do” I seem to have got tattooed on my forehead and bleat “my wife” within the first five seconds.

    Polly went over and joined nice Jean-Paul Lavallière from the French Department and his friend Terry, who was an architect in one of the trendier Auckland firms. As it happened they weren’t having a stimulating intellectual conversation, they were talking about the merits of Burmese cats versus Siamese, but Polly joined in anyway. Besides, she liked cats.

    Jesus, who is this female? Not one of Leo’s leftovers, think I more or less know all them—unless she’s a very, very recent one. No, can’t be: isn’t looking daggers at him. Gush, gush—yeah, yeah, sure ya went to some bloody musical in Sidders, don’t care what it was, so don’t bother to tell me, ta: in my opinion decent musicals ended with Oklahoma and if ya don’t bloody shut up I might tell ya so! Shoulders as wide as a footy field, a hairdo like a birch broom in a fit, in fact it’d make a nice nest for a possum, presuming it could stand the stench of the muck you’ve sprayed it with, and earrings like bloody dinner plates. Yes, actually I do know Phyllis Harding, and though I grant it’s possible you might go to the same hairdresser, that frightful dress and them bloody earrings aren’t in her economic bracket, never mind the three mortgages poor ole John Harding’s got on the mansion in Paratai Drive.

    “Aw, yeah, haven’t seen the Hardings for yonks.”

    So she bleats: “Leo was telling me they’ve invited him on the Seagull for next weekend.”

    That’ll of been one of ’is big fat lies, dear. Added to which if he said “the Seagull” instead of “Seagull” I’m a monkey’s uncle. Unless he was half-cut at the time. “That right?”

    “Mm, the lucky thing!” Big sigh, bats the mascara at me. Is she— “I do love sailing, don’t you, Jake?” Yeah, she is angling for an invite. Look, lady, sooner than invite you, the four-inch spiked heels, the shoulder pads, the jangling stuff round the neck, the scrawny stuff just down from the neck—maybe she does know Ma Harding, she’s as skinny as her, maybe they go to the same ladies’ aerobics classes—and them ten-ton dinner plates in yer ears on my Maybelline, I’d cut me throat!

    “If you’re that keen, oughta buy yourself a little sailing dinghy.”

    Ooh, good, that sunk in, and she staggers off in them heels to annoy someone else. Think I’ll go— Bugger. Bloody Leo in person. Obviously I made it, I’ve been here for going on twenny minutes, ya flaming poseur! Deirdre Who? Aw, right, Jim Walker’s daughter-in-law. In that case where’s Dave Walker tonight? –Oh, don’t ask, they’re all the same, if there’s a single one in the room that’s only up their legal spouse I’d like to meet ’em. On the other hand the shock might kill me. I’d ask how your poor old mum and dad are only I know what the answer’ll be. In Frog, probably—does it to annoy. Likewise that accent he puts on. Been out here since he was four, for Pete’s sake! Yeah, do introduce me to some people you’re sure I’d love to get to know, Leo—ta for that. What about introducing me to some decent bird?

    ... No. Bird, there is. Decent, is not the word. Well, dumb as they come, all agog when the prick tells ’em I’m the Jake Carrano, and dressed like tarts, not to mention the face paint, they must be wearing a pound of lipstick between the five of ’em. Half of them don’t know whether to leer at yours truly or Leo, it’d be funny if it wasn’t so boring. The ones that’ve got blokes in tow aren’t letting that stop them. Ugh, here comes another one. Blonde. Shit, can’t be a day over twenty! Leo’s got a bottle in his fist—par for the course. No, she thinks vodka’s too strong. Uh—not a day over eighteen? Now he’s putting his free arm round her and—since the top’s one of them droopy blouse things, kind of swooping down from the giant shoulder pads to show just about everything she’s got, not that what she’s got is bad—slipping the hand inside the droopy stuff and onto one of them. Aw, gee, she doesn’t seem to mind. No, well, he did reckon he’s having a Lolita phase, didn’t he? So presumably this is one of them. Poor kid.

    ... Politics, yet? Who is this tit? I’m not gonna ask, Leo’s trying not to snigger. Listen, mate, I don’t care what you and your fake Armani think the fucking National Party oughta do, or ought not to do, or as a matter of fact what the flaming Labour lot oughta do, either! Far’s as I’m concerned they’re all the same, once they get into power it goes straight to their heads and they think they’re Lord God Almighty, added to which neither side’ll have a bar of yours truly because (a) I won’t kowtow to ’em, (b) I haven’t made big enough contributions to either of their flaming parties’ funds and (c) all my real business, the big stuff, is done overseas these days! Or what you’d call “offshore”, dare say: you and your mate, the other tit in the other fake Armani, or that other mate, ’nother tit, pale blue silk jackets worn with yer actual Levi’s—I kid you not—make me wanna spew.

    “Eh? I’m up the Hibiscus Coast at Pohutukawa Bay: why?” Oh, I must be in that electorate, must I? Look, fake-Armani tit, enough is enough!

    “I dare say I am, if you say so. But I don’t vote in it.”

    Cripes, Blondie opens her mouth! “Don’t vote in the elections, Jake?”

    “No, love, ya got the wrong end of the stick. I do vote, but not in that electorate, see? I’m enrolled in one of the Maori electorates.”

    Heh, heh, heh! That’s totally silenced all the tits! Are they blind, or what? Unfortunately it hasn’t silenced Leo and he gives them the lowdown on me flaming completely unknown ancestry—well, shit, obviously I’m part Maori but I’ve got grey eyes and as I was left on the convent doorstep when I was about three weeks old, like he’s kindly telling them, who can say what I am? Poor little Blondie’s looking all upset: doesn’t like to think of a poor little orphan being abandoned. Well, love, it was well over forty years back and they didn’t have the Pill back before the War, see, not to say they did have all this flaming nineteenth-century church-going morality that was still flourishing in these here parts until very recently—uh, very recently in my terms, so I won’t bother to try to get it into that fluff that’s under that mound of hairsprayed yellow fluff of yours, sweetie.

    Shit, here’s Freddy James, what’s he doing here? Well, he’s a fairy, yeah, but not a bad bloke, didn’t think he ran with Leo’s bloody crowd. Yeah, gidday to you, too, Freddy. Introduce me to your cousin? Would this be a gorgeous female cousin, approx thirty-six, twenny-four, thirty-si—Hah, hah. Right, straight out from Pongo—coulda guessed that, he’s got an accent you could cut with a knife. Aw, I geddit, working up the varsity, same like Leo. Visiting fellowship, eh? What in? Constitutional law? Didn’t think they taught that, ’cos if anybody’s looking, the country hasn’t got a written constitution. Cripes, from the way he’s eyeing up Leo’s blonde bint he can’t be queer after all! Well, s’pose a bloke doesn’t have to be, just because his cousin is. Right: now one of two things’ll happen. Or possibly three. One, Leo’ll turn on the charm for the blonde’s benefit and remove her from this poor Chris type’s vicinity forever and a day. Two, he’ll dump her on him. Or possibly three, he’ll turn on the charm with both of them and little Blondie’ll be introduced to the concept of a sandwich. Nice—very nice. No, hang on, there is a fourth option. Four, Leo’ll spot that Chris Whatsisface isn’t that type and deliberately suggest a threesome so as to make him sling ’is hook. And possibly get rid of her at the same time, if he’s had enough—be just like him.

    Jake jumped slightly. “Sorry, Freddy, what was that?”

    What it was, was Freddy was thinking of investing in property because he didn’t think, the way the stock market was going mad, that he wanted to leave all his eggs in one basket. Jake eyed him with considerable approval, letting the tits’ chorus of horror, consternation and contradiction wash over him.

    “Yeah. Well, can’t do any harm, Freddy. Everybody’s gotta have a roof over their heads, eh? And the country’s population’s not shrinking. Retirement units are a good bet, if you were thinking of that sorta thing.”

    No, he was thinking of something a bit more up-market, and could Jake recommend a reliable architect?

    “Heck, reliable... Well, any of the downtown firms, I s’pose, Freddy. Depends what ya want, really.”

    So Leo has to chip in: “But naturellement he wants something a bit different. I think Jean-Paul’s brought his petit ami, Terry, tonight—you must talk to him, mon cher.” Yep, that’ll go down well, another fairy. So let’s all look round for Jean-Paul, whoever he is when he’s at home, and this Terry bloke. The crowd seems to have got thicker, didn’t think it was humanly possible, and they’re all shouting their heads off and half of them are smoking as well, can’t stand that—well, a decent cigar after a decent meal: yeah. Every stitch I’ve got on’ll have to go straight to the cleaners. Haven’t they ever heard of lung cancer, the nongs? Think it’s trendy, ya see: most of them are sporting flaming cigarette holders or puffing on those ruddy black things Leo favours—Sobranies, is it?—in fact a good percentage of ’em are puffing them in the cigarette holders! What a load of... pseuds. My God, who’s that?

    Jake felt the blood drain from his cheeks—yeah, literally. Luckily on him it didn’t show. Even more luckily Leo was waving coyly to the Terry bloke and didn’t notice he was struck all of a heap. Just in time he stopped himself from saying aloud: “Who is that girl?” because if Leo had known he was interested, one of two things would have happened, and neither of them would’ve been good for J. Carrano’s chances. Talk about across a crowded room! Whew! Tall enough for all those curves to be in very much the right place—thirty-six, twenny-four, thirty-six, or he was a Dutchman—and actually dressed with taste. Well, off the peg, but put together with real taste. Simple, restrained—y’know? No dinner-plate earrings, and the hair, which was long, golden-brown and curly, was sort of pinned up a bit over one ear and then just draping naturally over her shoulders—which were on view, because the top was an off-the-shoulder white thing, kind of a little frill effect over the arms and bust, not nearly long enough to hide the display—no bra, he’d take his dying oath. Unlike most of the tarty dames in the room she wasn’t wearing a miniskirt that was just long enough to cover ’er modesty and smothered in flashing sequins. It was shortish, yeah. Came to, as far’s he could see for the crowd, just above them very nice knees. The colour that had once been called shocking pink but these days probably wasn’t.

    Leo, the birds and the fake-Armani tits had all sort of grabbed poor old Freddy—and ’is cousin: a red-headed tart with gigantic shoulders and flashing green sequins had latched onto him—and were heading over there. Jake followed them, hoping with a part of his mind that Leo was already too kaylied to wonder why the fuck he wasn’t seizing the chance to head for the high hills.

    “Gidday, there. Having fun?” he said in a carefully lowered voice in the hope that Leo wouldn’t notice under cover of all the shrieking and the explaining over all the other birds’ and tits’ shrieking and explaining.

    “Not really. Are you?”

    Ouch! That was dry as Hell! Poor girl probably thinks I’m an actual mate of bloody Leo’s. Lovely voice, though—contralto. “Nope. Just been wondering why I came, tell yer the truth. Up until about now.”

    Polly felt herself go very pink. Blast! Now he’d think his line had worked! Admittedly he looked a lot nicer than any of Leo’s usual crowd, but if he was a decent type, and not married, what was he doing at one of Leo’s awful does?

    “Then why did you come?” she said in a voice that came out a lot harder than she’d meant it to. Shit, now he’d think she wanted to give him the brush-off, and she didn’t! Well, not yet, not until she’d found out—well, if he was as nice as he looked.

    Jake shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Dunno, really. At a loose end? Hope springs eternal? Forgotten how bloody awful Leo’s ruddy parties usually are? All of the above?”

    Polly gave in and smiled at him. “Me, too, actually!”

    “Glad to hear it. Fancy a drink? –No, hang on. Just answer one question, if you wouldn’t mind.”

    “Um, yes?”

    Jake made a face. “You married or otherwise involved with a bloke that’s gonna object—correction, or even not gonna object, given that this is one of Leo’s usual does—if yours truly tries to get off with you?”

    Polly was very pink again. She stuck her chin out and said: “No. Are you?”

    “No,” said Jake, grinning all over his face like a nana—he could feel he was doing it, but couldn’t stop, somehow. “Come on, let’s get a drink. I won’t ask why none of these tits have bothered to get you one.” He took her elbow very gently—couldn’t help himself. Ooh, goody, she was all pink again!

    “Don’t blame them, Jean-Paul did offer, but I was afraid it’d be like the last horrible party of Leo’s I came to: vodka, or some awful Polish stuff that he got off his father, or Pernod.”

    “Eh? The ruddy cheapskate! The Polish stuff’d be that plum brandy ole John Schmidt and ’is Polish mates mix up in ’is shed—you’d wanna steer clear of that, all right—and I know for a fact he had a case of Pernod off some bloke that owed him a favour—don’t ask me what for, I didn’t wanna know. You mean that was all?”

    “Yes,” said Polly in a weak voice as they ended up at the makeshift bar. “Well, water to put in the Pernod if you went out to the kitchen and got some for yourself. Hi, Sean.”

    “Oh, hi, Polly! Can I get you something nice? I can do a nice Manhattan?” he offered.

    “Um, well, what is a Manhattan?” she said, smiling kindly at him—what a waste, thought Jake.

    “Muck,” he said firmly over Sean’s sequence of interrogatives. “There is Scotch. Or there was. And there’s some quite decent white wine—local Riesling, if you’d fancy that.” –The varsity lecturer types tended to go for that, whatever sex they were, though he wasn’t at all sure she was one of them. Spoke really nicely, though. “Nice home” written all over her, kind of thing.

    “Um, well, I don’t really like wine. I’d love a Scotch, thanks, Sean, if there’s some left.”

    “There’s plenty,” it replied coyly. “That nice Russian man brought some, he said that he knew Leo would have vodka, but not everybody likes it? But the wine’s really nice?”

    “Just pour us two Scotches, thanks, and don’t drown mine,” said Jake heavily.

    “I know! On the rocks!”—Giggle, giggle.—“I didn’t know you two knew each other, Polly?”

    “We don’t,” said Jake briefly. Unfortunately this didn’t stem the flow and it burst out with a long, involved story—or possibly two—about its mum and its pulled ligament and Leo not being sympathetic. She was very nice to it without being over-patronising. Girl of nice instincts, along with all the rest, see?

    “Dunno how you put up with that type,” he said heavily, having at last managed to steer her away from its vicinity.

    That went over good: she eyed him suspiciously and said: “What type?”

    “Little drips of fairies that tell you about their mum’s torn ligaments at the drop of a hat. Or even without any hats being involved.”

    Polly bit her lip. “Um, Sean’s ligament, only strained, not torn, not his mum’s. He is a bit hard to take, but he’s lonely, poor thing, and he’s got an awful crush on Leo, and of course he takes blatant advantage of it when he wants something out of him and ignores him the rest of the time.” She took a deep breath. “And would you mind not calling him a fairy?”

    Jake shrugged. “It’s me generation.”

    Polly stuck her chin out. “It’s prejudice, more like.”

    He smiled. “Yeah. All right. Little drips of gays, then.” He took a gulp of Scotch. “Sorry. I was testing you.” he admitted.

    Polly's jaw sagged slightly. “Were you?” she said on a weak note.

    Jake just nodded.

    There was a short silence. “All right, that makes two of us, ’cos I was testing you when I asked you not to say it.”

    “Yeah, thought you mighta been. –No, that’s wrong. Hoped you mighta been, is more like it. Rather than just coming out with the automatic trendy-leftie response.”

    “Mm... In that case, perhaps I’d better admit that although I was testing you, at the same time I did have the usual trendy-leftie reaction.”

    Jake smiled slowly. “I see. So how many contradictory things can you think before breakfast?”

    Polly laughed suddenly. “At least five!”

    “Me, too!” he agreed fervently. “Boy, don’tcha loathe thickos that can’t and wonder what the fuck ya mean if ya say it?” He took another gulp of Scotch. “In short, where have you been all my life? And what the Hell is your name, by the way?”

    Polly was once again very pink but she managed to reply with creditable composure: “To take your points in order: growing up; and Polly Mitchell. What’s yours?”

    He took a deep breath. “Jake Carrano.”

    Oh, shit! he thought as she goggled at him. Not her, surely, not a girl that looks like that and can think like that and—

    “So it wasn’t a lie?” she gasped.

    “Eh?”

    “Leo! He really does know you!” she gulped.

    “Uh—yeah.”

    She went into a gale of giggles on the spot. Contralto giggles, it was lovely: sounded like a whole flock of maggies, that lovely gurgling tone.

    “Yeah,” said Jake on a sheepish note, aware that he was again grinning like a nana. “Not one of ’is tall tales, for once. Come on, for God’s sake: let’s get out of here before the bugger spots us.”

    Weakly Polly let the famous Jake Carrano—New Zealand’s third richest businessman or some such, you only saw his name every day in the papers, if it wasn’t gossip about lifestyles of the rich and famous, complete with yacht, if she wasn’t extrapolating, here, it was sure to be something in the business news—let Jake take her half-drunk Scotch off her, take her arm and steer her out of Leo’s awful minimalist flat. He was nothing—absolutely nothing—like what Leo had said!

    Peter Riabouchinsky drifted up to Leo’s side. “T’as vu?”

    When he was in a bad mood, or a spiteful mood—the latter not an unusual state with him, true—Leo would refuse to answer you in the language you addressed him in. He now replied sourly: “What are you talking about?”

    Peter replied smoothly: “The glorious Polly Mitchell getting off with Jake Carrano.”

    Leo shrugged. “Bof!”

    Peter shot him a speculative glance but merely murmured: “Inevitable, I suppose. Of course, I don’t know him, but from what you h’yave said, I should think they are very much the same toype.”

    “If you say so. I’d have classed him as a macho boor and her as a boring little Antipodean cock-teaser, but I’m sure you’re the expert in these matters.”

    Hm. Sour grapes, and then some. Not that this would stop him from spreading the story all over the university. In fact he was the type that would enjoy punishing himself by doing so. Poor Leo. Peter refrained from showing any sympathy and drifted away again.

    Leo’s long mouth twisted in a sour grimace. Wasn’t it lovely to be treated with so much consideration? Bloody Russian Jew. He went over to the bar, asked Sean very nicely to mix him one of his special vodka cocktails, waited while he was given the whole story of the pulled ligament, tossed the cocktail off, shuddered, said: “Dégueulasse,” and walked away.

    “Where are we going?” said Polly in a weak voice as he helped her into his car. A flaming Merc, they cost the earth out here, and this was a huge one.

    Jake went round the car and got in beside her. “Dunno. My instinct is to drag you off to me cave. Well, I’d suggest going for a civilized drink but it’s gone eleven, the pubs’ll be closed.”

    “Mm. Where is your cave?”

    He started the car. “Pohutukawa Bay. Up the Hibiscus Coast. Know it?”

    “Um, I’ve driven past the turnoff to the bay. I know Puriri, the undergraduate campus is up there.”

    “Shit, are you a lady lecturer, then?”

    Polly’s big grey-green eyes twinkled. “No, I’m a woman university lecturer.”

    “Yeah, hah, hah.”

    “I could say you’re a bloated capitalist.”

    “Okay, now we’ve got that over with, will ya come home with me?”

    “It looks as if I am, doesn’t it?” replied Polly weakly. Well, she wouldn’t mind getting a look at Jake Carrano’s huge mansion, she was as human as the next Woman’s Weekly reader, and her flat was very small and pretty dull, and the bed was an old-fashioned double, barely wide enough for two bodies lying rigidly still—and at least if she saw the way he lived she might know if she was ever gonna be able to stand it. Supposing he ever felt like laying his immense fortune at her tiny feet, of course! –And maybe if her heart’d stop hammering like this she might at least be able to breathe and—and answer him with some appearance of—of self-possession, and not—not bleat out monosyllables like a twit! Monosyllabic clichés, yeah.

    “Good. I’m taking that for consent,” he warned, pointing the Merc’s nose in the eventual direction of the Bridge and home.

    “Mm.” Polly waited for him to ask her what her subject was but he didn’t. So she said very brightly: “I read such a fascinating article about your house in the Weekly!”

    “You can drop that, for a start!”

    She smiled. “I did, actually. In the doctor’s waiting-room.”

    “Been sick?”

    “Boy, your side really live in another world, don’t you? No, I haven’t been sick, I was waiting for the male chauvinist pig to look down his nose at me and ask me if I was married or engaged before finally consenting to write out a prescription for the Pill.”

    “Oughta change doctors.”

    “They’re all the same!” Polly bit her lip. “Um, sorry, Jake, I didn’t mean to shout.”

    “No,” he said, patting her knee because he couldn’t ruddy well help himself. “Know what you mean—well, I see what you mean, never hadda put up with it meself, of course. Though back when I was a young joker it wasn’t bloody easy trying to buy a packet of Durex, either. Struck a flaming chemist that was a Catholic, once—boy, did he give me an earful.”

    “Help, what on earth did you say?”

    Jake cleared his throat. “Well, I was always a stubborn little bugger—stuck up for me rights ’cos no-one else was gonna, kind of thing. Told him he was a narrow-minded bastard and it was that sort of attitude that was responsible for the unwanted kids in orphanages all round the country and the backroom abortions killing miserable women that were only human like the rest of us, and what was more he could take his flaming religion and the flaming Pope as well and shove ’em where it’d do most good. –Words to that effect!”

     Polly gulped. “Good on you.”

    Jake glanced sideways at her. His wide mouth twitched. “I was an orphanage kid meself, brought up by the nuns. Dunno what ole Sister Anne would’ve said if she coulda heard me!”

    She gulped again, failed to control herself, and collapsed in helpless laughter.

    Jake grinned. “Hey,” he said as she was blowing her nose, “anyone ever told you you sound like a flock of maggies when you laugh?”

    “Not frequently, no,” said Polly feebly.

    “Well, ya do. Don’t get ’em up here, eh? Get lots further south, down Wanganui way. Worked on a farm there once, the maggies used to warble from the macrocarpas first thing. Lovely—like listening to a good operatic contralto,” he said thoughtfully.

    “I’ve always thought that,” said Polly limply. “I said it once to my brother Vic and he told me I was mad. –I’m from a backblocks farm over towards the East Coast.”

    “Ya don’t look it!” he said with a chuckle.

    “Then my looks belie me.”

    “Yeah. Don’t sing, do you?” he said on a hopeful note.

    “No.”

    “Uh-huh. Like jazz?”

    “Not really. I like the blues. I hate modern jazz—Dave Brubeck and them.”

    “Not that fond of ’em, meself. Prefer musicals, do you? A dame at that do this evening was telling me she and some mates got up a party to go over to Sidders to see the latest.”

    Blow, if she told the truth was it gonna be the last straw and he’d dump the lady varsity lecturer for good? “No, I hate musicals,” said Polly steadily.

    Jake gave a relieved laugh. “Thank God for that! Me, too!”

    “Were you testing me again?” she croaked.

    “Well, sort of. Well, liking musicals isn’t the acid test, but—uh, yeah. Pretty much. It seems to go with the scrambled egg between the ears, in most dames. I am keen on jazz—stop short round about 1955, though. Well, except for the greats, of course. Know Dizzy Gillespie at all, do ya?”

    “No,” she admitted limply. “What did he play?”

    “Trumpet. Great improvisations. I’ll play you a few records. Dare say you might recognise some of his big hits when ya hear ’em,” he said comfortably.

    “I wouldn’t bet on it, Jake, I’ve really never listened to jazz.”

    “No, well, ya got plenny of time, yet. Heard of Satchmo, have ya?”

    “Yes,” said Polly in some relief.

    “That’s a start. So what sort of music do you listen to? The Beatles, I s’pose?”

    “I do like the Beatles, yes. I’m not really into pop music, though. Um, well, I’m fond of Bach, and the pre-Baroque.”

    “Good, so’m I. Like lute music?”

    “Um, yes, I love it.”

    “Good. I’ve got a tape somewhere—have a look in your glove compartment.”

    Polly was pretty much past wondering what was coming next. She scrabbled in the glove compartment. “Um, no, it’s guitar music,” she said peering at it. “Spanish, I think.”

    “Aw—right, that Villa-Lobos tape. Not Spanish, Portuguese: Brazilian. Short pieces. Got it off a mate last time I was in South America. Might be a bit modern for you—it’s classical, not popular stuff. Shove it in the player, eh? See if ya like it. –It’s not a test,” he said mildly.

    Not much! Limply she put it in the player.

    He must have been quite genuine about it because after a while he started to hum along with the music. It was like sitting next to a very large buzzing bee. Well, a very sexy buzzing bee, actually. ...Just how sophisticated was a macho millionaire who—certainly according to all that free publicity he got in the Auckland Star, not to mention the women’s mags—could have his pick of all the glamorous women he fancied? Um, well, it was true Jean-Jacques was a sophisticated Frenchman but, popular myths to the contrary, he hadn’t done anything all that unusual in bed. Exciting, yes. Too right. But not unusual. Only perhaps he’d been restraining himself on account of her own lack of experience? Relative lack of experience. Well, not relative to all those old school friends that had married their schoolboy sweethearts—or at the very least the boyfriend they’d met just after leaving school—and now had two kids and lovely suburban boxes anywhere from Birkenhead to Pakuranga depending on the said sweetheart’s income bracket and how soon the first kid had come along, and appeared perfectly happy to contemplate a lifetime of suburban bliss slightly interspersed with going back to an unchallenging job requiring no intellectual effort whatsoever once the kids were a bit older...

    “Um, sorry, what?” she said jumping.

    “The view,” repeated Jake, nodding at it.

    “Yes,” said Polly with a little sigh, looking at chains of glowing jewels against black velvet. “The harbour’s lovely at night, isn’t it? I never get tired of it. It’s one of the best things about the twentieth century, I always think.”

    “Yeah, sure is. That and the dental care.”

    “Yes!” she agreed with a startled laugh,

    Jake made a face at the wonderful view of the Waitemata Harbour ringed with the city lights at night. “Had to have a tooth seen to the other day. I was dreading it—haven’t got many fillings, bloody lucky for the pre-fluoride generation, eh?—but them trips to the school dental nurse are seared into me soul.”

    “I suppose if you cried you were damned forever in the eyes of your horrid little peers.”

    “Too right! Boys don’t cry!”

    “Yeah. Did you have to have a filling this time?”

    “Yes, but he shot me full of painkiller and I never felt a thing! Those modern drills are a breeze, too, eh?”

    “I suppose they are, in comparison,” she said cautiously.

    Jake groaned. “Don’t tell me: you’ve never even seen one of the old drills!”

    “I’ve seen them, when I was a kid, but I’ve always had teeth like rocks: I haven’t got any fillings.”

    Ooh, zat so? Augured well for the dental health of their kids, eh? Uh—hold on, Carrano, ya don’t even know the girl! Added to which, never mind if you seem to be pretty much on the same wavelength, barring the odd Dizzy Gillespie or so, what have you fundamentally got in common with a lady varsity lecturer? Never mind the backblocks farm. No, well, on second thoughts you could throw that in as well. Nice old-fashioned pakeha farming families didn’t want their daughters marrying Maori blokes, for a start, not when he was growing up and not now, either, don’t let’s kid ourselves, and they certainly didn’t want them marrying Maori blokes that didn’t even know who their parents were. And she might not consciously subscribe to their attitudes but how much had she unconsciously absorbed? Added to which she must be half his age! Well, slight exaggeration, he was in his late forties and she’d be in her late twenties, but— Yeah.

    They got as far as Dairy Flat—not a thing on the roads—before it got too much for him and he said: “Look, do ya mind if I pull in and kiss you? Because otherwise I might explode or something.”

    Polly was feeling pretty much the same, actually—well, Hellishly nervous as well. “Um, yeah, that’s okay.”

    He drew well in—never mind there were no other cars in sight, this stretch of road was notorious for drongos that couldn’t handle a car doing a ton and killing themselves, their nearest and dearest, and anyone else that happened to be on the road—undid his seatbelt and turned to her. And kissed her.

    When the world had more or less stopped whirling he managed to croak: “I think that worked.”

    “Yes!” agreed Polly with a breathless laugh.

    Those big luminous eyes were looking up at him kind of—not sexily, no, she didn’t have to try, she just naturally was—no, more submissively, ya could of said. Meekly, ya know? Meekly and kind of expectantly. Was there any bloke in the world that could’ve resisted that? He kissed her again.

    “Oh, boy,” he concluded weakly. “It’s there, all right.”

    “Did you think it might not be?”

    “Dunno. Never actually kissed a lady lecturer before.”

    “What about Angela from English?” replied Polly on a cautious note. Angela was usually to be seen at Leo’s awful parties and was pretty reliably reputed to sleep with anything fanciable in trousers—and Jake was that, all right!

    “That blonde tart? Do me a favour!”

    Well, that was good news. “Sorry, I was assuming you were one of Leo’s usual crowd.”

    “No, thanks: don’t fancy them, don’t fancy the company they keep and don’t fancy their germs. What about you?”

    “As a matter of fact—and you don’t have to believe me, but it’s true—that’s exactly what I feel about them. Especially the germs.”

    “Yeah. Good,” he said, squeezing her knee. Somehow his hand began to travel up that lovely smooth leg... “Uh, no: better get you home, eh? Don’t really fancy doing it in the car.”

    With some relief Polly replied: “Nor do I, I’m not a contortionist or a teenager.”

    Smiling, he did his seatbelt up again, let the clutch in and drove off towards home.

    Whew! He can kiss, all right! I must have been mad to think that Mannie Halliday was sexy. And he’s miles sexier than Jean-Jacques, too! ...“Better get you home”? Was that just a speech habit or what? And even if it was a speech habit, it was our speech habits that betrayed our unconscious assumptions, wasn’t it? Proprietorial, was what that tone had been. Help. Was this gonna be the complete J. Carrano takeover? She wasn’t one of those little companies he was always buying up, she was a person! ...Thank goodness he didn’t have one of those pointy, darting tongues, they were horrid. Oh, dear, he was completely irresistible and if it was gonna be the complete takeover of P.M. Mitchell, she was gonna let him, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself. And then what? How long before the macho millionaire got bored with his latest possession and dumped her for something more glamorous? ...Oh, well, too bad! Never mind if it was only for a couple of months or a couple of days, or even one night: she’d take what she could get, because he was the most attractive man she’d ever met.

    “The main bedroom’s along here,” said Jake with his arm round her. “It’s pretty horrible, I'm afraid.”

    “Mm. Split-level: I see,” said Polly in a vague voice.

    “Uh—oh, the house! Well, sort of. Couple of storeys, yeah. Let the architect and the fairy decorator have their heads—my mistake.” He opened the bedroom door.

    Polly gulped, failed to control herself, and collapsed in hysterics on the spot. “Sorry—sorry!” she gasped. “You got a whole flock of woollies, here, Jake!”

    “Yeah, well, like I said, it was the poncy decorator. That bloody round bed was all his idea, too—”

    “Yes!” she gasped helplessly, going into another paroxysm.

    “Masculine, see?” he said, grinning.

    “Mm,” Polly agreed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Though logically, there's no reason why a giant round bed and a giant brown sheepskin cover should be considered masculine.”

    “No, you’re right,” he admitted, releasing her. “The bloody thing weighs a ton, of course, and it’s miles too hot to sleep under.” He hauled it off. “Need to have a piss?” he said kindly. “The ensuite’s through there.”

    It would be. –And he must be the only man on earth that instead of pouncing on you after a forty minutes’ drive up the coast actually asked you if you needed a pee! –Well, knew all about women and then some: mm. Gratefully Polly went. When she came back into the awful brown and oatmeal bedroom he was sitting up in bed with his chest naked. That was a good sign. Only if he’d left his underpants and/or his socks on— He threw back the covers. Ooh! ...No.

    “Pop in,” he said hospitably,

    Limply Polly undressed. “Is that ensuite actually khaki slate?”

    “Yeah. Vile. Cummere.”

    She came over to the bed and he reached for her, pulling her right on top of him. ...Oh, Jake!

    “Listen, I’m not gonna be able to last,” he said into her neck after quite a lot of kissing, fondling and squeezing.

    “That’s all right.”

    Ferocious scowl—help! He looked like one of those big carved Maori posts in the Museum! “No, it isn’t. Flaming anno domini catching up with me.”

    Oh, dear. Not that Jean-Jacques at one point hadn’t said something very similar. “In my experience it’s the other way round and it’s the very young men that can’t hold back,” replied Polly steadily.

    “Yeah,” said Jake weakly. “Your experience, eh? Yeah. Listen, what say I get down there with me tongue for a bit, sweetheart? ’Cos if I put me prick into you I’ll go off like a rocket.”

    “That’d be nice,” replied Polly on a breathless note.

    Would it? Goody. He got down there forthwith. Judging by the squealing and the clutching that then went on it was nice, all right. It wasn’t bad for him, either. Jesus, was he gonna be able to hold on? Come on, Polly, love, have a come for us! –He didn’t say it aloud, didn’t want to break the rhythm, he had learned something about women in the last more years than he wanted to— Ah-hah!

    She let out a Godalmighty shriek, dug her fingernails right into his shoulders, and clenched like blazes. Whereupon Jake hauled himself up, fell on top of her, and shoved it up there—Jesus! Christ!

    “AAARGH! Uh—AAARGH!” he roared, coming like a rocket.

    When he’d stopped panting and gasping, and his heart had stopped hammering like a pile-driver, which wasn't for some time, he rolled off her just as Polly was wondering if she’d have to say he was squashing her, she couldn’t breathe, and pulled her head onto his shoulder. Proprietorially. She was compos mentis enough to register that—just. Only somehow it didn’t seem to matter.

    “All right?” he said, giving her a bit of a squeeze.

    “Mm,” admitted Polly. She was going to add “Couldn’t you tell by the decibel level?” but thought better of it: sometimes men went all huffy if you made the mildest remark that might with a huge stretch of the imagination be construed as criticising their perfor—

    “Thought it mighta been, judging by the decibel level,” he said on a smug note.

    She gave a startled laugh. “Yes! –You, too. Are you always that loud?”

    “Dunno,” he said yawning. “Prolly. Never measured it. Are you always that wet?”

    Polly had to swallow. “Um, well, usually, I suppose. Um, it depends a bit on the person.”

    “Can’t be bad,” he concluded, yawning again. “Fancy a drink?”

    The house was huge: if she said she did he’d have to trail all the way downstairs, and make his way to wherever he kept the drinks—presumably in the giant shag-pile-carpeted living-room with its giant puffy black leather Michelin men of sofas and chairs and the really horrible modern art in tones of, for a change, brown and oatmeal.

    “Well, do ya?”

    She jumped. “Um, only if you feel like getting them, Jake.”

    “Wouldn’t’ve offered if I didn’t: Not a tit,” he grunted, sitting up. “Uh—fuck.”

    Polly gave a strangled giggle.

    “Yeah, all right: we already done that,” he conceded, grinning. “No, just went ahead and did it. I know you said you’re on the Pill, but I should’ve asked you if it was okay. Mind you, I haven’t got VD, don’t sleep with anything that looks as if it might have it, and I get a regular check-up, anyway. But there’s this new-fangled AIDS stuff these days, eh? Well, read about it in a magazine at the dentist’s, actually,” he admitted. “Don’t get much time for reading. They reckon it isn’t only gays that can be affected.”

    “No, but it is largely, isn’t it? It’s okay: I never met anyone than looked less likely to fancy the AC-DC sort.”

    Jake wouldn’t of thought she’d know that expression, Well—lady lecturer, eh? “Glad to hear it,” he said somewhat weakly.

     “And I haven’t got anything catching.”

    “Never thought ya had. No, um, just thought—well not the Woman’s Weekly, no; But half them other rags, they’ll say anything they can get past their lawyers and imply a lot more, and me mug’s splashed all over them fairly regularly, plus all the ruddy innuendos.”

    “I see. I don't actually read the mags much. I did once see a photo of you in a Vogue. I can’t remember whether it was an Australian one or a French one.”

    He shrugged. “Coulda been either. Any time I go to Oz on business some joker’s wife’s bound to invite me to a flaming wing-ding. Don’t do much business with the Frogs but I get over there fairly often, depending on whether it's been a good vintage. –Buy a lot of wine,” he said with a smile as she was looking blank.

    “Oh, of course, lifestyles of the rich and famous!”

    “You can drop that, sweetheart,” he advised, patting her knee. “Well, whadd’ll it be? Name your poison, really, I've got most things.”

    Mm, he would have. “A whisky’d be nice, thanks. ’Specially since I wasn’t allowed to finish that one at Leo’s!”

    “Uh—sorry. So you are a whisky drinker?” he said, wiping his prick slowly on the sheet and getting out of bed.

    “Yes, of course, why else would I have let you give me one?”

    Jake raised his eyebrows. “No will of yer own? Bowing to me masculine superiority in the matter of strong licker? Better than that cheap vodka Leo puts out for ’is guests, meanwhile the genuine Russian potater the bugger drinks himself is stowed away in a cupboard?”

    Polly’s shoulders shook slightly but she said with creditable dignity: “Just get them, Jake.”

    Grinning, Jake toddled off to get them both a whisky.

     Next morning was pretty bloody good, too. After she’d had a piss, of course.

    “That was pretty bloody good!” he panted, when he could speak.

    “Mmm,” agreed Polly, snuggling into his shoulder. “Youse fuck good.”

    Jake choked.

    “Can I use your phone?”

    “Eh? Use me flaming phone all you like. Ring yer Froggy mates in Frogland, if ya like. Ring the moon.”

    “Some of us have been brought up to ask,” she said severely.

    “Well, yeah, Sister Anne woulda have ten fits if any of us had used someone else’s phone without asking. Go ahead, there it is.”

    Gee, it was a poncy cream one, sitting on the bedside cabinet—one of the matching bedside cabinets, of course. Complete with giant oatmeal fake-pottery lamps with palest oatmeal shades, natch. Raw silk, yet, or her name wasn’t Polly Maureen Mitchell. Polly eyed it warily.

    “Go on, it won’t bite. Or shall I politely leave the room?”

    “No! Don’t be silly! I just want to ring my neighbour to ask her to feed my cat, he’ll be wondering where I am.”

    Uh—the cat’d be wondering where she was? Jake blinked. “Well, go on, then.”

    “Can I just dial, though? Or is it a terrifically up-market system with umpteen extensions throughout the house that requires the initial dialling of a secret code—”

    Jake picked the phone up bodily. “Dial,” he said, lifting the receiver and shoving it at her.

    “Well, is it 1, first? Or zero?”

    “No, just dial!” he howled.

    “At varsity you have to dial 1 to get a line,” replied Polly simply, dialling.

    Jake sagged. She’d been genuine, then.

    He drove her home around lunchtime, after a sort of brunch on the patio. She laughed, of course, but she did actually seem to like the yellow and white striped patio furniture the nancy-boy decorator had chosen. Obviously didn’t like the living-room, though. No, well, nor did he. Though the couches and chairs were comfortable enough. She liked that big turquoise glass bowl that he’d chosen himself, that was good. Politely ignored the abortions on the walls so he explained they weren’t art, they were dee-cor: that went over good, she went into that gurgling laugh of hers.

    “Where the Hell are we?” he croaked as, having turned off Dominion Road—according to her, she loved it: must be the only living human being that did, that was for sure—they were engulfed by a suburban wilderness.

    “Mt Eden, technically; but only just.”

    “Didn’t think there were many flats in these parts.”

    “There’s a few blocks springing up like nasty rashes. It’s the next on the right.”

    He turned right. Yep, that was a nasty rash, all right. Concrete block, tiled roof, six flats strung out in a row, like a ruddy motel. “Why the Hell choose this place?” he croaked.

    “It’s fairly near the bus route, it’s reasonably close to work, and I can afford it. And it took me ages to find it, I was almost at the point of thinking I’d have to give in and stay with my old Aunty Vi. She’s one of those terrifyingly spry little old ladies that treat the younger generation as if they’re still ten years old, and don’t know what the expression ‘give and take’ means.”

    Jake shuddered. “Sounds a bit like the old nuns at the convent! Uh—did you say Vi?” he asked as she opened her door.

    Polly got out and bent down to look in at him. “Yes, why?” The long golden-brown curls swept down over her shoulder and what with that and that lovely smile Jake forgot completely what he’d been about to say: he just sat there and drank it in.

    “Why?” she repeated.

    He jumped. “Eh? Aw—nothing. Sounds like a strict old girl I used to know. Not a name you hear often, these days.”

    “No. She’s Mum’s oldest sister, she’s old enough to be my great-aunt, really—she’s in her seventies. And Mum’s in her sixties, she wasn't young when she had me. I’m the benjamin of the family,” she said, smiling that lovely smile at him.

    “Mm? –Mm, I getcha. Uh—this doesn’t look like a very safe place to keep a cat, Polly, with the ruddy drive going up outside the whole block like this, and no front gardens,” he said, getting out.

    “He’s got sense, he doesn’t usually come out here. I’ve got a little back yard, and it’s fenced off, he goes out there. He’s got a cat-door,” she explained.

    Ri-ight. Be the first cat that ever had any sense, wouldn’t it? Usually the buggers crept up on your newly washed car and plonked their great hairy bums on its bonnet. He followed her inside slowly, looking round warily for it.

    “Cripes,” he said weakly. “Big bugger, isn’t ’e?”

    “Yes,” she said, picking the brute up and telling it she was sorry to have left it all by itself all night—it was gonna understand that! “He’s not a young cat. I got him off an old lady that used to live next-door. She had to go into a home. They wouldn’t let her keep him and she was very upset, so I said I’d take him.”

    “Suckered,” he concluded.

    “Well, yes, but as I knew it, can it count?”

    “Right,” he said feebly. Mustn’t forget she was as bright as he was—brighter, probably.

    “Don’t try to pat him, will you?”—Pat the brute? It looked as if it’d take your hand off for sixpence, and enjoy doing it!—“He doesn’t like men, it’s the growly voices, I think. He was only used to old Mrs Baines and her old-lady friends—weren’t you, Grey?” she cooed. “This is Jake, he won’t hurt you. –His name’s Grey, because he’s a short-haired European grey!” she informed him with a beaming smile.

    “Yeah,” he said weakly. “Is ’e? I see.”

    The brute was struggling to get down so she put it on the floor and gee, it headed for the fridge—the main room was open-plan, how the Hell did she stand that? And croaked at it.

    “You’ve had your breakfast, greedy! Well, just a drop of milk wouldn’t hurt, I s’pose.”

    It golloped the milk down at top speed, shook its whiskers with a weird sort of rattling noise—Jake suppressed a jump—and giving him, Jake Carrano, a really evil look, sat down and shoved its nose into its arse. Ugh!

    She’d agreed to go for a bit of a drive with him this arvo so when she said: “I’ll just get changed,” Jake nodded, though there were better things he could think of doing in her company than going for a drive, and sat down on her sofa. Not a bad shape: one of those very plain styles, the local version of Habitat, but she’d had it covered in a dark green and white Laura Ashley print that wouldn’t’ve been his first choice. The matching green on white print had been used for the long curtains at the sliding glass doors that formed most of the front of the place—it was just like a ruddy motel, the builder musta just used a motel design, slammed ’em up regardless. Well, very feminine look, yes, and she was that, all right! Lots of books, some of them in what looked suspiciously like a decent old kauri dresser that she'd been and gone and painted white! The other bookcases were all white, too, but just cheap modern stuff. And of course the concrete-block walls were white: they came like that. After a bit he got up and had a bit of a look at the books. Lot of detective stories, no soppy romances, some novels, most of them paperbacks, never heard of any of them...  Shit. This lot must be for her work. Half of them were in French. Hang on: P.M. Mitchell on the spine? He drew out a slim, white-covered volume. Shit. Analyse statistique et analyse littéraire par P.M. Mitchell.

    “Oy, is this you?” he said feebly as she came back, in jeans and a scrumptious little green knit top that was nice and tight over the tits. “P.M. Mitchell.”

    “Yes: Polly Maureen. The Maureen’s after Mum,” she said, smiling that smile.

    “Eh? Aw—right. Hang on,” he said slowly. Fuck, must just be a coincidence. Must be. But hadn't one of the old girl’s sisters been called Maureen? She’d had a tribe of them. that was right... “Listen, you said your Mum's got an older sister called Vi,” he said, swallowing. “She a spinster?”

    “Yes, she doesn’t approve of men!” replied Polly with a laugh.

    Jake put the book back slowly. “Ye-ah... That wouldn’t be Violet Macdonald, would it?” he said, not looking round.

    Polly gaped at his bent head. “That’s right. Do you know her?”

    Making a face, Jake turned round. “Used to. She was a mate of me ex’s—went to the same school or something. No, think she was at school with her older sister. Um, very ex,” he said to her dubious face. “Divorced the bitch years back.”

    “I see,” she said uncertainly. Help, how old was he? Even if the wife had been older than him and it had been the sister that had been at school with Aunty Vi... He was looking very sour, oh, heck. “Um, did you have any children, Jake?”

    “No,” he said grimly. He looked at that sweet, sympathetic oval face again. “I mean, yes,” he said, thrusting his hand through his dark curls. “Look, siddown, Polly. I better put you in the picture, ’specially if there’s any chance of us running into Vi Macdonald.”

    “She is the sort that comes round without warning,” Polly admitted, sinking onto the sofa.

    “I should koko!” he agreed, shuddering. “Well behind the door when tact was being dished out, eh?” He sat down beside her and sighed. “Me and Esmé did have a kid. Grant. It was a Helluva mistake, shoulda checked up on her bloody family history before I ever— Never mind. The older sister, Greta, that was at school with your Aunty Vi, she topped herself when she was about twenty-one. No specific reason, far’s anyone could make out. Just drove her car off the cliff. Eventually found out years later that there was a history of instability in the family. Anyway, Grant was—well, I forget what the nice people call it these days,” he said, making a face. “Retarded. Hopeless. Used to have these bloody awful screaming fits. Never recognised me or his mother—never learnt to talk. The poor little bugger died when he was seven.”

    Polly's eyes had filled with tears. “I’m awfully sorry, Jake.”

   “Yeah,” he said heavily, patting her knee. “Yeah. Well, it was a long time ago.”

    “Mm.” She put her hand timidly on top of his. Jake’s hand turned and gripped hers hard.

    After a while he said: “Don’t usually go on about it.”

    “No. I suppose Aunty Vi knows all about it, does she?”

    He’d forgotten that that was the ostensible reason he’d told her the lot. “Eh? Aw—yeah. That’s not really why I wanted to tell you.”

    Polly swallowed. “I see,” she said shakily.

    “Shit, don’t bawl, love! It was ages ago!” he said, getting his arms round her and hugging her hard. “Hardly ever think about it these days.”

    Maybe not, but he must feel it, mustn’t he? Otherwise why mention it at all? And to give Aunty Vi her due, she was tactless where barging in on the younger generation regardless of who they might be entertaining at the time was concerned, but she wouldn’t have brought the subject up in front of him—and it was highly unlikely she’d have mentioned it to her niece, either. Not unless there was a very good reason to. And if he knew the old bat at all he must realise that. Polly sniffled into his solid shoulder and said: “Sorry.”

    “Don’t be. –Um, look, talking of horrible coincidences, what do you teach up the varsity? This linguistics stuff? French?”

    “Linguistics. I teach some classes within the English stream as well.”

    Or, Greek. “Uh-huh. So ya don’t teach French?”

    “No; why?” said Polly, staring at him. “Oh, you mean because I know Leo? Our departments are in the same faculty, the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, and we share a horrid staffroom in at the City Campus.”

    “Not that. Have anything to do with the French students, at all, do ya?”

    “Only if they’re taking a Linguistics unit as well.”

    Ugh, he was pretty sure the little bleeder was. “All right, I might just as well out with it. Do ya know a kid called Rod Jablonski?”

    “Yes, quite well. He’s doing his Master’s in French but he's thinking of switching to linguistics for his Ph.D.”

    With her teaching it that was really surprising. Astonishing, in fact. “Yeah, well, my ex is his stepmother.”

    Help, Rod’s barmy stepmother! Polly gaped at him.

    “Right, told you about her, has ’e?”

    “Well, not much. I mean, I know him fairly well: we sometimes play tennis together when he wants a partner for mixed doubles.”

    “Yeah, he’s not a bad player,” he said limply. “Well, there you are. Wheels within wheels, eh?”

    “Mm. I suppose it is a relatively small community.”

    “Something like that,” he said, heaving himself up. “Come on, grab your purse and let’s get going before yer Aunty Vi turns up unannounced.”

    Polly got up, biting her lip. She met his eye. “Ooh, help!” she gasped, going into a gale of giggles.

    “Definition of a ruined arvo, eh?” he said, grinning broadly, and putting his arm round her. “Well, where ya wanna go? Fancy a run up Mount Eden, since we’re so near?’

    “That’d be nice.”

    “Righto. Then what? Mission Bay with all the family saloons?”

    “Um, well, Mission Bay is nice... Do you think we could go to the Museum first?”

    Jake blinked. He’d taken some birds to some fairly odd places in his time, but this was a first. “The Museum? Yeah, ’course. Whatcha wanna look at?” he said weakly.

    Polly’s face lit up. “The Maori cloaks, the ones with the feathers—aren’t they miraculous? And the little snuff bottles!”

    Jake smiled. “Yeah, the Maori cloaks are pretty miraculous, all right. Might not all be on display, ya know. They’ve wised up to themselves, keep them shut away from the light in these kind of cupboard things, but last time I was up there they weren’t putting ’em all out. I like the snuff bottles, too,” he said, as they went out the front door. “Mind you, they’re not— What?”

    “What’s the matter? Oh: Grey,” said Polly limply. Jake had parked just outside the flat, regardless of who might want to get in or out of the driveway, and Grey was sitting on the Merc’s bonnet.

    “All right, serves me right for parking in the drive,” he said heavily.

    “Mm,” she admitted, picking the cat up. “Ugh, he’s gone all limp, the pig! –No, you can’t sit on Jake’s bonnet, you bad boy!”

    “Put hairs and dirt all over it, has ’e?” he asked resignedly.

    “Well, um, a bit.”

    “Par for the course. Put him inside and we’ll be off quick before ’e can— Hang on, the front door was closed, how the fuck did he get out here?”

    “I don’t know,” she said weakly. “Um, could you get my keys out of my purse, please, Jake?”

    Jake operated on her purse and then the front door, while she held onto the brute. At least it wasn’t struggling. He refrained from saying “Just chuck it in,” or “Give it a boot up the bum.” Oh, well, she was perfect in every other way, and if she had a brute of a cat that put its great hairy bum on his Merc, he’d just have to put up with it, eh?

    He drove off happily towards the mountain, telling her in great detail just why the little Chinese snuff bottles at the Auckland War Memorial Museum were not very good...

    The news was all round the university by lunchtime on the Monday. In fact that bastard Schmidt had undoubtedly got in early—not his habit—so as to make sure it was. All right, Dr Jill Davis, M.A. (Cantab.), Ph.D. (Manchester) was gonna stick her neck out.

    Her groan of “Are you out of your tree, Mitchell?” was favoured with that obstinate look and  “Probably. So?” in reply, but she struggled on anyway: “Look, you’ve only got to be seen once with him in public for the local rags to splash it all over the front page, and what the Hell are your family going to think, Polly?”

    Polly eyed her drily. “In public. Like looking at the Maori cloaks in the Museum. The haunt of the local Press, the Museum is.”

    Smiling weakly, Jill subsided. ...But really! The man was the playboy of the Australasian world!