Back To Trethewin

7

Back To Trethewin

    I couldn’t drive.

    I had somehow overlooked this small point, after the somewhat hangdog New South Wales police had made sure they had my Adelaide address, checked where I intended to be in the near future, and allowed me to leave, another surreal experience. It was the same country, for God’s sake! The helpful Perry merely eyed me drily when I pointed this out and said: “Interstate, mate. Different forces.”

    Oh, well, it was a large country, doubtless there were historical reasons… I embarked on the plane from Brisbane on the trip back to Adelaide via Sydney trying not to wonder what else might be managed separately by the individual states. And just how difficult it might be, if Andrews turned up elsewhere within the country, to have him brought to justice. After a while it got too much for me and I said to the fellow in the seat opposite in Business Class: “Excuse me: may I ask you—er—a question about the Australian judicial system?”

    He was a fiftyish, obviously prosperous, smooth-looking chap in a business suit. Nevertheless his response was the one I’d already had from several taxi drivers and a couple of barmen. “English, are ya, mate?”

    “Yes,” I admitted.

    “Fire away.”

    “Er—well—the incident in Byron Bay that’s been in the papers—”

    “The bastard skipped when they were taking him to court,” he rejoined immediately.

    “Yes. Would that—well, I’m afraid I don’t understand the Australian legal system. If they catch him again, say, in Tasmania, er, would he be tried down there?”

    “Nah, mate. Extradition,” he said simply.

    Extradition. Within the one country.

    “I see. Thank you,” I replied limply.

    “Shocking thing. Looked like a bloody great hunting knife the bugger had,” he said conversationally. “See the photo in the paper?”

    “Mm.”

    He sniffed. “They’ll never find out where ’e got it. You can buy them at any hunting-goods store. Not that it’d do them any good if they did find out, because he won’t be going back there, will ’e?”

    “I shouldn’t think so.”

    “No. –Wish I’d seen that dog have a piece of him,” he said on a wistful note.

    I failed to raise a smile. “Mm.”

    “Anyway, that’s the system, mate! Extradition!” he said bracingly.

    I twitched. “Oh—yes. Thanks very much.”

    “No worries! Out here for the Cup, are you?”

    I looked at him limply: I’d forgotten all about it! “Er—partly on business, but yes, I’m hoping to make it to the Cup.”

    “Whaddaya reckon? Think it might depend on the going on the day. The wife’s money’s on Maluckyday, but then, So You Think is trained by Bart Cummings and the favourite.”

    “I think they both have a good chance. I was wondering about Américain.”

    “A-merry-caine?” he replied. “Ye-ah… French. Never raced much out here.” He scratched his chin. “Just won the Geelong Cup, though. –Might have a side bet,” he decided, grinning.

    “Me, too,” I replied with a smile. And with that we both ordered Black Label and settled down to reminiscences of horse races we had seen and/or lost or won a packet on. By the end of the flight to Sydney we were racing buddies forever and Arnie Simpson, such being his name, had not only given me his card but invited me fervently to join him and the wife in the Quinn Sale Australasia corporate box. At which point I had to admit that I knew Sir Peter Sale slightly and he’d already invited me. One could only hope, I reflected somewhat grimly as Arnie, who was travelling light, disappeared with his hand luggage in order to grab a taxi before the hordes got down on them, unquote, that neither he nor Sale would realise that the A. Cartwright mentioned in the papers as having also been injured in the course of the “brutal knife attack” on James Hawkes in Byron Bay had been me.

    I was last off. The sympathetic air hostess came and cooed over me. The wheelchair was all ready for me: here we go! –Tenderly taking my elbow. And I limped over to the open door of the plane and was wheeled tenderly down miles of grey tubes and grey corridors to the connecting flight to Adelaide. Er… not connecting. “We’ll just wait here, dear, shall we?” –Brightly. We waited…

    A similar procedure took place when the second plane eventually reached Adelaide. By this time I was wishing that I’d delayed my departure from Brisbane in order to catch a direct flight; but on the other hand, Jim, Perry, Junie and even Paula, who not surprisingly regarded me as Public Enemy Number—well, Two, let’s say—had all warned me that ten to one it’d be re-routed through Tullamarine if I did. This proved to mean Melbourne airport. If one looked at the map— No, well, that way madness lay.

    The porter at the Hyatt in Adelaide sprang forward in concern—or possibly in hopes of largesse—as I gingerly edged out of the taxi with the damn crutch…

    I didn’t even try to totter down to dinner, I just ordered from the Room Service menu. Steak. It was excellent. I washed it down with spring water, and finished the meal with a large brandy. After that, the nagging cut, now starting to itch as it healed, didn't seem to matter so much and I passed out and slept like a log.

    So it wasn’t until the next morning that it dawned, as I reached the lobby, that I couldn’t drive with the damned leg. Hell.

    “Is this it?” asked the limo driver in justified exasperation, pulling in with a vicious jerk. –He’d given up calling me “sir” quite some miles back.

    I peered out at the dirt track leading off the apology for a road we were on. “Er… I’m not sure. I think so. –I’m terribly sorry, Clive. Being misdirected back at the petrol pumps has thrown me completely, I’m afraid.”

    “I reckon,” he said, “that the bastard done it on purpose!”

    After selling us untold litres of petrol at an enormously inflated price? Yes, so did I.

    “Mm. I think that might be the man who used to deal with Trethewin Stables and was swindled by the last manager.”

    “Ya don’t say! –Hang on. Ya not telling me it’s the place that that bugger burned down before ’e lit out?”

    Er—colourful, not to say appropriate. “Yes.”

    “Cripes, mate!” –I had now either definitively been demoted from sir-ship or admitted, if provisionally, into the vast brotherhood of Australian masculine society. Or, um, possibly both?

    “Hang on, didn’t the NSW cops catch ’im up in Byron and let ’im go, the bloody drongos?”

    “That’s right.”

    “How the Hell did they manage that?”

    Was that a rhetorical question?

    Yes, possibly it was, because he went on: “He stabbed a couple of blokes, didn’t ’e? Before that great dog brought ’im down!” He laughed gleefully. “Wish I’d of seen that!”

    “She could have been killed,” I said, not having meant to utter any such thought.

    “Eh? Who’s that, then?”

    “The dog. I mean, she was a bitch,” I explained limply.

    “Aw! Nah, they said she was ex-Army, eh? Nah, they’re trained to go for the knife arm: there’s no way he coulda got it round in time to do ’er.”

    I winced.

    “Brave dog, though,” he conceded. “They oughta give ’er a medal! –Dunno if they got them, really. Not for, like, civilian dogs. Think they got awards for police dogs, though.”

    “I should think that’s likely, yes.”

    “Yeah. So where do you come in?” he asked chattily.

    Aside from the damned fiasco having been all my fault? “Er, how do you mean?”

    “Well, whatcha heading for Trethewin for, mate? You the new manager? Ya won’t be able to do much on a horse with that gammy leg, ya know!”—This was not as brutally crass as it sounded: we’d already determined that I was recovering from an accident and would soon be okay.

    “No, well, I’m not the manager, I’m the new owner.”

    “Aw, right. –Tell ya what, you wanna take ole Bart’s advice if ya looking for a new manager!”

    I repressed a desire to clutch madly at my forehead: I had now gathered that in Australia the famous Bart Cummings was everybody’s brother, cousin, uncle… Rather as Don Bradman was everybody’s dearest mate.

    “Good idea,” I said mildly.

    “So ya thinking of starting up the stud again?”

    “I don’t think so, no. Training, possibly; I haven’t decided. I’m really out here to see what’s feasible.”

    “Set you back a fair whack,” he warned.

    “Mm.”

    “So, you got any horses of your own?” he asked cosily, starting the car.

    “A couple, back in England.”

    “Yeah? They any good?” He swung the limo into the track with a sickening lurch.

    “Not Melbourne Cup material, no,” I admitted.

    That did it, and we had a lovely chat about the possible contenders, as we bumped slowly along the track…

    “Oh, thank God!” There was the gate, with Gavin on it once again. “This is it, Clive.”

    “Good-oh. Any chance of a bite, mate?”

    Oh, Lor’. The poor chap must be starving. It had taken quite some time for the concierge at the Hyatt to source him and his limo—the chauffeur services of Adelaide seemed strangely loath to drive out to next-door to Outer Woop-Woop. “Yes, I think so.”

    “Great.” He let down his window and yelled: “OY! KID! Geddoff the ruddy GATE!”

    “No PRESS!” shrieked Gavin in reply.

    Oh, God. I let my window down. “Gavin! It’s me, Alex!”

    “Hey, Alex! Far out! C’n I have a ride in it?”

    “How dirty—” I gave up on conversation and simply yelled: “Come here!”

    He came, beaming.

    “How dirty are your shoes?”

    “Sneakers.”

    “Yes. How dirty are they? Have you been in the horse paddock recently?”

    “Not recently.”

    I sighed. “Let me see.”

    He held up his feet one after the other.

    “Very well, get in,” I sighed.

    “No, hang on!” said Clive.

    “Oh—yes! Sorry, Clive. Open the gate wide for us, please, Gavin.”

    One would have thought that this simple request would have produced the desired action. What we got was: “And then shut it again?”

    “What? What would Cassie say, you daft ’a’porth?”

    “Aw.” He opened the gate wide for us and shut it after us.

    “Don’t drive on without him, Clive, tempting though it is,” I sighed.

    Clive himself couldn’t have been much more than twenty. He laughed. “How old is ’e?”

    “Ten. With as much energy as the entire Melbourne Cup field multiplied ten times over!”

    “They’re all like that. –All right, you can geddin,” he said out of his window.

    Gavin looked lofty. “I’m going in the back with Alex, see!”

    Clive muttered something which might have been “You’re right, there, matey,” and I let him in.

    “Hey, Alex, is that your crutch? Far out! Hey, where did he getcha?”

    I sighed. “You know that, Gavin. Nurse Becky and I both told you, didn’t we?”

    “Yeah, but where in the leg?”

    Oh, God. “Along the thigh. This one.” –In spite of today’s not to say the week’s vicissitudes someone somewhere up there was smiling upon me, because it was my right leg and he was on my left.

    “All down it?”

    I sighed. “Almost.”

    “Donny Roberts, he reckoned that he musta stabbed ya right to the bone!”

    “Who in God’s name is Donny Roberts?”

    “A boy in my class.”

    “So you’re back at school?”

    “Sort of. The doctor said I gotta take it easy, so the teacher, she said I better just come in the mornings.”

    “I see. Well, he didn’t exactly stab me, it was more of a slash: you can tell Donny Roberts he got it wrong.”

    Oddly enough Clive had heard the entirety of this conversation: I hadn’t felt it tactful, initially, to put up the glass between me and an Australian driver, and after our cosy chat it would of course have been impossible.

    “Shit!” he gasped. “Ya don’t mean it was you, the second guy that got stabbed?”

    “Slashed,” Gavin corrected immediately. “Yes, ’course it was. He’s been in hospital, eh, Alex? Nurse Becky, she tole me—”

    Etcetera. I just leaned back and let it flow on.

    Cassie—darling, sweet, straightforward, too-young-for-me Cassie—burst into tears at the sight of me leaning on my crutch at her front door.

    “He’s okay!” gasped Gavin, horribly disconcerted. “Don’t bawl, Cassie! His leg’s getting better! Nurse Becky, she tole me on the phone it’s got stitches an’ everythink!”

    “I’m fine,” I said feebly.

    “Stitches!” she gasped, sobbing.

    “The hospital insisted. Don’t cry, I’ve had worse injuries falling off a horse.”

    “You’re a—bloody—idiot!” she gasped through the sobs.

    “Uh—yes, I am. Please don’t cry. Have my— Damn,” I said, wobbling. “Gavin, please grab this crutch, would you? Thanks.” I managed to get my hand into my trouser pocket to get my handkerchief for her. “Here.”

    “Coulda—been—killed!” she gasped, dabbing madly at her eyes.

    “No, I couldn’t, Cassie: I was behind him.”

    “Donny Roberts, he reckons—”

    “Gavin, shut up about bloody Donny Roberts!” I cried.

    There was a stunned silence.

    “Look, just bring the crutch in for me, would you? We’d all better sit down and—uh—have a cup of tea.”

    “Good idea,” said Clive. “He’s okay, really,” he added awkwardly. “Been talking normal and all that. Just a bit stiff in the leg.”

    “Exactly, Clive,” I agreed with relief. “Come along.” Very gingerly I took Cassie’s elbow. She sniffed convulsively but allowed herself to be steered into her little shabby house.

    In the sitting-room Clive said firmly to Gavin: “Come on, matey, you can show me where the tea things, are, oke? A nice cuppa, that’s what the lady needs. She your mum, then?’

    He brightened. “Nah, she’s my aunt. See—” They exited to the kitchen.

    Which left me and Cassie.

    “I’m sorry,” she said soggily, blowing her nose.

    “Don’t be. Sit down.”

    She sank down onto the ugly grey sofa. I looked at the giant, puffy brown fake-leather armchair, only too apt to engulf one and make rising difficult at the best of times, discarded that idea, and perched beside her, not too close. “I’m sorry,” I said grimly. “The whole escapade was damn’ stupid. I should just have reported it to the police and been done with it.”

    She gave a watery smile. “Yes, well, on their track record so far they’d have messed it up totally. Or not believed you.”

    “Nevertheless,” I said heavily. “Why I ever let those two gung-ho idiots dream up anything so damn’ stupid—”

    She blew her nose again, this time in a conclusive sort of way, and put the handkerchief in her jeans pocket. “Three,” she said definitely.

    Somehow the putting-in-the-pocket had distracted me—she was wearing a tight pale yellow tee-shirt. “Three?” I echoed blankly.

    “Mm. You’re as bad as them.”

    “Me?”

    She nodded hard. “Mm. You don’t look it, Alex, you come on as… quite gentle, really. But you’re not, underneath, are you? You’re as gung-ho—I think I mean as much of a risk-taker, really—as any of them.”

    “I don’t think—”

    “You used to ride point-to-point, didn’t you?”

    “Y— Buh—”

    “That proves it.”

    “I’ve given it up,” I said limply.

    “Yeah?” she retorted scathingly.

    “Er—I meant jumping, Cassie. Steeplechasing.”

    “I dare say. That didn’t stop you going for it, though, did it? I suppose,” she said heavily, “it’s some sort of male drive. You have to get in there and win, don’t you? Beat the opposition at all costs, whether it’s jockeys on horses or a ruddy arsonist with a knife. It’s just not near the surface in you, that’s all.”

    “I do usually think before I act: I’ve had to, in business. I suppose I— Look, the bastard went for poor Jim with his knife and I just saw red!” I burst out. “And in any case I was behind him.”

    “Behind him barehanded.”

    “Nuh— More or less,” I muttered. “It was all so fast, no-one had time to think, Cassie.”

    “You could both have been killed. And that poor dog that wasn’t even yours!”

    “Uh—Fifi is more than capable of defending herself.”

    “And what if she hadn’t been there?”

    “But— That was the whole point,” I said feebly.

    She stared at me. “What on earth do you mean?”

    “Fifi. The dog. –Perry’s dog.”

    “Who on earth is Perry?”

    “The man who owns the dog. Jim’s cousin,” I floundered.

    “Jim’s— What was his cousin doing there? Does he live in Byron, or something?”

    “No. I mean, that was the plan.”

    “Alex, are you feverish?” she said on a dangerous note.

    “No! Look, the plan was that Jim would be in the shop to distract Andrews—Brownloe—and I’d come in from the back—surprise him, you see—and block the way to the back door. Then when he made a bolt for the front door, Perry and Fifi would grab him as soon as he set foot on the pavement.”

    From the kitchen doorway Clive’s voice said sardonically: “Him and his ruddy great knife, ya mean, mate? Good one.”

    “Look, Jim wasn’t supposed to get in his way!” I shouted.

    There was a short silence.

    “Another macho idiot,” Cassie concluded sourly.

    “Ya not wrong there,” Clive agreed. “Cripes, couldn’t he see the bugger had a knife?”

    “No,” I said heavily. “It was all so quick. He had the knife out of his sock and was slashing at Jim before we could blink.”

    Another short silence, as this sank in.

    Then Cassie admitted in a small voice: “I suppose he was pretty athletic. You know: agile.”

    “Like a flamin’ snake, by the sounds of it!” Clive agreed feelingly.

    Er… snakes couldn’t carry kn— Never mind.

    “Yes, well, there you are,” I said limply. “It went wrong.”

    “When knives are involved things usually do!” Cassie retorted tartly, getting, alas, her second wind.

    “If he drew the knife the dog was supposed to take him out before he— Never mind,” I muttered.

    Oh, Hell, I’d said far too much.

    “You don’t mean you knew he had a knife?” she cried.

    “N— Well, I knew he’d carried one when he was claiming to be Broderick Anson, in England, but that was twelve years ag—”

    “How could you be so stupid?” she cried, bursting into tears all over again.

    Clive looked at me limply. “You’ve done it now, mate.”

    “Why’s she bawling again?” asked Gavin from behind him.

    Clive and I looked at her helplessly.

    “Um, ladies don’t like knives, mate,” the young fellow finally produced.

    “No,” I muttered, putting a very tentative arm round her shoulders. “Come on, Cassie, it’s all over now. Don’t cry. Jim and I are going to be fine.”

    “You—deliberately—went into—danger!” she sobbed.

    “Y— N— But the point is we didn’t think there’d be much danger! Fifi’s been trained to deal with knives!”

    She gulped, sniffed, and groped for the handkerchief. “Then why—” She blew her nose hard. “Then why wasn’t she in the shop?”

    Over by the doorway I could see Clive wince horribly.

    “Yeah, I betcha she could of taken ’im out right away!” chimed in the tactless Gavin. “See, they go for the crim’s arm: jump! GRRR!” he demonstrated, jumping and baring his teeth in a horrible grimace.

    Oddly enough this proved the distraction that his aunt needed. “Ugh! Don’t do that, Gavin,” she said, sitting up straight and blowing her nose again.

    “But Fifi, she—”

    “Yes. You’re not a dog.” A flicker of humour passed over her face and she said: “They leap elegantly. You floundered like a hippopotamus.”

    “That’s better,” I said, sitting back and not daring to squeeze her shoulders. “It’s all over. Let’s have that cuppa, shall we? And then perhaps Clive and I could have something to eat: we missed lunch.”

    “Heck! We had ours ages ago!” cried Gavin.

    “Yes,” said Cassie. “That’s the point. Oh—thank you, Clive,”—as he produced a mug of tea for her.

    “I put sugar in it,” he said. “It’s good for shocks.”

    “Did you? Lovely,” she replied, smiling at him.

    Clive, I wasn’t too pleased to see, went all pink round the edges and grinned eagerly at her.

    “Er—is there a mug for me or am I in the doghouse forever?” I asked meekly.

    “Yeah! Here!” Gavin handed me a mug. “Ya not in the doghouse, Alex. –He isn’t, is he, Cassie?”

    The universal panacea was reviving her. “He will be if he keeps doing that.”

    Oh, dear.

    The two innocents—Clive might have been twice Gavin’s age and height and a good-looking young hulk into the bargain but he was equally lacking in sophistication—immediately asked: “Doing what?”

    I cringed.

    “That,” she said flatly.

    They looked blankly at me. “What?

    “That—that meek thing! He does it all the time! And—and underneath he’s the sort of man that has to come out on top and rides in jump races!”

    “I haven’t ridden in a jump race for—”

    “All right, then, hunting!” she cried. “You do, don’t you?”

    “I— Not often,” I muttered. “Look, I’ve got friends who— I mean, one can hardly stay sulking in one’s tent if they’ve offered one a horse—”

    “I don’t want to hear about it,” she warned.

    “No. Sorry,” I muttered, subsiding.

    “Aw, heck!” cried Gavin. “I wanna hear about it!”

    “Shuddup, kid, for Chrissakes,” groaned poor Clive.

    Cassie sighed. “Yes; take Clive in the kitchen, Gavin, and show him where the bread and stuff is. –There’s some ham, Clive, if you’d like ham sandwiches.”

    He brightened. “Yeah! Bonzer! Thanks, Cassie!” They hurried out.

    We drank tea…

    “Um,” I said, “he’s not my long-lost brother, he’s my limo driver, whom I met for the first time this morning around elevenish: it was the only firm the hotel could magic up for me that seemed prepared to drive all the way out h—”

    “Shut up, Alex,” she warned.

    I shut up.

    Mrs Forrest (call me Stella, Alex, dear), retirement accommodation hunting in Adelaide or not, had been so horrified by Cassie’s report of my frail, feeble condition that she hurried up to Trethewin. Fred Forrest, who accompanied her, was merely an also-ran. Christina Evans’s judgement of the pair of them was, I had to concede, spot-on.

    Needs a proper diet—that’ll do, Gavin, ice cream is a treat, I’m talking about decent food! Ham and salad? That’s not suitable, Cassie! –That isn’t funny, Fred: beer’s merely fattening, it won’t help. Having flattened her family successfully, she proceeded to produce decent food. At the big house, of course, Cassie, I don’t know what you’re thinking of! Alex must wonder what he’s struck!

    I hadn’t precisely been wondering that. What I had now struck was possibly a greater cause for wonder, at least to an ignorant foreigner, as the weather was still very warm. A chicken and mushroom casserole, accompanied by small potatoes boiled in their skins, honey-and-lemon-glazed carrots, and steamed broccoli. Followed by a peach cobbler—bottled peaches, she did some every year, would I believe Leanne Crozier hadn’t bothered to empty the larder? No ice cream, Gavin, you’ve had more than enough ice cream lately! Have some of this nice yoghurt. Gavin, we do not say “Ugh, yuck” at the dinner table! What will Alex think of you? Gavin subsided.

    Well, yes, it was a very nice meal, but… Oh, well, at least the house was air-conditioned throughout.

    Fred showed me how to turn “the system” on. Ducted, was it, Fred? Mm. He then volunteered to show me the generator—it had only run the stables, Mr Crozier had got the house and the winery connected to the grid yonks back, but it came in handy if a tree had brought the lines down. I didn’t say What tree, I just nodded understandingly. This plan was, however, vetoed by his spouse. Alex didn’t want to be walking all over the place with his leg, Fred, have some sense! Fred subsided.

    Oddly enough she was entirely on my side when I cautiously broached the subject of the Melbourne Cup. I thought I’d better do it en famille, rather than give the appearance of going behind the woman’s back. My invitation to the Quinn Sale Australasia corporate box—er, yes, QSA, Fred—was for two; er, would you like to come, Cassie?

    “HEY!” cried Gavin. “The Melbourne Cup! Far—out!”

    Cassie had turned puce. “Me?” she gasped. “I can’t! What ’ud I wear?”

    “Clothes?” suggested Gavin. He collapsed in sniggers at his own wit.

    “Shuddup, ya nong,” ordered old Fred unexpectedly. “The ladies all wear fancy outfits and them mad hats: Cassie hasn’t got anything like that.”

    “There’s always DJ’s,” said Stella Forrest on a grim note.

    “Mum, anything there costs the earth!” gasped Cassie in horror.

    “Added to which, won’t the hordes of got down on anythink decent?” offered Fred.—The man had obviously not learned to keep his head well down in all their years of marriage.—“They have that ruddy great fancy do out at Morphettville, ya know, they’ll all be turning up at that, don’t ask me how the hubbies wangle it! –It’s not a public holiday in SA, ya know, Alex.”

    Oddly enough Stella had let him get through this speech. “We know all that, Fred,” she said, but very mildly, in fact almost absently. A determined look came over her round, pink-cheeked face. “I’ve got a better idea. ’Member all those things Mrs Crozier left behind?”

    Cassie’s jaw dropped.

    “Er—if this is Mrs Crozier Senior, Stella,” I ventured, “the wardrobes in the master bedroom were empty.”

    “No, they’re in one of the spare rooms. She only kept new stuff in her room.”

    “Mum, I thought you were gonna give them to the Vinnies,” said Cassie faintly.

    “They don’t want fashions, dear. Come on, let’s have a look at them!”

    “She was thinner than me, Mum,” she objected weakly.

    The redoubtable Stella sniffed. “No figure, you mean, dear! No, well, some of her stuff was quite loose. Come on! –You’d better come, too, Alex, you can tell us what might be suitable.”

    Fred heaved himself to his feet. “Come on, Gavin, we don’t wanna look at fashions, let’s see what the veggie garden’s been doing, okay? There might even be an early strawberry or two, with luck!”

    “Ye-ah! Strawberries!” And out they went.

    Help. I resigned myself to my fate.

    … Great God, the woman had left two large wardrobes stuffed full of clothes!

    “Extravagance,” stated the valiant Stella grimly, “was her middle name. Still is, for all I know. Ya know where’s she’s gone, don’tcha?”

    Who, me? “Er—no, Stella, no idea.”

    “Spain, if you please.”

    “Oh! Yes, Christina Evans did mention something about— So he did buy her a villa in Spain?”

    “Well, a house, Alex. Two-storeyed. It was quite pretty to start with: we saw the photos. –You wouldn’t remember, dear, it was back before you were born,” she added to Cassie. “Pink, loads of bo-gainvillaea and oleanders. She made him have it repainted: white, with a black front door. And all the inside walls white as well. It’d been done out in lovely colours, before: very Spanish-looking, y’know?”

    Mm. The “Spanish” look favoured by the expats. “I see.”

    “She’d just had little Jenny,” Stella revealed on a grim note. “The poor wee mite was only three months old when the blimmin’ woman took off for the place, wouldja believe?”

    Fortunately I didn’t have to reply, as Cassie was saying dubiously: “She’d have been weaned by then, though, wouldn’t she, Mum?”

    “Weaned!” she snorted. “Ya don’t imagine she breast-fed her, do ya? Or Ralph, not that I was working for them back then, but Madge—you wouldn’t remember her, dear, she was their housekeeper when he was little—she gave me an earful. She had the milk, don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t one of those poor women who can’t manage it. Unnatural,” she stated grimly.

    “Heck,” said Cassie, staring at her in horror.

    She nodded grimly. “Mm. –Now, this dress is nice: blue. Try it on in the ong sweet, dear.”

    Looking dubious, Cassie nonetheless took the dress and vanished into the adjoining bathroom.

    “What do you think, Alex?”

    I jumped. What I had been thinking, with a very nice warm feeling, was that Cassie was obviously not one of those unnatural women.

    “Uh—oh. A suit, Stella? Silk, is it? Yes, that would be very suitable. The weather can be very uncertain in Melbourne in early November, can’t it?”

    “Yes, they’ve had some shockers. But you’ll be under cover, of course, won’t you?” she beamed. “Cassie! Does it fit?” she called.

    Cassie’s face poked round the bathroom door looking agonised. “Sort of. I think it’s a bit tight, Mum!”

    “Well, show us!”

    “Hang on,” she said, disappearing.

    We hung on, what time Stella found a second suit that might do, though it was black, and two more dresses, and a lightweight coat…

    Cassie reappeared, looking agonised, and very pink as to the cheeks. She had manifestly removed her bra: the very plainly cut blue dress had a very low neckline.

    “It is too tight, Mum,” she said. “I think it’s some sort of jersey-knit, where on earth would she of worn it?”

    Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “They had some flash people up to dinner, they wanted to look at the horses, I think it was that time. She wore this huge necklace with it: kind of chunks, it was: sapphires, with gold lumps, sort of. Modern. Must of set him back a packet. I don’t think it’d be quite right for the Cup, dear, but you might as well keep it, it really suits you. What do you think, Alex?”

    “Yes, it does suit you, Cassie,” I agreed, smiling at her—though actually I’d been smiling since she appeared in it, I couldn’t help myself. “But it is a dinner dress, yes.”

    “Try the suits, dear,” said Stella. “I think there are some nice blouses somewhere—maybe in the other wardrobe.” She plunged into it, what time Cassie meekly disappeared into the bathroom again.

    I sat down on the bed.

    The black suit was vetoed: too shoulder-paddy. Cassie looked relieved.

    The oatmeal silk suit—a beautiful thing in itself—was vetoed with a shudder. “Not your colour, dear!”

    The pale pink silk suit, a heavy shantung, resulted in the eyes lighting up and: “It’s lovely, dear! Don’t you think, Alex?”

    “Yes,” I agreed, “that’s the one!” It was distinctly form-fitting on Cassie, whatever it might have been on the unlamented Mrs C., Senior.

    Cassie looked down at herself dubiously. “Pale pink? With my hair?”

    “It’s not yellow, dear, you can wear pink!” her mother encouraged her. “It’s on Fred’s side,” she explained. “You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you?”

    No, I wouldn’t. Fred was very large, about three times as wide as his daughter, very red-faced, with a blobby nose, a bald pate, and shaven white stubble above the ears.

    “He was just as blond,” said Stella with a reminiscent little sigh. “Oh, well, at least little Gavin’s inherited it! Now, we’d better find a blouse to go with it, Cassie. And it might be a good idea to have a nice coat as well, we don’t want you to get it wet.”

    The nice coat eventually produced was a beautifully cut thing that swung wide from the shoulders in pure white.

    “White?” said Cassie in horror.

    “Never mind, dear, if you get marks on it we can have it dyed, after! Now, shoes won’t be a problem, your feet are the same size as hers, ’member those nice fawn sandals she decided she didn’t like after all?”

    “Um, that was a while back, Mum.”

    “Your feet haven’t grown since,” she pronounced firmly.

    If they had done, they’d shrink back immediately, I was quite sure.

    “Er, I hate to say this, but I think she’ll need a hat, Stella,” I ventured.

    “We’ll find somethink! Just reach us down those boxes from the top shelf, would you, Alex, dear?”

    Right: hat-boxes. I didn’t look at my watch; I had been intending to spend this afternoon at the winery.

    … “Cripes! Wouldn’t of reckernised ya, love!” was Fred’s admiring reaction, as the complete outfit was paraded by its unwilling wearer for the delectation of her male relations.

    “That hat’s mad,” stated Gavin definitively.

    “All hats for the Cup are mad to the male eye, Gavin,” I said quickly.

    “It’s on crooked.”

    “That’s the way they wear them, silly,” his grandmother flattened him.

    Cassie fidgeted. “I feel like a twerp,” she muttered.

    “Bullshit, love! Ya look bonzer!” beamed good old Fred.

    “Mm. You look lovely, Cassie, and entirely appropriate,” I murmured.

    She went very red and tried to smile.

    ‘What’s keeping the hat on?” wondered Gavin, walking round her to investigate.

    “Hat elastic, under her hair,” said Stella briskly. “You can pop into the study and have a rest.”

    “Aw, heck, Gran!”

    “Go on. Use the big Lazy-Boy.”

    He looked mutinous. “I haven’t got my book.”

    “I’ll get you one of Ralph’s old ‘Just William’ books,” said Cassie in a relieved voice, vanishing.

    Good Lord, they were classics! Not Ralph Crozier’s generation at all. Well—possibly handed down from an older generation. “Er—surely he didn’t leave his childhood books behind?” I said to Stella.

    She shrugged. “Leanne made him. They haven’t got kids. They’re all in a cupboard in that spare room with the horsey prints and the awful red and green tartan.”

    That would explain why I hadn’t found them: that room was just too hideous to contemplate.

    Cassie returned in her tee-shirt and jeans with a ‘William’ book, and Master Forrest duly retired to the study and the big chair. And his grandmother was not asking if Cassie had made him a have a rest in the afternoons.

    It wasn’t until we were all having dinner in the main house, sitting round the big kitchen table on the frilled floral seat cushions, that Cassie ventured: “Um, but how are we gonna get there, Alex? I mean, all the flights will’ve been booked out for the whole weekend, ages ago.”

    “It’s on Tuesday, though,” Gavin objected.

    “Just eat your meat, Gavin,” his grandmother ordered.

    Gavin returned to his roast lamb.

    “Er—well, a business acquaintance is lending me his—uh—Lear jet,” I admitted.

    The family goggled at me, forks suspended. Even Gavin was too stunned to say “Far out.”

    “Er—yes. Conspicuous consumption or something,” I muttered.

    After quite some time Cassie noted: “At least it isn’t your Lear jet.”

    “Cassie!” said her mother—though weakly, for her.

    “Well, heck, Mum!”

    “Have ya got a Lear jet, Alex?” asked Gavin.

    “No, he’s just said it’s a business mate’s, ya ning-nong,” said Fred firmly.

    Okay, medal for good old Fred.

    “Eat up your dinner, or ya won’t get ice cream for pud,” he added.

    Gavin returned to his dinner. Two medals. With bar.

    Cassie wasn’t eating. “Um, do you mean we’re gonna go over in the morning, Alex?”

    “No, on the Monday. We’ve been invited to share the place in Melbourne our host has borrowed—the man who heads up Quinn Sale, Cassie, Sir Peter Sale. Er—he’s based in Sydney these days, but he’s English, I’ve known him for quite some time. Very pleasant fellow. I haven’t met his wife, only spoken to her on the phone, but she sounded very nice. They’ve got a boy in his mid-teens and a little girl—I think she’d be about four.”

    “I see,” she said in a small voice, very red-cheeked and looking hard at her plate.

    I looked at the bent fair head and had to suppress a laugh. “Don’t worry, Lady Sale quite understands that we’ll need two bedrooms.”

    “Of course,” said Stella briskly. “Eat your meat, Cassie, love, young women need red meat.”

    Poor darling Cassie! Could she possibly have gone redder? But she ate her meat obediently: who wouldn’t have?

Next chapter:

https://deadringers-trethewin.blogspot.com/2025/07/over-to-melbourne.html