Further Trials

21

Further Trials

    Colin turned up around eleven on Saturday morning, well before Hill had calculated he’d make it. As a consequence of this miscalculation, when the car drove up he was in damp jeans, out at the kerb with the Range Rover with a hose in his hand in the company of a soaking-wet Gordon, and Hattie was in grimy jeans and a skimpy blue singlet at least two sizes too small for her, grubbing about in the dirt of the front garden.

    “Ooh, LOOK!” shouted Gordon.

    Er—yeah; Colin’s car did tend to have that effect. At least on the young and impressionable or those whose tastes had yet to be formed or—Hill glanced at Hattie, and smiled—those who were not susceptible to brainwashing by the great majority! It was a fair-sized Mercedes, quite a modern model, and bright emerald green. Colin had got it for a very good price, since the dealer hadn’t been able to get rid of a customized emerald Merc that the original customer hadn’t wanted after all to anybody else in the whole of the British Isles. He had initially had some intention of having the car resprayed but within approximately two days she’d acquired a personality, been christened “Emerald,” and turned into an icon. Or possibly a sacred cow: nothing on earth would now have persuaded him to change her. The more so as when his bloody humourless do-gooder of a father clapped eyes on her he’d immediately done his nut about conspicuous consumption. Good old Terence, however, never mind that he drove a ruddy Porsche himself, was entirely pro-Emerald.

    Hattie came up to the gate. “Isn’t it glorious?” she breathed.

    Exactly. “Yes: unique. –She, not it: her name’s Emerald.”

    “Of course!” she said with a laugh.

    Colin got out of the car on the passenger’s side, grinning. He was merely in battered khaki cotton bags and a clean grey tee-shirt—a Good Sign. He went round to open the driver’s door but before he could do so the driver got out. Hill swallowed. This couldn’t possibly be the au pair, who was only a girl. This woman was well into her thirties. About Hattie’s height, but considerably broader in the beam and very wide-shouldered. Dressed in shabby jeans and a skimpy red singlet at least two sizes too small for her. She had a mop of short, ruffled black curls and the pink-cheeked face was pretty but entirely devoid of make-up. It was, in fact, hard to imagine a greater contrast to the sophisticated dames that Colin had done in the not-too-recent past.

    Colin put his arm round the sturdy shoulders, grinning. “Hullo,” he said. “This is Penn.”

    “Hullo,” said Penn in a shy voice, going very red.

    Good grief! Shy as well? Either Colin was completely out of his mind or after a long and very varied career he had finally come to his senses!

    Hill greeted her politely, and quickly introduced Hattie to them both.

    Colin beamed at her. “Lovely to meet you at last, Hattie! Penn, darling, meet Hattie.”

    “Hullo, Hattie,” said Penn hoarsely, turning puce.

    “Hullo, Penn,” said Hattie shyly.

    They smiled shyly at each other. Shyly but genuinely—phew!

    Colin and Penn were engaged. What? He hadn’t even mentioned her! Not that there was any reason he should tell Hill all his business, but— Oh. He had mentioned her: she was his lady blacksmith. Did that make it better? Hill looked at Colin’s beaming smile and was conscious of a fervent hope his mug wasn’t expressing what he was thinking.

    “I knew they’d like each other!” said Colin with a laugh as the gentlemen strolled slowly down the road with a celebratory cigar what time Penn admired the kitchen and Gordon embarked on his fell design of showing her such treasures as his cheese dish, the cats, the enormously complex household timetable on the wall of the kitchen, and his fort.

    “Mm,” agreed Hill.

    “Rather similar types, in fact!” said Colin with a laugh.

    He grinned weakly. “Yeah.”

    “Er—well,” he said, scratching the beard, “there is more news. Should have told you when you rang, old boy, but— Uh, well, Penn and I are expecting a baby. Due in February.”

    Somehow this news didn’t come as a complete surprise, but Jesus! Hill did dazed mental arithmetic. Finally he said limply: “Didn’t you only meet her back in March or thereabouts?”

    “Don’t start: Penn’s already given me every dire warning one can possibly think of, not to mention several speeches about independence and not living in the 19th century—in spite of all evidence to the contrary,” he added with a grimace.

    “I should bloody well think so! Why didn’t you use a condom?”

    “I was going to,” he said meekly.

    “Colin, for Christ’s sake! At your age?”

    Colin cleared his throat. “Mm. Well, she can’t count, claimed her period was due at the end of the week. But leaving aside the point that recriminations don’t butter no parsnips, once I’d thought of the idea of being married to Penn, I decided I liked it more than anything else that ever occurred to me in me whole life! –No, truly!” he said, laughing.

    Hill sagged. “In that case, congratulations. Um, she feels the same, does she?” he added uneasily.

    To his surprise Colin didn’t joke. “Yes. I finally worked out that all the shouting about it being her responsibility and not living in the 19th century and bringing it up on her ownsome with the help of this frightful women’s group her ghastly potter friend’s in—don’t ask—uh, finally worked out that it wasn’t because she didn’t want to marry me, but because she did, bless her.”

    After a moment Hill said slowly: “I see.”

    “Mm. Well, John gave me some good advice!” he said with a laugh. “Oh, that reminds me: he and Rosie have had their baby: a girl, this time: June—pretty, isn’t it? Born in June, you see, though Rosie’s sure her Aunty June’ll think it’s after her! But just for the moment, or probably for the next eternity,” he said, all smiles, “she’s New Baby, capital N, capital B! Had her in London: we nipped up to see them and Rosie and Penn immediately decided that if ours is a boy, they’ll be perfect for each other!”

    Hill looked at his shining eyes and nodded feebly. If ever a man had gone broody with his fiftieth birthday hovering just over the horizon, it was clearly Colin Haworth. Well, good luck to them both. “I’m very glad if you’re glad, Colin,” he said soberly.

    “Of course!” said Colin, grinning like a maniac.

    “Told your parents, yet?”

    “Mm. Ma’s planning to wear a flahry ’at to the wedding. Pa thinks it’s typical of my irresponsible attitude to life and annoyed that we don’t want a C. of E. ceremony. I did point out that we’re both heathens and I’m actually divorced, though as these days the higher echelons of the Anglican hierarchy appear to believe as much as we do in such matters as the virgin birth and the Resurrection, possibly one of those points wouldn’t weigh with ’em.”

    “No,” he agreed. Colin was eying him wryly. “Oh, good grief! You said that to your father?”

    “Mm. He’d got up my nose, not that I was expecting sympathy rather than sanctimony.” He shrugged. “However, he’s discovered that Dick Martin—Penn’s father—is as keen a blue-whale saver and anti-nuclear and pro-minority righter as he is, so all is not lost. –Dick’s rather a nice chap, actually. Not nearly as rabid as Pa,” he said, smiling.

    “Glad to hear it.

    “Though that is P,E,N,N, after the great Quaker,” he said in a dreamy voice.

    “Get out of here!” replied Hill, shaken.

    “Uh-huh. True’s we stand here puffing good old Uncle Matthew’s gen-yew-wine Havanas.” He took Hill’s arm, smiling.

    “So he’s pleased?”

    “Mm. Well, his version of it: wants us to (a) live down at his blasted country place and run a stud farm on it for him or (b) just live down there doing nothing or (c) allow him to shove us into a little palace in town with all mod cons, meantime yours truly goes rapidly bonkers working in his ruddy merchant bank—but yes!”

    “Uh-huh. So you’re set on staying down in Hampshire?” said Hill cautiously.

    “Of course!” Colin told him a lot about the progress of the crafts centre and reminded him that his cousin Terence, now retired from the Senior Service, was running the pub down there.

    Well, if that was what he wanted, why not? And certainly Colin had had every other sort of female under the sun, so… But honestly! A lady blacksmith?

    They strolled on. “Er, look: there’s something I need to speak to you about, Hill.”

    More than the reason why he’d took up with a lady blacksmith in the first instance? No, well, that’d be the usual reason, and she did seem a very nice person. Hill had a really bad feeling about this. Was it the head? Back when Colin had first been hospitalised and the bloody neurosurgeon had relieved the pressure on the brain there had been some mention of a blood clot, but John Haworth had given him the impression that it had dissipated.

    “Go on,” he said tightly.

    “Uh—well, just been told by the doc that I am not suffering from Gulf Syndrome, so-called.”

    “What?” said Hill numbly.

    A muscle flickered beside Colin’s mouth for an instant. “Didn’t mention it on the phone, because I was waiting for the test results. I’m clear, thank the Lord. I’m contacting all the chaps from the regiment, though with the jobs we were doing, our lot are less likely to have been exposed.”

    “What?” said Hill numbly.

    “To bloody Gulf Syndrome, Hill. Or more correctly, to genetic alteration from exposure to fucking depleted uranium. –Chromosomal abnormalities.” Hill was just looking at him numbly. “If you’ve been exposed, the odds of your being able to sire a normal child are very low. You’d better get tested, old chap, even if you haven’t had any symptoms and whether or not you intend starting a family with your Hattie.”

    “Jesus!”

    “Uh-huh.” Colin grasped his arm strongly.

    After a moment Hill came to and realized it was he who was leaning on Colin. He straightened hurriedly. “What are the symptoms?”

    “Very varied. Range from lethargy, headaches… unexplained bleeding from the nose, I think one poor chap had.” He sighed. “The doc down in Portsmouth told me there were two poor local chaps that were out there last time. One of them’s got a little girl with a club foot and permanently altered chromosomes. The other one,” he said grimly, “hasn’t managed to sire a normal foetus at all. His wife’s only had miscarriages. I could tell you what the malformations were, but just let’s leave it at headless vegetables, shall we?”

    “Shit!” said Hill violently.

    “Mm. Highly unlikely you’ve got it—well, never saw a chap less lethargic—but for God’s sake don’t start a family before you know.”

    “No.” After quite some time he managed to say: “Have any of our chaps got it?”

    Colin made a face. “Only one of the ones that aren’t out there again, so far. Sergeant Robinson—they called him Jack in the sergeants’ mess, though his name was actually Murray. Mind you, he wasn’t with us the whole time: came over to us from another outfit that had been doing supply duty: handling the bloody stuff regularly.”

    “Yes, but… Jesus, half our chaps were handling ammo every day, loading and unloading the anti-tank guns, Colin!”

    “Exactly.”

    “Well, uh, how much of it was the fucking depleted uranium muck?” he croaked.

    “I’d really like to know that, too, Hill,” replied Colonel Haworth grimly. “Theirs not to reason why, eh?”

    “Fuck!”

    “Yeah. Makes you wonder if there’s some method in Pa’s pacifist madness after all.”

    “Mm— Jesus, you haven’t mentioned this to him, have you?”

    “No. Well, panic over, didn’t need to, thank God.”

    “Mm. –Shit,” he muttered.

     “I—uh—well the pundits prate about the right to know, but in your shoes I don’t think I’d mention it to Hattie until you’ve been checked out,” said Colin cautiously.

    “God, no!” replied Hill in horror. He looked about him blankly. “Where the Hell— Oh, I know. Look come on, that cottage down there with the haystack doing duty for a front lawn belongs to Ted Prosser: he’s a decent chap, he’ll give us a belt, no questions asked.”

    Ted opened his front door without evincing any surprise at the sight of the pair of them. “Hullo, Hill.”

    “Hullo, Ted. This is Colin. Colin Haworth—Ted Prosser. Could you possibly let us have a stiff belt of something?”

    “Yes. Come in. Not an accident, is it?” said Ted, leading the way into a sitting-room that was about as scruffy as Hattie’s, but possibly in its original state rather than furnished from second-hand junk acquired in Ditterminster. “Whisky?”

    “Thanks,” they acknowledged.

    “Not an accident, no,” added Colin, sitting down by the simple method of grabbing the arm of an elderly armchair very hard, bending the good leg, and lowering himself with the bad leg stuck out stiffly before him.

    “Uh-huh. Gammy leg, Colin?” asked Ted.

    “Mm—that’s not it, though. Just had to tell Hill, here, that our entire regiment could have been contaminated by fucking depleted uranium ammo last time we were out in the Gulf.”

    “Gulf Syndrome, so-called,” said Ted unemotionally. “Yeah. Dare say the lot that are still out there are being contaminated as we speak, if George Dubba You and Fucking Arse-Licker Blair are on track. Think I might join you.” He poured himself a belt and knocked it back. “Have another.” He refilled their glasses, refilled his own and sat down.

    After quite some time Hill managed to say: “Shock to the system. Worse for Colin—his lady was pregnant before he realized he could have it. He is clear, thank Christ.”

    Ted made a face. “Good.” He knocked back his whisky, and sighed. “You needn’t spread this around bloody Abbot’s Halt, ta, but I was out there myself, as a matter of fact. Civil engineering—worked in Dubai for several years, lot of construction work going on, very good money. Then my partner and I were offered a very good price by the Kuwaitis to clean up a bit of the desert a few years after Desert Storm. Well—we had the heavy machinery, we’d just lost a lucrative contract to an Australian firm that offered more baksheesh than we could afford, and we took it without thinking much about it. Went on not thinking much about it until one of our younger blokes started wondering just why they wanted us to move such huge chunks of the desert around—we’d assumed it’d be clearing pieces of broken tank away, but it was more digging giant holes to dump buckets of sand in. So he waved a Geiger counter at the buckets of sand and at that point it started to penetrate our thick skulls that just possibly we should have asked a few more questions before we started. So we did a bit of Internet searching. A lot of the research was in German, at least back then—”

    Colin passed a hand over his face. “I’ve read some of it.”

    “Then you’ll know just how nasty it is. Chromosomal damage is irreversible, right?”

    “And transmittable,” he said heavily.

    “Yeah. We pulled out immediately. It meant breaking the terms of the contract, and the firm went broke, but George Halliday—my partner—and I told ourselves there are worse things. We had a lot of Arabs working for us and unfortunately we couldn’t get them to see that they were at risk—or perhaps the fact that they needed to eat and feed their families counted for more than a mysterious disease that you can’t see and that has no definable symptoms—but at least we managed to get all our British staff home and properly checked out. Then we wished we hadn’t.”

    Silently Hill got up and poured him another.

    “Thanks,” said Ted, knocking it back. “We’d had ten men from home out there on that job, counting me and George. Two of us were clear: me and a man who’d done most of the paperwork: we’d both spent most of the time in the office. Three of them are dead: George, Ronny Lyons, who was in charge of the Arabs, and Ken Newton, drove one of the big graders. We thought Hugh Hopkins, who did a lot of the initial surveying, might be clear—hadn’t been around when the sand was blowing in their faces—but no. Lethargy, lot of kidney trouble, chromosomes shot to Hell, advised not to have kids. What’s that? Uh—six, yeah. Two brothers, just young fellows, Jim and Fred Outhwaite, aren’t showing many symptoms apart from general lethargy, but Fred’s wife’s pregnancy was a disaster. She’s stuck it out so far, but Jim’s wife’s divorced him: can’t really blame her, poor girl, she was twenty-five and they’d been planning to start a family. An older man, Donald McLean, has gone home to Scotland to die, coughing his lungs out. And Ned Cummins, that I was at primary school with, is dying by inches in a nursing-home over to Ditterminster. His fucking doctor tried to tell me it wasn’t anything to do with the Gulf and I near as dammit knocked the bugger down. –Cancer of the stomach.”

    “I wouldn’t have dreamed of saying anything if I’d known, Ted,” said Colin tightly.

    “No, that’s okay. S’pose it helps to know you’re not alone. You’ll need a good doctor, Hill; half the morons have never heard of it and most of the rest won’t believe it’s real.”

    “My doc in Portsmouth’ll check you out,” said Colin.

    “No, that’s okay, my chap in town’s a good fellow,” replied Hill numbly. Jesus!

    When he and Colin were finally stumbling back to the cottage, having taken Ted’s advice that, though they were very welcome, they’d better not have another if they didn’t want the womenfolk to think there was something up, he said bleakly: “Was that all the bad news?”

    “Mm? Oh—yes. Haven’t managed to contact all the chaps yet,” said Colin glumly.

    Yes. Well, at least he was clear and the trouble wasn’t his head after all, so presumably his cousin John Haworth had been right in claiming the blood clot had dissipated. Mind you, as John had been at school with Colin’s bloody Harley Street neurosurgeon, this story might or might not be true. Never mind he’d fallen for a curvaceous blonde lovely half his age, John Haworth was as hard as nails and if he thought that you were better off not knowing something, you’d never hear it from him. No matter if you were the victim or the victim’s pal or even the victim’s unfortunate wife. Colin was, of course, about as bad: possibly it ran in the family.

    “Um, set a date for the wedding yet?” he asked as they stumbled along Old Mill Lane, Colin having pointed out that these were the ruts they’d come down, old boy, though if he wanted to try that other lot of ruts—

    “Not quite. Depends when the Registry Office in Portsmouth can fit us in and only slightly on Penn’s dad’s summer demos and Penn’s sister’s bookings for Greece—don’t ask! But we’re definitely going to the American Southwest in August!”

    Hill’s jaw sagged. Possibly it was merely a coincidence, but last time the American Southwest had featured largely in Colin’s career, which was getting on for twenty years back, a certain congresswoman had also featured largely. Colin had been in his early thirties and she had been in her early fifties, but that hadn’t stopped either of ’em. And considering why he’d been given the secondment to D.C. in the first place—!

    The bugger was reading his mind, because he immediately added, cool as a cucumber: “We are going to stay with dear old Ramona—yes. Had a lovely letter from her.”

    “Does Penn know?” croaked Hill.

    Without a flicker Colin replied: “In general outline—yes. She’s really looking forward to it. Forging her a lovely wrought-iron candlestick as a thank-you gift.”

    Hill gulped, failed to control himself, and broke down in streaming hysterics.

    Joanna hung up the phone slowly, frowning. That was really odd. She went out into the front garden in the hope of catching Hill as he came home. With the longer evenings he was working later and later up at Chipping Abbas and even Hattie, placid-natured though she was, had begun to notice it and had said, not to Hill himself but to her, which on the whole probably wasn’t a good thing, that she wished he’d sometimes turn up in time for dinner. Hattie hadn’t mentioned that he’d seen his doctor last time he was up in town, she was positive. Only she was the sort of person that didn’t tell you bad news, she kept things to herself.

    … Actually June was right, a proper garden seat’d be nice out here. June had volunteered Ted Prosser’s services to make them one, but Joanna didn’t like to ask him, it was obvious the poor man was keen on Hattie and she of course couldn’t see past Hill. …Maybe she ought to give in and go on holiday with João da Silva this summer. He was very nice, in fact he was charming, and even if it was obvious he also admired Hattie, he’d made it pretty clear he wouldn’t half mind a fling with her, Joanna. But nice though he was, those rumours that he had a wife and ten kids back home in Portugal, not to mention a permanent mistress over in Ditterminster, were probably true. He did own a very nice cottage in Chipping Ditter and he seemed settled in the district, so possibly his claim that he was divorced was true—but then, he was Portuguese, who knew what their attitude to telling women the truth might be? Probably about the same as English blokes’ attitudes! thought Joanna crossly. And it was a Catholic country, wasn’t it, could you even get a divorce there?

    She wandered down to the gate and leaned on it, scowling…

    “Hullo!” said Hill in surprise, smiling at her. “Hattie send you out to tell me I’m a bad boy and there’s no dinner left?”

    “Um, no, don’t be silly,” replied Joanna with a weak smile. “You’re not very late. It’s that nice veggie stew she makes with the sliced potato on top: it’s keeping warm in the oven. And a mixed salad: those curly things what you told her to plant are coming on so she’s picked some of them.”

    “The woman’s picked my curly endives for a mixed salad? Caramba! They’re supposed to be tied up with bits of string by ’and to blanch, at the expense of only six hours’ grovelling in the dirt like a dedicated French peasant! ”

    “No, it was only some of them: I think she said they needed to be thinned out.”

    “That is the sort of thing that gardeners say!” he agreed.

    “Mm. Um, hang on, Hill, I’ve got a message for you.”

    Hill looked at her in surprise. ‘Yes?”

    Joanna licked her lips. “’Tisn’t bad news. Your doctor’s nurse rang up.”

    “And?”

    “She said to tell you you were clear,” repeated Joanna carefully.

    He sagged. “God!”

    Joanna looked at him awkwardly. “And they’re sending you a copy of the DNA results.”

    He swallowed. “Mm. Are they? Well, won’t mean a thing to me, but… mm.”

    “I think you’d better sit down.”

    “Yes.” He staggered up the path to the worn old front doorstep and sank down on it.

    Joanna in her neat designer jeans and apricot cross-over top came to sit beside him. “Did you fink you ’ad AIDS?” she croaked.

    He swallowed. “No. Not AIDS. Something almost as bad. I—I haven’t mentioned it to Hattie.”

    “No, you wouldn’t want to worry her,” said Joanna calmly.

    “No. –Shit! It’s not as if I’d consciously planned to have kids, but…” He buried his head in his hands.

    After a few moments Joanna cautiously put her arm round his bowed shoulders. “’S all right, though.”

    “Mm,” agreed Hill in a muffled voice.

    “Want my hanky?”

    Shakily Hill accepted a neatly folded and ironed handkerchief that smelled faintly of the sort of stuff Ma made bowls of at home. Uh… potpourri, that was it. He blew his nose hard.

    “Mum thought she ’ad that,” said Joanna. “It was really terrible.”

    Hill mopped his eyes and sat up. “Mm?”

    “AIDS,” she said, shuddering. “She was drunk, ya see, and she did it with this bloke that she met in a pub. –You don’t know what it’s like!” she added on a fierce note. “She wasn’t that old and Diana and Gordon’s dad had gorn off without so much as a by yer leave and she was stuck with all of us that she had to support on ’er own—well, Shelby’s dad, ’e corfed up at first, only see, his second, she hated Mum and she talked ’im into going orf to Canada and that was that.—Must of wanted rotten electricians in Canada, I s’pose.—Anyway, Mum did it with this bloke without a condom and none of us knew ’im from Adam and ’e just vanished into thin air next day, so Julian made ’er get tested. And we were all in fear and trembling for three ’ole months, ’cos that’s ’ow long it takes before they can be sure you’re clear!”

    “Yes,” said Hill, putting his arm round her for a change. “Frightful.” He gave her back her handkerchief and she blew her nose. “I didn’t seriously think I had anything, but—”

    “Yeah. You don’t have to tell me.”

    “No, I’d like to. Have you ever heard of Gulf Syndrome, Joanna?” No, she hadn’t. He managed to tell her what it was. She did understand about altered DNA, and about the effects of radiation and, though he didn’t go so far as to mention the headless vegetables bit, shuddered when he said that some of the soldiers’ wives had had miscarriages.

    “Julian was right,” she said, blowing her nose hard.

    Er—was she on about her Mum’s AIDS scare again? “Mm?”

    “’E said that Tony Blair wasn’t worth what ’e paid for ’is ruddy suits and none of this New Labour lot oughta be trusted as far as you can throw them and all they really want is power, and they don’t care about all of us down at the bottom of the ’eap at all!” She sniffed hard. “His dad, see, ’e was a real keen trade unionist. Machine-shop. Only then they closed dahn the ruddy factory. –Imagine sending our soldiers out to ’andle that filthy stuff just to get rid of a few bleeding Iraqis!”

    “Mm. Well, the first Gulf War was because bloody Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, don’t let’s forget that, Joanna. And getting rid of a monster like him isn’t bad in itself, is it?”

    “No. But why’d they have to do it that way?”

    Hill was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Using the DU ordnance, you mean?”

    She nodded hard.

    He thought of those bloody jobs he’d been offered after his Army stint and his mouth tightened. “My bet’d be only very slightly because it’s more efficient than other ammo and very largely because George Bush’s pals in the companies that make the muck are making giant fortunes out of it.”

    “Yeah. Fort so,” said Joanna, blowing her nose again. “Yer don’t know ’oo to vote for, really,” she added dully.

    “Uh—well, no.”

    “The Greenies, they’re so dumb,” she explained.

    “Yes, I entirely agree,” said Hill with a sigh. “Think they’d run the country’s economy into the ground in about six weeks. Not that they’d ever manage to get a majority… Well, vote for them in the hope that a few of them might get in and keep an eye on fucking Tony Blair and his limp little pals?”

    “Yeah. –They are limp, aren’t they? Pack o’ yes-men!” said Joanna scornfully.

    Exactly. He hugged her a bit, and sighed.

    “’Ere, dunno what we’re sitting ’ere feeling sorry for ourselves for, ’cos yer all right!” she said valiantly.

    “Mm. Feel completely drained—limp,” he admitted.

    “Yer would. Like, when Mum got the good news, what we’d all fort was, if it hadda been okay, we’d go out: celebrate proper, y’know? Only we was all so drained we just ’ad a nice cuppa and watched telly!”

    “Yes,” said Hill, smiling at her.

    “We were drained, I mean,” said Joanna on a glum note.

    “There is absolutely no need to correct your perfectly valid dialectical usage for my benefit, Joanna,” said Hill grimly.

    “Hattie said that, too. Only most people just think you sound common. And you have to live in the real world, don’t you?” She got up. “Come on, that lovely veggie stew’ll cheer us up!”

    The news that his test results were clear gave Hill such a high—even though he’d been sure they would be—that he was incapable of listening to anyone’s objections about anything at all. So as Max Throgmorton, the architect doing the Fern Gully Ecolodge, had been so kind as to invite them to the engagement party they were planning before he and his fiancée left for New Zealand at the beginning of August, they would go to that, yes, never mind how up-market his friends and relations might be, and of course they’d be going to Colin’s and Penn’s wedding!

    “He’s in an awfully good mood,” said Hattie uncertainly to her friend as Hill rushed outside to inspect the endives yet again.

    Joanna of course knew precisely why. “Mm.”

    “It must be because of Colin’s wedding, I suppose,” said Hattie uncertainly.

    “Um—yeah,” she managed.

    “I know he reckons Colin’s very unpretentious, and he is very nice, but he’s got an awfully up-market voice, Joanna.”

    “Mm, you said,” she agreed sympathetically.

    “And, um, well, you know what they are: it wasn’t clear, of course, but I—I think his grandfather’s somebody very posh.”

    Hill’s grandfathers, from the odd remarks he’d let slip—she was right, they never made it clear—had both sounded very posh, but they were mercifully dead. “Um, Colin’s, Hattie?”

    Hattie nodded glumly.

    “Um, yeah. Well, I think the one that was a general might be dead.”

    “Good!” she said with feeling.

    “Yeah.” Joanna had a feeling that the one that wasn’t dead might be a sir, it might’ve been something that Allan had let slip that weekend she’d had with him…

    “What’s the matter?” gasped Hattie as a tear slipped down the beautiful oval brown cheek.

    “Nothing,” she said, wiping it away with a shaky smile. “Just relieved about something, that’s all.”

    “Joanna, you weren’t afraid you were pregnant, were you?”

    “Eh? No!” she said in genuine astonishment. “I haven’t done it with João.”

    Hattie was definitely of the wife-and-ten-kids-back-in-Portugal school of thought about Joanna’s charming immediate boss. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said grimly.

    “Um, but I was thinking I might go away with him this summer.”

    Summer was of course a busy period at the Boddiford Hall Park Royal and so most of the staff didn’t get any leave during it. “What about the leave schedules?”

    “’E’s wangled it so’s we both ’ave a week orf together,” she said dully.

    “That doesn’t mean you have to spend it with him!” cried Hattie.

    “No, only… I’m real sick of having nothink, Hattie,” she admitted drearily.

    Hattie went very red. “I knew I shouldn’t’ve let ruddy Hill come to live here!”

    “No!” she gasped in horror. “Not that!”

    Wasn’t it? What else could it be? No-one else in the village had taken up with anybody, in fact Miss Waller and Raul the Argentinean had had a falling-out. Though Sue at the hotel had got engaged, this was true. In addition Jill Cornwall had rung ecstatically to report that she was expecting a baby and giving up her job with the airline, and Helga had rung to report ecstatically that Jill had started a baby at last after trying for several years, and, just incidentally, that Tracy had left the flat and was living with a Belgian co-pilot and it wouldn’t last, but she couldn’t be told.

    Hattie was about to say that it must be that but it didn’t justify going off and doing it with a married Portuguese, but Hill came in with an endive at that moment, so she didn’t. Instead she let him tell her that this was ready to be picked, even though he’d said only a couple of days ago that none of them were, and blah on about vinaigrette dressing that she knew perfectly well how to make. Without pointing out that if he wanted Dijon mustard he’d have to put it on the Ditterminster shopping list, because Miriam didn’t stock it even though all the retirees would have bought it to put on their pressed ham.

    Hill of course was so up he didn’t notice that she was unusually silent, or that Joanna was looking glum.

    Penn had rung up to give Hattie a recipe that Terri, Colin’s au pair, had thought she might like, and incidentally the news that Terri was now living with the actor friend of Rosie’s Colin had mentioned to Hill. Hattie was now in the kitchen trying to decipher what she’d written down. Penn had warned her, with a laugh, that she herself didn’t cook and it was all Greek to her, but actually what it looked like was Spanish rather than Greek. Which would follow, because according to Penn—neither Colin nor Hill had bothered to mention the point—Terri was half-Spanish and had grown up in Spain.

    It was Joanna’s half-day, so, after puzzling over it for some time Hattie wandered out to her room and, forgetting to knock, opened the door and said, still frowning over the piece of paper: “Hey, do you know what habas means? –Oh, shit!” as she looked up and realized that Joanna was face-down on her bed, crying.

    Hattie wasn’t normally a demonstrative person but of course she’d known Joanna since she was a schoolgirl, so she sat down beside her and put an arm around her. Naturally this made Joanna cry harder than ever, though declaring through the sobs that nothing was the matter and she was just being silly.

    Finally the sobs dried up and she was able to blow her nose and say: “It’s stupid. It just come all over me. –Thinking about you and Hill, and Colin and Penn.”

    “Yes. It’s natural,” said Hattie kindly.

    “Yeah. Wasn’t only that, think it was the relief as well. –Never mind that.”

    This was the second time she’d mentioned relief in connection with being upset. “Joanna,” said Hattie firmly, “I think you’d better tell me what this relief stuff is all about.”

    “Nuffink!” she gasped.

    “It can’t be nothing. For one thing, you’re lapsing into the vernacular of your childhood.”

    Joanna wasn’t unused to Hattie’s sometimes clinical approach to her fellow human beings; nevertheless she had to swallow. “Um, was I? S’pose I was, yeah. Um, well, you weren’t supposed to know, only it’s all okay now, so—so it can’t ’urt,” she ended weakly under Hattie’s grim stare.

    “Go on.”

    Feebly Joanna stumbled through it, not neglecting to stress the points that she only knew because she’d taken the phone call and that Hill had burst out with it all out of sheer relief. She’d expected that Hattie might be cross, and shout, but instead there was a horrid silence. She looked at her anxiously.

    “I see,” said Hattie grimly at last.

    “Hattie, he—he didn’t want to worry you,” she faltered. “Imagine if it was you that might’ve been sick: would you of told ’im?”

    “Probably not, but that doesn’t explain why he didn’t tell me once he knew it was okay, or about Colin’s scare, especially after all that best-friend shit— Never mind, it’s over now.”

    Joanna had a sinking feeling that it might not be. “Yeah, um, what did you want to ask me?” she said feebly.

    “Nothing,” said Hattie lamely, looking at her crumpled piece of paper.

    “Give it ’ere. –’Elp!” she gulped.

    “It’s a recipe of Terri’s. I think those words are Spanish. Um, I think chorizos are a kind of sausage but I wouldn’t swear to it. And she doesn’t say to cut them up, so…”

    “Did Penn say what it was supposed to be? Like the, um, end result?”

    “Kind of a casserole. Colin said it was ambrosia for the mouth,”

    “So that’s where Hill got that one from!” said Joanna, smiling at her.

    Logically, Colin could have got it off Hill, but as a matter of fact Hattie was entirely of her opinion. She nodded hard.

    “Um… Nope.” Joanna swallowed. “Tell you ’oo would know: João.”

    This thought had just occurred to Hattie. “Portuguese is different,” she said firmly.

    “Yeah. Anyway, I don’t wanna ask ’im,” she admitted.

    “No, don’t. I’ll ring Terri,” decided Hattie firmly.

    Joanna gulped. She knew Hattie thought calls to the other side of the country were an extravagance, and into the bargain she hadn’t ever met Terri! Added to which— “Hattie, she won’t be at Colin’s, didn’t Penn say she was living with that film star?” she gulped.

    Hattie’s mouth firmed. “All right, I’ll wait until Hill comes home and then he can bloody well do the phoning and be of some use, for once!” She marched out on this militant note.

    “Ooh, ’elp,” said Joanna numbly.

    “Um, Hattie, love, I think you’d better wear a posh frock, if it’s a proper engagement party,” she warned feebly, discovering Hattie in one of the smart trouser suits she’d persuaded her to buy for her interpreting work.

    “Oh, do you?” replied Hattie grimly. “Well, his High and Mightiness Sir Hilliard Tarlington vetoed my good black dress the other day on the grounds that it’s a dinner dress, if you please, so that’s that!”

    “Um, yeah. It is a dinner dress,” admitted Joanna, biting her lip. “Like, it was real suitable for all those evening jobs for the Mayor and Mr Watanabe and them where you had to have dinner—”

    “It’s my only posh frock,” said Hattie flatly.

    “No, it isn’t! And the weather’s too warm for it, anyway! What about that lovely peach one? The wrap-over style.”

    Hattie went very red. “I chucked it out.”

    “What?” she gasped. “Why?”

    “Because I wore it to lunch with smarmy up-himself Harry Adamson!” she shouted.

    “Oh, crumbs. Well, um, didn’t you buy somethink nice in Japan? Or Germany?”

    “I was too busy.”

    “Hattie, love, you weren’t too busy to buy all them draft presents for ruddy Gordon and Kenny! And you bought me that lovely top on your last trip to Japan: didn’t you get anything for yourself?”

    “Yeah, a busted ankle,” said Hattie drily.

    Joanna took a deep breath. “Where’s Hill?”

    “Upstairs monopolizing the bathroom, like usual.”

    “Good. Come on, we’re gonna go through your wardrobe with a fine-tooth comb! And undo that plait, you don’t plait up ’air like yours for a party, are you mad?”

    Hattie shrugged, but followed her upstairs, unplaiting the hair as she went.

    “Right! Thought so!” said Joanna in triumph, delving in the wardrobe. “And if I’d known you hadn’t bought yourself anything since that time I took you shopping in Ditterminster, I’d of taken you again!”

    “It’s a waste of money: I never go anywhere.”

    “You do! ’Specially now you and Hill are a couple: what are his posh friends gonna think if you turn up in your work gear?” she cried ill-advisedly.

    “Gee, Joanna, that I’m not in their clawss, and ya know what? They’ll be right, and I don’t care!”

    “Stop it, you’re being silly: it’s just nerves. Put this pale yellow one on.”

    Scowling, Hattie put it on. “It’s too tight, I knew it would be.”

    “No, it isn’t, it’s just right.”

    “My bra shows,” she said, squinting down at it.

    “That’s the style, but if you don’t like it, take it orf,” replied Joanna brutally.

    The dress was sleeveless, so with possibly more squirming and struggling than was strictly necessary, Hattie removed the bra without bothering to remove the dress. “Now I look droopy,” she pointed out.

    “Rubbish. Hang on, here’s Hill: see what he thinks.”

    “Gosh!” said Hill, grinning all over his face. “That’s definitely the dress, darling! Why haven’t you worn it before? Or is it new?”

    “No, it’s one of the girly dresses she made me buy in Ditterminster, and all the ladies at this party are gonna know it’s two years old,” replied Hattie with bitter satisfaction.

    “Ignore her, Hill, she’s nervous,” explained Joanna kindly. “I think she looks lovely!”

    “Smashing,” he agreed firmly.

    Possibly Hattie was right and some of the ladies at the engagement party did recognise her dress was two years old, but nobody indicated as much or observedly looked down their noses at her: in fact they were a very pleasant group. And, as Hill had pointed out, she had met Throgmorton’s New Zealand fiancée before, and liked her very much.

    A trifle unfortunately Hill was so pleased with the way the guests had immediately accepted Hattie that he said gaily as they took a taxi back to his flat afterwards: “There, now! Everybody liked you, and far from sticking out like a sore thumb as you predicted, you fitted in perfectly!”

    “Crap, Hill. They were being polite.”

    “Hattie, that isn’t true. Why are you being so obstinate about this?”

    “Possibly because me and the actual fiancée were the only ones there without bloody great plums in our mouths, and if ya want one good reason why she wants to go home to New Zealand, that’s it!”

    “That’s extremely prejudiced and—and silly!”

    Hattie didn’t reply. They drove on in silence for a bit. Possibly it wasn’t helping that Throgmorton‘s extremely up-market London flat with a view of the river was some considerable way from his dump—no.

    “Darling,” he said cautiously, “you don’t want to go back to Australia, do you?”

    “I might if it didn’t have Mum in it,” replied Hattie frankly.

    Hill swallowed. After a moment he ventured: “Look, I know it’s not the ideal situation at the moment: the cottage is pretty cramped with all of us in it, isn’t it? We could always move to the flat up at Chipping Abbas: let Joanna have the cottage.”

    “Like ‘we’, who?” replied Hattie in a nasty voice.

    “I— You and me and Kenny, I suppose.”

    “It hasn’t sunk in yet, has it?” she said angrily. “Gordon’s my responsibility, not Joanna’s! It was me took him on!”

    “Darling, he’s no relation. Wouldn’t it be better in the long run for him to stay with his sister?”

    “This’d be because they’d match, would it?” she retorted nastily.

    “No!”

    Hattie snorted.

    After quite some time Hill admitted: “Possibly that was the thought behind it. At least he’d be with someone from his own family and back—”

    “If you say background once more, Hill Tarlington, I will go home to Australia!” she shouted.

    When had he said background? “Uh—sorry,” he said numbly.

    “You haven’t spoken to Allan, have you?” she then said in accusatory tones.

    “Yuh— Nuh— I mean, what about?” he croaked.

    “About JOANNA! You said you would, and you haven’t!”

    Had he? “When did I say that?” he fumbled.

    “At the flat that time,” replied Hattie grimly.

    “Which time?” said Hill limply. They’d been up and down a fair bit: for one thing, once she’d started doing the interpreting for Watanabe, YDI had given her a quick orientation course.

    “That time. After the airport,” said Hattie, swallowing.

    Oh, Lor’. Didn’t she realize that the things a chap said at that sort of time went completely out of his head the minute he’d got it? Or, if the things had been said afterwards, a not unlikely scenario, by the next morning at the very latest?

    “I, um, I thought I said that talking to him about Joanna wouldn’t work? Um, and,” he said hazily, as it sort of began to come back to him, “didn’t you say you wouldn’t make it a condition of living with me?”

    “Am I making it a condition?” she replied fiercely.

    Er—not technically, no. It only felt like it. “No. Sorry. Very well, I’ll speak to him.”

    “Tomorrow?”

    “Mm. But it won’t do any good. I did ask him over, you know, and he turned me down.”

    “That’s no excuse.”

    Okay, it was no excuse. Hill was glumly silent.

    He did ring Allan the following day, but he’d gone off to some organic farmers’ get-together. Ma urged him, not for the first time, to bring Hattie down to Guillyford Place. Er—mm. Was driving all the way down with her in a terrific state of nerves better than having her in a terrific state of nerves plus worrying over burning the meal if Ma came to them instead?

    “Mm. We both need a break, in any case. Well, uh, soon as the boys’ school holidays start, Ma?”

    She was thrilled. Good show. Now all he needed to do was break the news to Hattie.

    Aw, gee, she shouted: “What? Why didn’t you ask me first?”

    “Because she’s my mother and it’s a perfectly natural thing to want to show your girlfriend off to your mother. Only if you’re serious about her, of course.” He had tried not to sound grim but alas, it hadn’t worked.

    “You’re NOT serious, Hill, you’re just playing at it and you never tell me a THING!” she shouted.

    Hill was gonna say what things was she on about, but she’d rushed out like a whirlwind. And—judging by the slamming doors—locked herself into the flat’s bathroom. Damn. He sat down very slowly on his horrible couch.

    After quite some time he went through to the bedroom and said to the locked bathroom door: “Hattie, I am serious about it. I want you to meet Ma because I’m serious about it. I know you’re nervous about meeting her, but there’s no need to be. I promise you she’ll like you. Well, uh—Harriet likes you!” he reminded her desperately. “Ma’s even less pretentious than she is!”

    There was a long silence and then she said in a very small voice: “I know it seems like a long time to you because of the war gaming and stuff, but—but it isn’t a long time to me.”

    Uh—oh! Shit! He counted on his fingers. Less than three months. In fact, if you wanted to get technical, he was being just about as precipitate as ruddy Colin!

    “Um, yes. You’re right. Sorry, I suppose I have been rushing you. Only because I—I’m keen, Hattie,” he said in a voice that shook a little.

    He could hear her blowing her nose. “Mm. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be mean. Can we just, um, slow down?”

    “Okay. I won’t make a definite time to see Ma and if she rings me about it I’ll consult you, I promise.”

    “Mm. Thanks. Um, I’ve got to go,” said Hattie in a strangled voice.

    Grinning in spite of himself Hill replied: “In that case I’ll go right away and not listen!” A somewhat similar scenario had happened in the past—though without the preliminary row, thank God—and she’d admitted she couldn’t, with someone listening, unless she turned the water on in the handbasin, and even then it didn’t always work! He went over to the bedroom door, said loudly: “I’m closing the bedroom door!” And did so, grinning.

    Somehow, though, as he sank back down onto the couch—any other woman, he reflected involuntarily would surely have insisted on getting rid of it by now, or at the very least having it re-covered—somehow the grin faded.

    Boy, this was not easy. As usual, Colin was right, sod him: a relationship did need even more fucking work than a project! And unfortunately, though doubtless there were thousands of tomes on how to make your relationship work good, there was no Project Manager’s Guide to Hattie.