Check To Your Queen

18

Check To Your Queen

    “Did you know, Respected Princess Isabella, that your Beloved Mother, Queen of all the Faerie Land, has gone on a holiday to some place the mortals call the Geek Islands with the John mortal?” fluted Puck.

    “No, but I’m not inter—” She broke off, gulping. “You mean the Greek Islands,” she said in a strangled voice.

    “Oh, do I? Full of strange violent stories, lots of fighting, and magic monsters,” he said vaguely.

    “Y—”

    “But these days the Geeks do it all on their little plastic toys that flash up the pictures in front of them!” He made electronic noises. “Whee-ee-eee! Prr-rroing-ng-ng! Ping-ng! Ping! Whee-ee—”

    “Stop it,” said Isabella with her hands over her ears. “You’re completely mixed up, Puck! Those ones that flash up are the games the geeks play, yes. But the place some of them go on holiday is called the Greek Islands, and that’s where all those silly legends come from!”

    Nothing.

    “The strange violent stories with the fighting and the magic monsters,” she sighed.

    “Oh. Well, I’m sure you’re right, Princess!” he fluted, dancing away.

     Isabella sighed. “Where were we?” she muttered.

    “Dinnertime?” suggested Lenny Lizard, though without much hope.

    “Afternoon teatime?” suggested Philly, more realistically.

    Runcky was looking pugnacious. Well, even more pugnacious than usual, put it like that. “I think it’s time for a holiday! Well, if Mother’s gone on one, it must be holiday time!” He stuck out his lower lip horribly.

    “Don’t do that: what if the wind changed?” sighed Isabella.

    “Then you could put me back again, Noblest Princess Isabella!”

    “Sycophant,” muttered his twin sourly.

    Isabella jumped slightly. “Er—yes. –I could, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I would, Runcky. Um, well, it’s only holiday time in the mortal realm…”

    They were all looking at her hopefully. Not Puck, of course, he’d flitted off. But Lenny, Gulper and the twins were. And Barry Beetle had come out from under his dock plant and was also looking hopeful.

    The thing was, if she gave them a holiday, what could she find to do all day? And in any case— “I don’t think I’m allowed to give you a holiday,” she said heavily.

    Everyone looked nervously over their shoulders but no thunderbolt descended from above.

    “No, all right,” Runcky conceded sourly. “But what about a short break?”

    “Well, uh… Well, I tell you what. Tomorrow—not today,” she added firmly—“tomorrow we could have a nature break.”

    Funnily enough nobody brightened terrifically.

    “That’s when you go into the country to look at flowers, with a picnic,” she explained.

    Very cautiously Philly asked: “Do you have to write it down after, though?”

    “Only a very few words to copy, Philly, dear.”

    “Like what?” the girl twin demanded.

    “Well, uh… daisy,” said Isabella on a weak note. “Um, briar rose.”

    Oops! In the twinkling of an eye there they were, chorusing hopefully: “Did you call, Sweet Princess? The Fairy Daisy or Marguerite, and the Fairy Briar Rose or Eglantine, at your service!”

    “Um, well, only sort of, dears,” said Isabella feebly. “I mean… Um, well, you could join us for afternoon tea, I suppose it’s nearly time for it.”

    “Huzza!” they all cried.

    Yes, huzza. Isabella magicked it up for them, unaware there was a little frown on her forehead until the Fairy Daisy rose into the air and delicately brushed it away with a petal or two. What was Mother up to? Even the thing with the Tom mortal hadn’t lasted nearly as long as this! And they hadn’t seen Father for a fairy age! Well—sulking, probably. Though in spite of a few rumblings on and off, and a few grey skies, there hadn’t been any actual storms.

    Puck graciously rejoined them for the afternoon tea, so she asked him if he knew any more, but he didn’t, except that her Respected Mother had ordered Robin to stay in the mortal realm and keep an eye on her Ben mortal.

    “Thank you, Barry, dear!” he chirped as Barry Beetle handed him a Magic Oreo—the new favourite in the Faerie Realm. “Mm! Yum! –I dare say,” he added carelessly, “that you could go down there and see for yourself, Princess.”

    Isabella went very pink. “No, I couldn’t,” she said shortly. “It’s none of my business!”

    Puck blinked. The concept was unknown in the Faerie Realm. “No, I see,” he said dully. “Well, like I say, I don’t know what our Beloved Fairy Queen is up to, either. I’m very sorry, Princess. Please don’t be cross.”

    “No, don’t be cross, Beloved Princess Isabella!” cried Philly anxiously. “We don’t want it to rain!”

    Isabella blinked, and looked about her. Sure enough, a few crystal drops were falling.

    “Oh, dear: primroses!” discerned Lenny Lizard as a clump sprouted.

    “Never mind, they’re very pretty,” said Isabella quickly. “Let’s all have another Magic Oreo!”

    With great relief, her audience consented to that. The relief, indeed, almost outweighing the greed.

    “Well, gentle Puck?” said Oberon unpleasantly. “How goes the day?”

    Puck bowed very low. “Your Noblest Majesty, ill, very ill, without thy careful attention. The fold stands empty in the drownèd field, and crows are fatted with the murrion flock; the nine men’s morris is filled up with mud, and the quaint mazes in the wanton green, for lack of tread, are indistinguishab—”

    “SILENCE!” he thundered.

    —able.

    “That, an I mistake me not, is one of hers!”

    Several, actually. Puck bowed very low. “Your Noblest Majesty is sorely missed.”

    “BALDERDASH!”

    Lightning flashed, black clouds gathered thickly, and the thunder rolled endlessly around the angry sky…

    It was a very good effect: you had to admire it, thought Puck admiringly, even as he cringed.

    “Your report on my daughter, if you would be so good,” he said icily.

    Oh, was that it? Phew! Puck duly reported that Isabella was still cross with the Ben mortal and coping quite well with the twins.

    “I see.”

    Was that all? Puck goggled at him.

    “Go, go, stand not upon the order of thy going, but go at once, thou merry wanderer of the night, Hobgoblin, sweet Puck,” he sighed.

    “Master, if you had any commissions… I mean, a Magick Bloom? A little western flower, purple with Love’s wound, called Love-in-idleness, perchance? ’Tis meet for many a faerie purpose besides instant love. Forgetting, deception, misconception…”

    “No, no, no,” he groaned. “I have sworn not to interfere.”

    Help, had he? Bowing very low, Puck vanished.

    The summer vacation had come and gone, James and Denise taking the kids to Yellowstone before they got too old for family holidays, Cy and Charlene, after several rows on the subject, opting for Connecticut and his cousins’ place, rather than anything more up-market, the Stapletons reportedly spending a few weeks at Cape Cod, and Kyle and Gaby happily departing to stay with her aunty, who lived on Prince Edward Island, of all places. Ben had just gone home to Mom’s, duly being stuffed with apple pie, home-baked ham, and Mom’s special potato salad that was five million times better than anything ever discovered in any deli in New York, NY. He’d had to put up with the full intel on Janey Kazekian’s divorce, but that was par for the course.

    Back at the office he went grimly on a diet to lose those pounds he’d put on, and threw himself grimly into work.

    Jim Stapleton was, sure enough, their new CEO. Chairman of the Board of Directors was a guy called Larry Georgeson. Nobody at their humble level claimed to know him, but research very soon revealed that he was Paul Georgeson’s younger brother and his wife was one of old Maze’s granddaughters. Figured, huh? Other than that, life resumed the even tenor of its way. More or less. Well, one of Cy’s recommendations tanked and went into liquidation, thus losing Fluss, Evert, Maze their investment, but the good-natured Jim Stapleton said kindly that you couldn't win them all, and even James Kingston, who had now stepped into John Murtrey’s shoes, conceded that statistically speaking you had to lose some of them. Only don’t make a habit of it, guys.

    James’s own shoes were now filled, possibly not the word, by a quiet, much older man, one Foster Walters, who’d been with the bank for donkeys’ ages, and was known as a steady, reliable worker but hardly a go-getter. On the other hand, who else was there, unless the position was filled from outside? Cy’s age and relative seniority might just have made him a possible, but no-one except perhaps Charlene had seriously considered him for a moment. Several people, none of them with any say in the matter, thought Ben might have handled it, but he was too young, lacked seniority and besides, was happy where he was.

    After quite a while it dawned, and Kyle Bannerman said excitedly to his girlfriend, now his live-in girlfriend: “Hey, know what? I reckon they’ve appointed old Foster Walters as a kind of stop-gap, until they feel Ben’s old enough to take over!”

    Gaby just looked at him kindly and said: “That’d be good, Kyle.”

    Beaming, Kyle began to calculate exactly how many years old Walters had until retirement…

    Thanksgiving came and went, and suddenly it was Christmas again, and Ben realised with a shock that it was a whole year since he met Isabella. He’d written her several letters, but although Margot swore she’d given them to her, hadn’t had any replies. Some time back Cy had invited him warmly to join their group at Aspen for a few days over Christmas, sharing a chalet—read, sharing the cost of a chalet—and he’d given in and agreed to it. Nothing else to do. Well, couldn’t go home, Mom was threatening Janey Kazekian in person, and nice though she was, he didn’t want her, had never wanted her, and could not face the thought, which Aunt Kate had kindly passed on, of him and Janey in the matching Christmas sweaters that Mom had, ye gods, knitted for them with her own hands. And in fact he’d sent Aunt Kate a very nice present as thanks for the warning. Good old Aunty Sue would have been only too thrilled to have him, but she’d wonder why he wasn’t at Mom’s. So skiing was the perfect excuse, really.

    At the last minute Cy had a panic because one of the guys that had promised without fail had dropped out. Couldn’t Ben think of anyone?

    But everyone from the office was already fixed up.

    “Uh—look, we can split the difference between us, Cy—”

    “It’s a whole third share, Ben,” he said swallowing.

    Ben was about to say that was okay, but took another look at his face. “Oh. Uh, look, there’s that guy Rob at my apartment building. He’s young and callow, but at least the electronic gear is confined to the ears—I mean he doesn’t play loud rap or some such on his sound system all day and night. And he’s a cheerful young guy. Oh, and quite good-looking, with nice English manners. I mean, I don’t think Charlene would find anything to dislike about him.”

    Cy produced a weak smile. “Good.”

    “Uh—except that he is Mab’s son,” Ben admitted. He cleared his throat. “John Murtrey’s new woman, Cy.”

    Cy’s jaw sagged. “The dame at that Friends dinner?”

    “Yeah,” said Ben weakly. “So, whaddaya think?”

    “Oh, why not? Charlene’ll drag every last detail the poor sucker knows out of him, but too bad! –I wouldn’t mind hearing the dirt, myself!” he admitted with a silly laugh.

    “Well, nor me, but given the kid goes about with his head in the clouds and his ears plugged in, he might not know much!” replied Ben, now frankly laughing. “Okay, I’ll ask him.”

    Rob not only agreed happily to the suggestion, he admitted he’d been thinking of going to the snow in any case. Ben eyed him drily. Yeah. That’d be without making a booking, of course.

    “Oh—they’ll be double rooms, Cy said, so by all means bring a girl, Rob,” he remembered.

    “Oh, good! I’ll bring Millie!” he beamed.

    “Who?”

    Rob went very red. “Ben! Millie! She works for you!”

    “Uh—oh. That Millie. How in Hell did you meet her?”

    “That time you rang me from the office and asked me to bring in an important folder of papers that you’d left in the apartment. You know, when Mortimer actually let me in with his key without ringing you to verify the story!” he reminded him with a giggle.

    “Yeah, a miracle,” Ben agreed weakly. “Well, that’s good, Rob, she’s a real nice girl. Decent instincts. No New York gloss. Uh—you got any skiing gear?”

    No, being the blank answer, he dragged him off shopping.

    Ben’s bet would’ve been the kid’d break his leg, but no: he turned out to be a superb skier. Flew down the slopes like a bird. Charlene tried to get him to admit he’d been to several very up-market winter resorts in Europe but he just looked vague and said he didn’t think any of those names sounded familiar. Cy was quite good, he’d grown up in Denver, and Ben himself was adequate. Charlene just puddled about on the learner slopes, giggling a lot, whether in or out of the arms of a good-looking young ski instructor, and fortunately Millie was happy to do likewise. Also fortunately she was young enough, naïve enough, and meek enough for Charlene not to see her in any way as a rival. And also fortunately, Rob seemed happy to puddle about giggling with them, instead of spending all his time flying down the most precipitous runs.

    At one point Ben did reflect it was a bit odd, for a young guy who was such a good skier: the normal form was to vanish to the advanced slopes, completely ignoring whoever they’d come with. But then it kind of floated out of his mind again, what with the sparkling weather, the good runs, and the excellent meals at various hotels or restaurants. Far too dear, really, but as Charlene said, giggling, it was Christmas, after all!

    Back at the office, they just put their heads down and got on with it. The Dow was slightly up or slightly down, the NASDAQ likewise, the Fed was cagy—nothing new there. The only excitement at Fluss, Evert, Maze was poor Foster Walters coming down with a dreadful cold, which caused certain people to lurk in corners muttering darkly about his age.

    By March Ben was real glad to get out of cold, dark New York and embark on a round of visits to Florida and Louisiana, gradually making his way back via a real promising prospect in Tennessee. By the time he’d written up all his reports and attended several meetings with august members of the bank who made the decisions, one or two of whom were real annoyed to discover he hadn’t found their Tennessee prospect as promising as all that, it was well past the Easter break, which he’d intended to spend with Aunty Sue, indulging in the traditional Easter egg hunt that she always had in her yard, regardless of the age of the attendees. Dammit.

    He called to apologise and she reminded him that this year she was going to spend the summer with an old friend up in Maine, would he still be able to come?

    It seemed a lifetime since this idea had been mooted. “Uh—yes, I guess so, Aunty Sue,” he said weakly. “Well, uh, not sure for how long, but a couple of weeks, sure.”

    “Great!” she said briskly. “Mary Jean’s looking forward to it!”

    With this she rang off. Ben sighed. Mary Jean, to his certain knowledge, was seventy if a day, and devoted to (a) wool crochetwork, (b) organic gardening, and (c) English crumpets. In order of pointlessness. Though the crumpets weren’t bad, she made them herself, from a recipe, so it was claimed, from a book which had genuine  old… Ye-uh. On the other hand, would it have been better if she’d been a gorgeous female of around thirty looking for a summer fling? No, well, momentarily it might have been. But he didn’t want any gorgeous thirtyish females on the loose, he just wanted Isabella! But it was beginning to look as if he’d never have her.

    … Could he possibly get over to England this summer? Uh, well, yeah, the airplane had been invented. But he had a very strong feeling that, never mind Margot’s good intentions, Dan wasn’t gonna let her give him the address. Because it certainly hadn’t happened so far, had it? Shit.

    Suddenly his phone rang, Christ! “Yeah?” he managed.

    “It’s me again,” said his aunt’s voice. “I forgot to say. She’s got a new mania.”

    “Uh—oh, Mary Jean, is this? Go on, I guess I can bear it.”

    “Shellwork,” said his aunt in doomed tones.

    “Podden?” replied Ben in a silly voice.

    “Shellwork. You know: with shells. They collect them off of the beach and stick them onto things. Boxes. Little wooden houses that you thought were gonna turn into bird boxes or at the very least a small dollhouse for the neighbour’s little grandkid. Shells. Stuck onto crap.”

    “Jeez, even more pointless than crochetwork,” said Ben in awe.

    “You said it! At least that occasionally produces something useful, like a nice warm afghan! Well, don’t say you haven’t been warned.” With this she rang off again.

    Ben passed his hand over his forehead, and sighed.

    Titania’s flying visits had gradually become more and more irritating—not because she kept bringing up the subject of Ben, as Isabella had fully expected, but because she never mentioned him! Didn’t anybody care, any more?

    Father was apparently still sulking, though he had appeared a few times, been very noncommittal, kissed her cheek airily, and disappeared again. It was true to say the twins weren’t missing him, but this was no consolation to Isabella.

    From time to time Puck reminded her that “your Ben mortal” was still very, very sorry and that he hadn’t had any other mortal lady since, but this, alas, only made Isabella cross. She knew that, and it didn’t make any difference! But as time crept by, or flew by, depending on your point of view, she began to feel that possibly it did make a difference… Though still remaining cross.

    The twins improved slightly at their lessons. Well, Runcky’s performance at sums was now quite reasonable, Philly’s was fair, and their spelling and writing were noticeably better. Though as Grimalkin remarked, there had been rr-rrr-roommmm for impr-rrr-ovement, hadn’t there? But Isabella counted it a great triumph that Runcky had now grasped the point that words had vowels in them. C, A, T, “cat”, for instance. Their flying had also improved—well, slightly. Philly, being a girl fairy, was better: she could get to about knee-height on Isabella before falling in a heap. Runcky could only manage a hand’s span above the ground, but he was very speedy with it, covering at least two green yards in two blinks of an eye before crash-landing into the odd bush (ouch!) or stream (SPLASH!).

    Merlin remained slightly gaga—nothing new there.

    Blossom Blackbird was now frequently in attendance—she seemed to have appointed herself to more or less take Titania’s place, it gradually dawned on Isabella, as the mother blackbird popped large crumbs into the twins’ ever-ready mouths and fussed over their flying. More strictly speaking, over their flying failures.

    “Tt, tt, tt! Poor little chicks!” she lamented as they both crash-landed into a clump of bushes. (“Ouch!” “Ouch!”)

    “At least they’re trying,” said Isabella temperately.

    “Of course!” she clucked sympathetically. “Dear little chicks! Princess, dear, what if we tried launching from a branch?” She cocked her head on one side and looked brightly at Isabella out of her twinkling round eye.

    “Launching from a branch,” echoed Isabella in a hollow voice.

    “Like the nestlings!” Blossom encouraged her.

    “Mm,” she said, swallowing. “Um, well, I think we’d better ask them, Blossom, dear; I mean, it’s a long way down if you’re not a bird…”

    Rather unfortunately, the twins were all for it.

    CRASH! CRASH! “Oww-oo-ooh!” “Oww-oo-ooh!”

    “Tt, tt, tt! Poor little chicks!” cried Blossom.

    Runcky got up, scowling. “I’m all right!”

    Philly got up, scowling. “So’m I!”

    “I’m gonna try it again!” they chorused.

    “But twins, dears, wouldn’t you like a rest?” faltered Isabella.

    “No!” they scoffed. “’Course not!”

    Resolutely they mounted the tree. Resolutely they launched themselves upon the breeze…

    CRASH! CRASH! “Oww-oo-ooh!” “Oww-oo-ooh!”

    “Tt, tt, tt! Poor little chicks!”

    “’S’nothing!” they scoffed. “I’m gonna try it again!”

    Resolutely they mounted the tree. Resolutely they launched themselves upon the breeze…

    CRASH! CRASH! “Oww-oo-ooh!” “Oww-oo-ooh!”

    “Tt, tt, tt! Poor little chicks!”

    “Stop FUSSING! We’re all right!” they shouted.

    Resolutely they mounted the tree. Resolutely they launched themselves upon the breeze…

    CRASH! CRASH! “Oww-oo-ooh!” “Oww-oo-ooh!”

    “Leave us ALONE! We’re gonna try again!”

    Resolutely they mounted the tree. Resolutely they launched themselves upon the breeze…

    “Tt, tt, tt! Poor little chicks!”

    This could go on for some time…

    “You have to admit they’ve got stickum!” twittered Merlin.

    Isabella jumped. “Er—yes. Where did you get that expression, Merlin, dear?”

    The old wizard looked vague. “Isn’t it a saying of wise wizards, Princess?”

    “I don’t think so,” she said weakly.

    “Oh. Then I dare say I picked it up from that naughty Puck, Robin Goodfellow, that Hobgoblin.”

    Isabella had a feeling that, on the contrary, he might have picked it up from her, because she was very nearly almost sure it was a modern mortal expression, one of Ben’s…

    “Mm.”

    “Well, lunch?” suggested the wizard brightly.

    CRASH! CRASH! “Oww-oo-ooh!” “Oww-oo-ooh!”

    “Tt, tt, tt! Poor little chicks!”

    “I think we’d better!” Isabella agreed hurriedly, jumping up. “Twins! Lunchtime!”

    “Tt, tt, tt!” twittered Merlin. “Comfrey leaves, I think, to prevent bruising!”

    “Um, don’t you make a tea out of them?” said Isabella.

    “Tt, tt, tt! You’re forgetting all your plant lore, Princess, dear!

“Comfrey leaves be good for bruises,

Eke for bones, if broke, and sprains,

And for many aches and pains.

But never drink the comfrey juices,

For they may, or so ’tis told,

Result in harm, for young or old.”

    “And all wise wizards do teach, that though some do say, a comfrey tea is good for innards, heed them not. ’Tis truly said, a mortal did once die of the boiled comfrey leaf,” he ended complacently.

    “Of course,” said Isabella weakly.

    “And fairies can have very bad tummy upsets from drinking copious quantities of comfrey-leaf tea,” the wizard added. “And after four mortal days no more leaves should be applied, for fear of harm.”

    “Oh. Um, what about fairy days?”

    “The same,” he said, looking down his nose.

    “Then, um, maybe we shouldn’t, Merlin.”

    “No, no, my dear! They’ll fall off in any case.” He waved his hand majestically. “Comfrey leaves, appear!”

    Nothing. Isabella winced.

    “Er—you try, Princess, dear,” he suggested.

    “Um, yes,” she agreed uncomfortably.

“Comfrey leaves, now appear,

For the time to heal is near!

Wrap round Philly’s legs and arm,

Eke round Runcky’s limbs and head;

Close and green, every shred.

Now do shield the twins from harm!”

    Instantly the twins’ limbs and Runcky’s head were swathed tightly in comfrey leaves.

   Far from seeming abashed, the old wizard approved: “Very good, very good! I knew it would work.”

    To Isabella’s relief the twins merely rolled their eyes at each other, at this one.

    “Yes, well, it’s lunchtime,” she said feebly.

    The last Magic Oreo had been finished, Grimalkin, who’d discovered the extremely magic white filling, having licked it all off, and Blossom, who didn’t appear to mind cat lick, having pecked the result into crumbs for the nestlings, and everybody was leaning back replete, when lo! The tinkling of a myriad tiny, tiny faerie bells, velvety-soft pansy petals in showers—that was new, or was it an old effect that she’d revived?—and there she was, the great wings gloriously a-flutter in the sunlight!

    Puck had been noticeably absent from the lessons but had turned up for the lunch. “Our beloved Faerie Queen, Great Titania, revered Mistress, Queen Mab, Queen of all the Faerie Land! Your humble subjects bid you welcome! –Bow, faerie children!”

    The twins scowled, but got up and bowed. Isabella also bowed, just in case Someone had told Puck to say all that.

    “My darlings!” she beamed, arms held wide.

    “We have had lunch, but I dare say we could fit in a donut or a few Magic Oreos,” noted Runcky carelessly.

    Philly kicked his ankle. “We bid you welcome, Fair Titania, Queen Mab, fairest in all the Faerie Land.”

    “Um, yes,” said Runcky quickly, trying not to hop. “Humble greetings, Fair Titania, Great Mother of All.”

    “Very good, very good, twins!” wittered Merlin, making a doddering bow. “Well met by sunlight, fair Titania.”

    “Well met, indeed, dearest Merlin!” she gurgled. “Oh, how wonderful it is to be with all my darlings once more!”

    “None of us were keeping you away, Mother,” noted Isabella drily.

    “But you’ve all been so busy at your lessons!” she cooed. “I wouldn’t want to disturb you too often, you know! –But what’s this? Comfrey leaves? Pains, away! Bruises, hence!” she ordered. “Comfrey, you have leave to go: hence, depart!”

    The comfrey leaves vanished. Surreptitiously rubbing an arm or leg, the twins eyed each other cautiously. Runcky shrugged. Philly made a face.

    “Um, as a matter of fact, Mother,” said Isabella weakly, “I think they were rather proud of those leaves.”

    “A badge of office, indeed!” wittered Merlin.

    “Y—um, something like that yes. They’ve been working very hard at their elementary flying, you see.”

    “But of course! she cooed. “Now, try this!” So saying she rose into the air, the great wings fluttering terrifically, so that all the flowers, grasses and leaves waved madly in sympathy. The twins rose smoothly on either side of her. Well, sort of: Runcky’s legs were kicking.

    “All link hands for the fairy ring!” she carolled. “Come, Isabella, dear!”

    Resignedly Isabella joined them, taking a hand of each twin—if she didn’t she’d be hauled up, willy-nilly.

    “And now the fairy ring is joined!” cried Titania merrily.

“Circle round the fairy ring,

You’ll be safe from anything,

Toads and goblins keep away,

Joined hands keep us safe all day!”

    And round they whirled, driven by the power of those great wings…

    “Phew!” gasped Runcky as they wafted softly down onto the greensward again.

    “That was something like,” Philly admitted grudgingly.

    “Yes,” Isabella agreed limply, as the wings continued to fan… “Mother, please don’t, you’re creating a positive gale!”

    “Darling!” she said with a laugh, dropping down beside her and mercifully stopping with the fanning. “But I’m so happy! I found a gentle mortal, by name John. Mine ear is much enamoured of his note, So is mine eye enthrallèd to his shape, And his fair virtue’s force perforce did move me, On the first view, to say, to swear, ‘I love thee.’” She sighed deeply.

    “Er—yes,” said Isabella awkwardly. “Mother, this isn’t the first ti—”

    “But this is different, darling!” she cried.

    “Poetical, anyway,” noted Puck, lapsing rather from his earlier subservient vein.

    Isabella bit her lip. “Mm,” she agreed in strangled tones.

    “Dearest one, how can I put it?”

    “Si-lent-ly,” mouthed Puck.

    “Were we but in the Faerie Land,” she said, “I should have said to my fairies: ‘Be kind and courteous to this gentleman, Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes, Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries, The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worms’ eyes, To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.’”

    Puck had collapsed in sniggers at the word “apricocks.” Isabella sighed. “But you were in the mortal ream, Mother,” she said heavily.

    “Yes!” Titania agreed, with a merry peal. “So I just took him to the Isles of Greece, where we fed on purple grapes, green figs and purple figs, honey-sweet musk-melons, and little cakes drenched in honey from the honeybees!”

    Isabella glanced hastily at the twins, but they’d dropped off. Phew!

    “And we did have night-tapers at one funny old place we stayed at, deep in the hilly regions of this lovely island, called Curfew,” she sighed reminiscently, “but I have to admit, we didn’t bother to light them very often!”

    “For the curfew tolls the knell of parting day,” agreed Puck, apparently sincerely.

    “But of course, Puck, darling!” she trilled. “Those nights were so warm—and scented! Not sweetly pretty flower perfumes, like the Faerie Land, but aromatic, almost spicy! The hillsides are covered in tiny flowering herbs, one crushes them where’er one treads.”

    Immediately Puck carolled: ‘Where-e’er you-oo walk, Cool gales shall fan the glade—’”

    “Lovely, Puck, dear!” she trilled.

    Encouraged, Puck sang it through:

“Where’er you walk,

Cool gales shall fan the glade;

Trees where you sit

Shall crowd into a shade.

Where’er you tread,

The blushing flowers shall rise,

And all things flourish

Where’er you turn your eyes.”

    He took a deep breath preparatory to rendering it again, complete with repeats, half-repeats, trills and runs, but Isabella pre-empted him by saying drily: “It doesn’t sound as if the poor flowering herbs she trod on exactly flourished.”

    Titania went into a terrific peal of laughter. “Darling child! Such herbs are most meet to walk on, and if strewn in the house with the rushes, render it most sweet indeed!”

    Isabella had to swallow. “If we’re still talking about the mortal realm, I don’t think they do that any more, do they? I think the John mortal might think you'd lost your mind, if you started strewing rushes and herbs on his floor.”

    “Sweetest Isabella,” she sighed: “nothing I do could possibly displease him!”

    Much. Isabella avoided Puck’s eye.

    Grimalkin, being sated with cream and Magic Oreo filling, had slept through most of this with the rest of them, but now she roused and noted: “Mee-ow! I don’t think so. What about the Paul mee-ortal?”

    “Um, yes,” Isabella agreed uneasily. “You did tell us about him, Mother, if you remember.”

    “Darling ones!” she trilled. “That was just a little bon-bon on the side! A nothing! A mere trifle, an amuse-bouche for an afternoon or two. A kickshaw!”

    “A lollipop,” noted Puck drily.

    She jumped. “Silly one,” she said unconvincingly. “In any case, John and I haven’t seen him for mortal donkeys’ ages, we’ve been on a lovely tour of some of the prettiest spots in the mortal world! We’ve swum with the dolphins and eaten naseberries in the Carib isles, melting sweet with the perfumes of honey, jasmine, and lily of the valley; kissed under the cherry blossoms in the shadow of a perfect magic mountain; played in the snow and ice of the great glaciers, and drunk hot spiced wine by a great log fire afterwards; caught fish in the Peaceful Ocean and eaten it roasted with bananas on the beach in the moonlight, not a single mortal light to be seen save our fire; and ridden on little cable cars, that run halfway to the stars, in the city called Saint Francisco! You should have been there, Puck, dear! Great fun! They rattle, and one thinks one is going to fall off one’s seat, you know, onto the hard mortal road, but suddenly, down they go, swoop! And you’re there before you know it, quite safe after all!” she gurgled.

    “Um, yes, Faerie Mistress, that sounds fun. But, um, where are you?” he groped.

    “Why, at the bottom of the hill, thou foolish-fond Puck!” she trilled.

    Puck looked wildly at Isabella. She shrugged.

    “I see, Great Queen,” he said feebly. “You had fun with this John mortal, then.”

    “Oh, yes. But much more than that…” she sighed.

    At this point her audience concentrated very hard on wishing that she wasn’t going to tell them what more. And Grimalkin roused with a start and a snurr, noting: “Half-grown kittens don’t need to knee-ow that.”

    “N—Me?” gasped Isabella. “I’m not a half-grown kitten, Grimalkin!”

    “You are to mmm-mee-ee,” she replied calmly, sitting up and beginning to wash.

    “And to mmm-mee-ee,” added Titania serenely. “So I shall spare you the details. But I can assure you that my John has sworn eternal devotion to me.”

    There was a nasty silence.

    “And I to him, of course!” she said airily. “Well, as much as is feasible.”

    Puck’s curiosity overcame him. “Revered Majesty, Adored Queen Mab, what did you actually say?”

    “I said,” she said with an airy toss of her head, “‘For a mortal lifetime, darling John,’ and he laughed and said, poor, dear, deluded man: ‘Great! That’s all there is!’ –Then he took me shopping.”

    “Er…. do mortals do that?” asked Puck in confusion.

    Isabella sighed. “Apparently. Hers do, at any rate.”

    “What if he runs out of mortal money?” he wondered fearfully.

    Titania produced a light laugh. “He won’t! I’m taking care of it! It’s all fairy gold, but he doesn’t know that and nor do the shops, so it’s all perfectly all right!”

    “Oh, good,” they both said in relief.

    “Yes; and now I really must have a nap. You’ve no idea how tiring mortal travel is,” she sighed. “I shall to my fairy bower! –Fairies, attend me! Peaseblossom! Moth! Cobweb!”

    “Here I am!” they chorused, whirling down to her, and on the instant being whirled away by the flutter of the great wings…

    “Has she gone?” ventured Puck into the blessed silence that had fallen.

    “Definitely.”

    “Er—no, Princess; to the bower?”

    “Who knows?” she sighed.

    “Er—mm. You’d best have a nap, too, Princess.”

    “I think I will: it was just too much… And why did you have to encourage her, with the singing and the poetic stuff?” she sighed.

    “Um, I couldn’t help it, Respected Princess. It’s my calling. I’m Puck, that merry wanderer of the night, Hobgoblin, sweet Puck,” he explained awkwardly.

    “I see.” Sighing, Isabella lay back and closed her eyes…

    “She’s back,” Mortimer reported pleasedly.

    Ben jumped. “Who?”

    “Mab, of course!”

    The guy was smiling; so, yeah: of course. “It’ll be a flying visit,” he said mildly. “Collecting more gear or dumping shopping or checking up on Rob, or some such.”

    “So?” retorted Mortimer huffily.

    “Uh—nothing,” said Ben weakly. “All I meant was, we haven’t seen much of her this year, have we? What with world tours with my old boss.”

    “You’ve been away a fair bit yourself,” he pointed out sourly.

    “Yeah: that was work. Oh—I’ll be away for part of the summer, too: taking a break.”

    Predictably, the guy informed him that he'd have to give him the address in case of emergencies. It was a ludicrous address—anywhere Crazy Mary Jean lived would be bound to have a dumb name—but Ben duly replied: “Care of Miss Mary Jean Oliphant, Moon of Strawberries Cottage, Eel Lane, Halibut Cove, Maine.”

    “You takin’ the Mick?” he growled, reddening.

    “No,” he sighed. “She’s a spinster friend of my aunt’s, seventy if a day, besotted with wool crochetwork, organic gardening, and English crumpets. And lately taken up shellwork, so I’m told.”

    “Oh, yeah: seen that. They do it down the Florida Keys, too.”

    Ben goggled at him. “Not really?”

    “Yeah. See, I was down there for a bit of fishing—know a guy that’s got a shack—and we went to this place for a beer, only to get there, you hadda get past this dumb craft fair. Ditsy dames in them dangling necklaces, all made of bits of tarred twine, ya wouldn’t give ’em houseroom. Selling this shellwork crap. One of them had a calendar thing. Like,” he explained laboriously, “it was a kind of shell picture—dumb,” he noted by the by—“with this little calendar hanging off of it, the thing was so small it was practically useless.”

    “Sounds typical,” admitted Ben, giving in and grinning. “Decorated to Hell and gone, and completely unfunctional.”

    “Yeah. –Funny how they always have flat chests,” he noted thoughtfully.

    “Uh—oh! The ditsy dames with the necklaces? I’ll say!” Ben agreed, now frankly laughing. “That’s Mary Jean, to a T!”

    “Yeah. Anyroad,” he concluded as the elevator finally arrived, “she’s back.”

    Ben was able to verify this for himself at Mike’s, next evening. Mab and Rob came in as he was sitting back with his beer, indulging in the delicious game of wondering whether to have one of Mike’s extra-special juicy burgers, or to go for the bratwurst, also delicious. Hmm… Hadn’t had the bratwurst for a while, maybe he would. With hash browns, why not? Uh—and a side salad, might be a good idea.

    So Rob decided to try the bratwurst, too, and the hash browns, he wasn’t sure what they were but if Ben was having them, he’d give them a go, and a salad, of course! Mab as usual opted for a salad, but once Ben’s and Rob’s plates—groaning plates—arrived, decided to have a helping of hash browns, too.

    “Mmm! Yummy!” she reported with her gurgling laugh.

    “Puts it well,” Ben agreed. “Though maybe not traditional with bratwurst, but never to mind! –Hey, you should’ve been here this winter, Mab: Mike did baked potatoes with sour cream and chives. Dunno how he manages it, but the potato comes up fluffy as all get out. Best in New York, NY, never found any to beat them. But he only bothers for a few months.”

    “That does sound good, Ben!” she beamed. “But darling John and I must have been in St. Moritz by then. Or perhaps we’d gone on to Paris for a little shopping. Paris in wintertime is glorious! Have you ever been there? All shades of misty grey! Cold, of course, but one scarcely notices it, the city’s so beautiful.”

    Suddenly Ben found he had tears in his eyes. Isabella, the scent of lilacs, and Paris in winter… “Yes,” he managed in a choked voice.

    Titania’s foot connected softly with her son’s ankle under the table and he gave her an annoyed look.

    “Divine,” she sighed, “only then John insisted on going on to Austria, and really! That architecture is so overdone; I said at the time—” She broke off.

    “Yes, we know, Mother,” said Rob heavily. “But you liked the pastries, didn’t you?”

    “Well, yummy, darling, but full of that chol stuff!” she trilled. “So then we went down to Italy, just a whirlwind trip, John wanted to show me some galleries, but personally I can never see very much in paintings, they’re so flat, aren’t they? I prefer real people!” she beamed. “Poor John was rather disappointed. So at the next place, I left him to it, and just sat in a lovely café—inside, of course, it was still too chilly to sit outside—and had a lovely chat with a very nicely-dressed Italian businessman. Not picking him up, at all—John got quite cross about that, the dear, silly man!” –Tinkle of airy laughter.

    Ben was now looking at her in horror. Under the man’s nose? Jesus!

    “Um, they can’t resist chatting her up if she’s by herself,” muttered her son in agonised tones.

    Mab giggled. “Or even sometimes if I’m not by myself! There was one ludicrous incident—no, well, more than one, I must admit—but this was rather more so than most! John had found this delicious hotel called Palmyra Polynesia; do you know it, Ben?”

    “I don’t think so…”

    “It’s in the Cook Islands, but don’t expect her to have registered that,” said Rob on a resigned note.

    “Oh! Sure I’ve heard of it! One of old Hiram Ledbetter’s, isn’t it!” Ben realised. “John said at the time that the bank wouldn’t be averse to a slice of that, anything the man touches turns to gold, but Hiram Ledbetter doesn’t need venture capital to buy up the odd Polynesian island or seven.”

    “Not literally turns to gold, Mother,” said Rob helpfully.

    “Silly one! I do realise that! That’s quite right, Ben, it was on an island—well, the resort was the island, you see, quite small, and very select. Only a handful of chalets and just a few suites in the main building—you know. Their own dining-room, or one could have butler service.” She gave a smothered giggle. “They called it that, but it was just a selection of terribly naïve brown boys, all aged about eighteen! Though the food was delightful, lots of fruit, and so fresh! And our chalet had a passionfruit vine: one would sit in the pool and suddenly, plop! There a fruit would be, bobbing about in the bubbles! Aren’t pools with bubbles delightful?”

    “A Jacuzzi,” sighed Rob.

    “I’m sure, darling. But as well, you see, Ben, the chalet was right on the beach—our own private beach, a tiny circlet of sparkling white sand, the waves frothing in gently—John said it was Paradise!” A loud giggle. “That was before! –And fully air-conditioned, American management, you see, he liked that, but one had the option of the big ceiling fans, and one could open it right up to the sea breeze as well. Anyway, I woke up very early—I often wake up early, I love that time of day, especially in that climate—and of course John was still asleep, so I just got up and crept quietly out to the beach for a little dip. It’s just gently warm, such soft and delicious air at that time of day. Well, I mean, darlings, it would have been silly to bother with horrid old clothes, wouldn’t it?”—Lovely smile.

    Ben was incapable of summoning up a smile in response. He avoided Rob’s eye.

    “So there I was, dipping,” she continued blithely, “when lo! Suddenly a little canoe came round the point of our tiny cove, and it was one of the other guests: a lovely man, he’d just been through the most frightful divorce, and he’d come to Palmyra Polynesia to recuperate, as he put it! Canadian. I think he said he was something in lumber and—was it mining? Very technical, in any case. So he decided to pop in for a dip, too, and somehow,”—airy laugh—“his pretty bathers fell off! –That Polynesian pattern: lovely bright flowers,” she said to her son.

    “Hawaiian shirt material, Mother,” he replied resignedly. “I’ve told her that at least six times, but it won’t sink in,” he said to Ben.

    “That’s right: Hawaiian shirt material!” trilled Mab, unphased. “So we were out by his canoe, that he’d anchored just offshore, diving for his bathers, you know—“

    Ben at this point got a very vivid picture of exactly what she meant. He gulped.

    “And just at the crucial moment, John came outside! Oh, dear! He was so cross, poor lambkin! But of course it was a total accident, and Neville—that was his name, Neville Macdonald—explained it all, but he wasn’t mollified. So poor Neville paddled his little canoe back to the hotel’s main beach without his bathers, I’m afraid!” she carolled blithely.

    Ye gods and little fishes! Ben just looked at the woman limply.

    “But by dinnertime John had calmed down and realised it was all totally accidental, so we had dinner in the chalet and a lovely, lovely evening!” she smiled.

    Ben’s mouth twitched mirthlessly. “Uh-huh,” he managed.

    “Her all over,” noted her son sourly. “And if you’re wondering why she’s here with us tonight instead of dining out in style with John—”

    “Dearest boy, it was an accident, I explained that!” she cried.

    “According to you, yes. But right on top of the toaster thing?”

    She pouted.

    “And the clothes-scattering thing?”

    “Pooh! There was nothing in—”

    “There was! –She’s been driving John crackers—well, have you ever seen that flat of his?” he demanded of Ben.

    “His apartment? Yeah, had some of the execs over a few times,” replied Ben neutrally.

    “Right. Well, it’s always in apple-pie order, isn't it?”

    “That’s really silly, Rob!” cried Mab loudly. ‘It can’t be apple-pie order and an apple-pie bed! They’re complete opposites!”

    “Be quiet, we’re not talking about the vagaries of the English language,” he said sternly.

    To Ben’s surprise, she pouted but did shut up.

    “See, it’s like this,” said Rob confidentially.

    Ben didn’t know he wanted all that much to hear it, especially if it signalled the beginning of the bust-up of John Murtrey’s great romance, but he sat back and let him tell it.

    According to Rob, the “toaster thing” had arisen because of Mab’s refusal to use John’s one in the flat—a perfectly ordinary one, was his claim—at all. And John had decided he’d quite like a variation on the bread and butter that constituted her idea of breakfast. Yes, every day, Rob confirmed calmly. Well, you know: when they were at the flat. So he showed her how to use the toaster—completely straightforward, according to Rob. Unfortunately John actually said it was completely straightforward, and told Mab she was being unnecessarily childish, and he’d make the toast himself. So she grabbed the toaster—not plugged in, Rob elaborated helpfully—and rushed into the bedroom, where she hurled it off the balcony. Narrowly missing several passing pedestrians.

    John didn’t lose his cool—not being at that stage, yet, according to Rob—he merely told her calmly she was being completely childish and it was neither amusing nor attractive. So she threw on a coat and rushed out. Incidentally favouring the man on the door with a prejudiced version of the lot.

    “I see, came round to your apartment, eh?” said Ben tolerantly at this point.

    “No, she went to a hotel and phoned up Paul Georgeson,” he said heavily.

    Ben’s jaw sagged. He’d had the impression that had been over last year.

    “See?” said Rob on a sour note. “Not that poor old John knew. Anyway, she calmed down and phoned him—told him she was lost somewhere up by the Google—I mean the Guggenheim. So the poor sap had to go and find her—what she was doing was sitting in that nice place where she had lunch with Paul the first time, sipping a drink and eating cakes.”

    “They’re of Italian descent: they weren’t cakes, they were little Italian biscuits,” Mab objected mildly.

    “Okay, little Italian biscuits. It took him two hours trying all the wrong side streets before he found her. He had a big bunch of roses for her, would you believe?” the young man added in disgust.

    “Well, yes, Rob,” said Ben apologetically.

    Rob gave a hard laugh. “Right! So everything was lovey-dovey for a while, only then she started up the clothes-scattering thing again.”

    “Oh—yes: you mentioned that,” said Ben weakly.

    “Yes. What she does, she strips them off and just lets them drop. John thought it was cute and naïvely sweet or some such, at first. Especially when it was expensive hôtel suites she was doing it in, see?”—Ben winced, nodding.—“Exactly. Only it got less funny once they were back in his flat—without a toaster, incidentally, he hadn't bought a new one: didn’t want to provoke her. Anyway, he’d invited a few of his friends round for an evening of cards—she knew they were coming. She hates any sort of card game, but she told him she didn’t mind.”

    “I didn’t mind!” she cried.

    “Just don’t interrupt,” he sighed. “Anyway, he was late home, he’d been having meetings with some men that are trying to headhunt him for their firm—and when he got there her clothes were all over the living-room and she was eating chocolates in the bedroom with her feet up, not even changed.”

    “I’d lost track of the time!” she cried.

    “Yes, but that was no excuse: you should have been watching the clock. –So of course she went and monopolised the bathroom while poor old John went round picking up all her clothes. Well, he thought all, but one of the lady guests found a shoe behind a cushion when she sat on the sofa, and when one of the men was out or something, I think they call it being dummy, he found a pair of panties in a potted plant.”

    “He thought it was funny!”

    “That’s right, and he’s been telling it all over town as a funny story, Mother. With, I might add, your explanation of how they got there.”

    Ben found he’d gone rather red. “What?” he croaked.

    “Yes, she gave him chapter and verse. It’ll have hit Wall Street by now: doesn’t that Lionel Rothschild chappie buy lots of shares?”

    “You mean it was Lionel Rothschild who found the panties?” croaked Ben.

    “Mm.”

    “Jesus! He’s got connections not just here and in D.C., but all over Europe!”

    “Ben, it was nothing!” cried Mab. “I merely explained that I hate wearing the things, one feels strangled down there, but John said if we were going to face up to his lawyers and her lawyers at the same table he couldn’t face the thought of me sitting there without panties, and would I please wear some! So of course I did. And when we got home I took them off immediately and he wasn’t upset then, I can tell you!”

    Rob winced. “Please don’t tell us, Mother. –And somehow after that,”—he gave her an evil look—“her habit of scattering clothes everywhere and never picking anything up began to get on John’s wick.”

    “Understandable,” said Ben faintly.

    “Mm. But he made the mistake of telling her so. So guess what? He had another meeting that day and when he came home she’d scattered all his clothes all over the flat! And on the balcony, too. I’m pretty sure some of them blew away.”

     “Did he lose his cool then?” croaked Ben.

    “Yes. I think anyone would have, wouldn’t they? Not that he shouted at her, mind you. He was very cold. He said she was childish and irresponsible and it had got very boring. And would she kindly pick them up. And she could disabuse her mind of the notion that making a pretence of never picking anything up was either convincing or, um, charmingly naïve, I think he said.”

    Mab was scowling. “It was really unfair! Because before, he said I was a child of Nature!”

    “Mother, you knew it was starting to annoy him and you deliberately went on doing it,” he sighed. “She’s like a cat with a mouse: once she’s got them she just plays with them,” he explained. “Loves provoking them to see how far they’ll go.”

    Ben winced. “Mm.”

    “Anyway, then came the big row: that’s why she’s here tonight.”

    Ben had assumed it was because of the clothes thing. He looked at him wildly.

    “Mm. She met this man at one of her little café-sitting sessions—well, who he was doesn’t matter. But she’d made a date to meet John there for lunch, and when he got there the fellow was leaning over her table and kissing her hand. So he was very annoyed, but of course she said there was nothing in it. So he calmed down. But three days later a messenger turned up at his flat with a big box of flowers and a parcel and there wasn’t any name on the parcel, just the address, so he opened it. Well, I dare say he guessed it was for her, but you can’t blame him, can you? And inside it—”

    Ben shut his eyes. “Rob, guy, if this is gonna be another pair of panties I don’t think I can take it,” he sighed.

    “Very funny!” said Mab crossly.

    “No,” said Rob with a reluctant grin. “Almost as bad, though, ’cos not only was it a bra in her size, it was a very expensive bra that poor John had selected for her himself, from a very exclusive shop in Paris.”

    “Silk, the most delicious shade of lilac, with tiny embroidered purple pansies here and there,” she sighed blissfully. “Hand-embroidered.”

    “By almost blind slave labour in Manila or Bangkok, I presume!” said Ben tartly. “Why in God’s name did you give the guy John’s address?”

    “Better than that,” said Rob drily. “She gave him the impression that it was her address. Fullstop.”

    Ben gulped.

    Mab pouted horribly. “I explained that it was just a slip, he meant nothing to me, but he was like a lovely ripe peach I just couldn’t resist! And isn’t everybody fallible?”

    “Uh—yeah, well, most people,” said Ben, rather red. “But not making sure you gave the guy the address of our apartment building instead of John’s—if you hadda give him an address—was real heedless, I gotta say it, Mab.”

    “Yes. Unkind,” said Rob with a heavy sigh. “Poor John.”

    “Oh pooh, darling!” she trilled, patting his hand. “I shall make it up to him, I promise you! Now, shall we have some of that lovely Irish coffee of Mike’s?”

    Somehow Ben didn’t feel like it tonight. He wasn’t condemning the woman—God knew, he should talk—but all the same, Rob was right, that sort of carelessness was unkind. So he made his excuses and went home.

    Titania just looked at Robin and raised her eyebrows very high.

    “I know,” he sighed, “but Isabella already knows you’re fallible, Mother; it might be of some comfort to Ben, but it won’t be to her. And poor John: it must have really hurt.”

    Mike bustled over to them, seeing Ben was out of the way. “Revered Queen Mab,” he said in a low voice, “none of your carryings-on are gonna please His Majesty, you know.”

    She shrugged pettishly. “Oh—him! I have foresworn his bed and company!”

    Wincing, Mike raised his bushy eyebrows interrogatively at Robin.

    He grimaced. “Don’t ask me. Not doing anything about Isabella, I think.”

    Mike looked at Her Majesty again but she merely smiled her melting smile and cooed: “Could we have two of those lovely sweet Irish drinks with the cream, please, darling Mike?”

    Yeah. Well, at least he could do that. Glumly Mike stumped off to get them.

    Given his druthers, James Kingston wouldn’t have gone anywhere near John Murtrey. God knew he wasn’t unsympathetic, but the rumours on the Street were flying thick and fast: the dame had been seen with Paul Georgeson; she’d been seen with an unidentified guy dining at some restaurant that was flavour of the month—this being New York, NY, more likely flavour of the day; she’d been seen again with Georgeson; she’d been seen dining with Georgeson, his brother and the latter’s wife (their new Chairman of the Board—that brother, yep); she’d been seen at the races (again) in a large hat (again) with some unidentified guy; she’d been seen at a gallery first-night showing with old Tony Roberts—said to be divorcing his fourth, rumour as yet unverified; she’d been seen, ye gods, at a Gala Night at the Met with Frank Roberts, the said Tony Roberts’ son; she’d been seen with Lionel Rothschild, lunching with a Swiss guy who looked, so the story ran, just as eager as Rothschild… The phrase “playing fast and loose with his affections” did kind of fit the bill—yeah.

    However, when he bumped into him at a sufficiently obscure watering hole where the guy hadn’t been seen for over a year, and where, accordingly, James had thought he’d be safe, he let him drag him into a booth and bend his ear. It amounted to the two words the poor guy came out with in his first sentence: “wayward” and “wilful.” Ouch.

    There was a lot more chapter and verse, of course, and possibly—if it hadn’t been for all those sightings all over with so many other guys—you would have said it didn’t amount to much. Well, lots of people were untidy—as a matter of fact Denise’s clothes were more often on the floor than on that handy chest thing at the foot of the bed that his parents called an ottoman and that she just called a blanket chest—and not all women were interested in domesticity let alone wanting to whip up dainty little meals at the drop of a hat, but James was well aware that in life it was the little things that got you down, dropped grit in the works, and just generally silted up the bright waters of your perfect relationship.

    Complete refusal to entertain anything approaching the notion of domestic comfort—uh-huh, got that, John.

    Sustained indifference to anything approaching fine art—uh, yeah, well, not all people were that way inclined, but yeah, art always had been a passion of John’s, so James just nodded kindly.

    Determined impersonation of a naïve child incapable of coping with city life, any electrical appliance you cared to name, and any domestic convenience from the dishwasher down to the—becoming heated—goddamn drapes, for God’s sake!

    Uh—oh! Trying to smother a grin, James realised what he meant, with a vivid recollection of him and Denise at a very nice hotel, not very long at all after they’d first met, and her fighting with the room’s drapes. Tried to draw them by hand: yep. Unaware that those cords at the side, completely hidden by the dumb things (her very expression) were provided for you to draw them nicely, without sullying the edges with your grimy paws, thus necessitating the replacing of said drapes well within their calculated lifesp— Leave it out, James! Like that.

    John took a deep breath. “That may seem trivial, but it’s all of a piece! Naïveté may be charming in a girl of nineteen, but in a woman of her age and experience—!”

    This most unfortunate last word hung in the air. The luckless James went very red.

    “I’ll get another round,” said John grimly, striding off to get them.

    Please, God, a thunderbolt—anything! The end of the world, ’ud do, thought James madly.

    It wasn’t a thunderbolt, exactly, but He did put on a doozie of a thunderstorm, lightning flashing amongst the Manhattan towers, the sky almost dead black with a few putrid yellow edges to the clouds, and the rain pouring down like Niagara. True, this wasn’t unusual—well, slightly early, it was still only late June, it was more likely mid-July they’d get a real show—but James, shoving John into a taxi and letting it go without suggesting it could easily drop him off, duly sent up thanks for it.

    “There you are!” said Mortimer in tones of huge relief as Ben reached the apartment building.

    Ugh, what in God’s name could be the matter? Flood in the apartment, entirely the guy’s fault? He’d let a burglar in on his own initiative?

    “Hey, Mortimer,” he said uneasily.

    “Listen,” said Mortimer, taking his arm confidentially, and preventing him forcibly from going inside.

    “Yeah?” replied Ben reluctantly. “Something up?”

    “Uh—yeah.” He swallowed hard.

    By now Ben was imagining all sorts of things—though really, which of his relatives would’ve been dumb enough to leave a message with Mortimer— Shit! Unless something had happened to Aunty Sue and Crazy Mary Jean had called—

    “What in Hell’s the matter?” he snarled.

    Mortimer was actually seen to recoil—though not leaving go of his arm. “It’s her.” He swallowed again. “Mab. Something’s up.”

    Ben sagged. “Is that all?”

    “All? The poor dame’s bawling her eyes out!” he cried.

    Yeah, yeah, she was bawling her eyes out and Mortimer had an almighty crush on her, so what was new…

    But this, it appeared, was serious, and Rob couldn’t do anything with her—Go figure!—and, he, Mortimer, had tried everything he knew—the mind boggled—and couldn’t Ben think of anything?

    No. “It’ll be guy trouble,” he said in tones that unfortunately sounded about as bored and hot as he felt. “And can I go in, please? I’d quite like to take a shower before I actually melt down. Or haven’t you noticed it’s ninety in the shade with ninety-nine percent humidity?”

    Apparently he hadn’t: he just looked blank.

    Ben sighed. “Mortimer, there’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry if Mab’s thing with John Murtrey has fallen apart—that’s it, is it?”—Mortimer nodded glumly.—“Yes. But she has been asking for it, she’s been seen with a round dozen other guys all over town—”

    “No!” he cried in anguished tones. “She explained all that, and she thought it was okay!” –Oh, really? For the fiftieth time, would this be?

    “It wasn’t her, it’s him!” he cried.—Golly Moses, had the man come to his senses at last and duh—“He’s dumped her for some other dame!”

    Well, whoopee! Ben took another look at the wrinkled, anguished face far too close to his own, and sighed. “I geddit. Well, look, Mortimer, come on up to the apartment, I really gotta take a shower, but we’ll have a belt and you can tell me all about it and—uh—I guess we can talk it over, though I’m not guaranteeing—”

    Mortimer was already dragging him inside, where, shit! He’d jammed the elevator doors open with a beer crate!

    —not guaranteeing there’s anything either of us can do: quite. Oh, well.

    … And did this mean that the guy was gonna be his slave for life? Ho, ho, ho. And Merry Christmas in July to you, too.

    Oberon laughed nastily.

    Poor Puck recoiled. “Buh-but Master, Mighty King of All the Faerie Lands, Noblest Oberon—”

    “The wanton flibbertigibbet hath met her just desserts!”

    Puck swallowed.

    The eyebrows were raised at him. “Was there more?”

    “Her eyes are swelled up with weeping, My Liege, so that they do resemble a bloated mackerel that hath lain a se’en-night on the sands.”

    “How delightful,” he said acidly.

    Er—yes. An unfortunate image. He tried to think of a better, but failed. “Um, Revered Oberon, just the tiniest drop from that little western flower, purple with Love’s wound, called Love-in-idleness—”

    “I don’t think so, Puck. Not this time. Besides, she’s more than capable of falling for unsuitable characters for herself, isn’t she?” he drawled.

    Er…

    “Be gone from my sight, silly Puck. Or do you wish to put a girdle round the—”

    “I’m gone, Sire!” He vanished.

    Oberon laughed nastily. “Wanton hag, catamount, thou lascivious beast called Woman!”

    The Faerie Land shimmered with silence.

    Oberon looked about him, and shrugged a little. “Faerie musicians, ho!”

    Instantly they were there, fingering their instruments hopefully. “You called, Master? A merrie roundelay, Sire?”

    He eyed them mockingly. “If music be the food of love, play on.”

    Immediately they burst into a merrie roundelay. Apparently they, like the rest of the Faerie Realm—aye, and the mortal realm, too—had no grasp of the meaning of the word “if”.

    When Ben got home next evening the bawling could be heard right through his floor—again. Sighing, he tried putting his headphones on. He didn’t want to listen to anything, in fact he was gonna take a shower in a minute, but maybe they’d help. …Well, a bit.

    There came a banging at his door, audible right through the headphones and the distant wailing. He removed the headphones. Ow!

    He opened the door to the no-longer-distant wailing. “Oh, hi, Mortimer. Come in. She’s still at it, then.”

    “Yeah,” Mortimer agreed glumly, coming in. “Young Rob give her them knock-out pills I got him last night and they worked, only soon as she woke up she started in again.”

    “I didn’t hear anything this morning, before I went to work.”

    “Uh, well, no: she didn’t wake up till gone three in the afternoon,” he admitted on a sheepish note.

    Jesus, what were they? Ben gaped at him.

    Mortimer cleared his throat. “Don’t look at me like that, guy! They were just some stuff the doc prescribed for Mom’s hip last winter.”

    “I see. How is she, Mortimer?” he asked nicely.

    He looked sour. Well, sourer than normal, though it wasn’t that easy to tell. “Not so bad with the warmer weather, but now the doc’s saying she’ll have to have a hip replacement. And the insurance won’t cover it.”

    Yeah, well, given that the blockhead had been radically opposed to Obama Care, when he represented the precise demographic it was intended for—!

    “Yeah,” said Ben heavily. “Oops,” he noted as Rob’s voice could now be heard shouting. “Help yourself to a Scotch—over there. I was just gonna take a shower.” He hurried into the bathroom to the accompaniment of more high-pitched wailing from below. Jesus, even the water didn’t drown her out!

    He didn’t think Mortimer would care what he wore, so he just put on his ancient terry-cloth robe that he’d brought back from Mom’s last summer—faded, striped, worn thin, the kind of thing that Tracy would have binned instantly—and got himself a cold beer. “Want a beer chaser?”

    Mortimer didn’t mind if he did, so they did that, after Ben had turned the air conditioning a notch colder. It wasn’t all that peaceful, though.

    “Oh for God’s sake, woman!” he cried as Mab’s voice was clearly heard wailing: “Another woman! How could he—ee!”—then devolving into convulsive sobs.

    Suddenly Mortimer strode over to the door, wrenched it open and bellowed: “HEY! SHUDDUP!”

    “Uh—thanks,” said Ben feebly into the sudden silence as the guy closed the door, looking grimly pleased.

    “No sweat.”

    Merciful silence.

    Mortimer licked his lips. “Never thought she—well, you know,” he said awkwardly.

    “That she was like that? I’m afraid I did,” said Ben heavily. Oh, dear: the end of a perfect crush, huh? Poor old guy!

    “Yeah.”

    Ben finished off his beer and debated getting himself a Scotch. But this would mean he should offer Mortimer another round, and would he ever get rid of the guy— “Jesus!” he gasped, as Mab screamed: “You’re HEARTLESS! HEARTLESS!”

    Mortimer shot to his feet, looking grim. Wrenching the front door open, this time he went to the top of the stairs, which most unfortunately debouched onto the landing a bare three yards away, and bellowed down them: “SHUT UP, WOMAN!”

    “Thanks,” said Ben feebly, as his ears rang. “Come on, have another Scotch.”

    “Yeah, why not?” he agreed.

    They did that.

    “Can’t be this bad downstairs?” suggested Ben, as the wailing started up again. Kinda high-pitched, y’know? Horrible.

    “Ya would think that, only it’s the goddamn staircase: it kinda echoes down it and my room’s right at the bottom of it and the door doesn’t fit too good,” he said sourly. “Them earphones help, do they?” he added glancing at them.

    “Not all that much.”

    “That’s that idea down the tubes, then,” he noted sourly. “Oh, the Hell with it! I’m going over to Mom’s.” He went over to the door and opened it. Ben blenched. “Thanks for the DRINK!” he bellowed above the racket. “SEE YA!”

    “See ya, Mortimer,” Ben agreed limply as he vanished. Limply he staggered over to his headphones and put them on. A slight—very slight—improvement.

    “HUH-EARTLESS! De-ser-er-er-ted!” came the wail.

    Oh, God.

    The Fourth of July duly came and went, and Mab, to the relief of most of the occupants who hadn’t already left for their summer vacation, vanished from the apartments and, it was sincerely to be hoped, from all their lives. Ben eventually got the full intel on the bust-up, mostly from Rob, and party from James, who seemed to have got it from John Murtrey himself. Both his version of Mab’s behaviour and his version of how he met this other dame…

    Mab had promised to be good, was trying to remember to pick up her clothes, was letting John make toast without a murmur and had even admired some painting that he was thinking about buying, so everything had calmed down considerably. Though John was feeling more and more irritated, as June hotted up, by her capriciousness and refusal—tacit refusal, which made it more irritating—to take anything seriously. Those light laughs, the light pats on the cheek and the light exclamations of “Silly one!” or “Never mind, darling!” or “Can it signify, dear one?” or etcetera, had ceased to be charming. He had also discovered that she rarely held the same opinion on anything you cared to name for more than two days at a stretch. Well, if you discounted the flowers she filled his apartment with—she “adored” flowers! At first John had found this charmingly feminine. More latterly, as the bunches crowded his modern dining table—ash, a beautiful piece of wood—and a Georgian sideboard, the one antique piece that featured in his restrained modern cream-painted dining-room, and he discovered wet rings on the said priceless antique, he became very annoyed indeed.

    There’d also been the case of the deadly mimosa—bad at the time but the more he brooded on it over the weeks that followed, the worse it got, alas. She’d filled his bedroom with great branches of the flowers that she reliably let go dry, thus bringing on the most terrific attack of hay fever he’d ever had—at first he’d thought it was a bad attack of flu, his head was burning hot and he actually felt dizzy—and John reached the point of yelling at her. The more so as when he’d first complained she'd given that tinkling little laugh and said: “But darling, they’re like clusters of tiny yellow fairies, just alighted for an instant, they’re so pretty!” To which John had replied grimly: “Mab, a woman of your age who gabbles on about fairies is just plain ridiculous. Aaah-SHOO! God!”

    True, as James Kingston had most certainly thought to himself at this point, many women would have taken that very badly indeed—mentioning her age? The guy was demented! But Mab had only said: “Oh, poor darling! Are they making you all sneezy and wheezy? I must see about getting them out of here!” And, not making the slightest effort to so, had rustled away in what John had referred to sourly as “Some trailing pink silk thing” to some damned gallery do that some idiot had sent him tickets for, possibly under the impression that he wanted to buy hideous lumps of chewed gum sitting in bathroom porcelain. James had expressed the optimistic thought that she must have hated it, to which the poor guy had replied: “No, she eventually came home around two in the morning and giggled like a schoolgirl over it.” Ouch!

    But later things seemed to have settled down, more or less, and so they agreed to meet for lunch at this place Mab had “discovered” up near the Guggenheim—those who realised it was, once again, the place where she’d had that first lunch with Paul Georgeson goggling at the narrator, at this point—and as it was a beautiful day John had set off happily for it. The more so as he’d just bought a very nice little print which would look very well on his bedroom wall, as soon as he got rid of all those flower vases of hers and the drooping roses currently in them.

    He was a little early, so he just ordered a coffee, grabbed a pavement table, as Mab loved eating outdoors, and sat down, idly watching the passing scene and envisaging just where that print should hang…

    Time passed. John began looking at his watch. He had another coffee, and debated ordering lunch. There was little point, really, in waiting for Mab—she wouldn’t eat a decent meal, she picked at things like a goddamn bird if he ordered her anything solid, and then stuffed herself on cakes and similar muck. One dreadful day he’d made the mistake of taking her to lunch at an excellent Japanese restaurant and she’d eaten some of the sushi and sashimi, being so particular about what she chose that it became embarrassing, but then refused to touch the beautiful (and very expensive) paper-thin slivers of beef that you were supposed to dip into your steaming pot of broth—and that the chef had proudly carved for them in person. Then afterwards she’d made him take her to some hole in the wall that did donuts while you waited, and eaten a whole bagful of the things!

    The steakhouse began to fill up, more people appeared on the pavements lunch-bound, and there was no sign of her… John sighed, wishing he’d brought a newspaper. Maybe they’d have some inside—but undoubtedly someone would steal his table if he abandoned it.

    Time passed. All the pavement tables were now occupied and the place was crammed inside. He was just about to give in and order—he’d tried her cell five times and got no answer at all, she’d turned the thing off yet again, whether by accident or design was anyone’s guess—when a woman came up to his table and said in a strangled voice: “Excuse me. It’s John Murtrey, isn’t it? I’ve got a message for you from Mab.”

    John gaped at her. She was a plump woman of about Mab’s own age, in faded jeans and a too-tight pale yellow tee-shirt that more than demonstrated her attributes were quite as good as Mab’s. The untidy mop of riotous light brown curls was just chopped off at about the level of that plump… chin. John’s brow puckered. Surely not!

    “I’m sorry,” she said, going even redder than she already had been. “’Tis John, isn’t it?” She took off her sunglasses, gave him a desperate look and said: “Mab called to say she can’t make it for lunch after all.”

    “Bunny?” he croaked. “Jesus! It is you, by God!”

    “Um, yes, um, it’s just a coincidence!” she gasped. “Um, Barbara,” she added lamely. “No-one calls me Bunny these days.”

    “Uh—Barbara, of course,” said John very numbly indeed. “What— How in God’s name— Mab called you?”

    “Yes,” said Barbara Jenkins uncomfortably, standing on one leg and hooking one foot around the opposing ankle. “She can’t make it for lunch after all.”

    “Oh—right,” said John without interest. “But what in God’s name are you doing here? And how do you— Look, sit down, Bun—Barbara.”

    “Well, um, okay,” she said awkwardly, subsiding onto the edge of the opposite chair.

    The waiter was immediately at John’s elbow. “Can I take your order now, sir?”

    “Uh—yes, thanks. I’ll have the steak sandwich on rye, and can I have that with the horseradish cream, no gravy? Thanks. –Join me, Bu—Barbara?”

    “Um, well, I was gonna have lunch anyroad… Um, well, yes, but Dutch,” she said gruffly, very flushed again. “I mean, it’s just a coincidence, she didn’t know I’d, um, met you.”

    Met him was one way of putting it, mm. The most passionate summer of his life, and he did include last year with Mab, yes. Up Cape Cod way, it had been. That year their twin boys, just turned sixteen, had opted for a summer camp positioned very near to another summer camp that was full of Girls, so Felicity, just forty-one, had been free to spend the entire summer on the nearby golf course, where she was, gee, on the committee, and John, forty-two and holding, had spent the entire summer in Bunny’s bed. In a creaky old wooden house that she’d recently inherited from her grandmother, who wasn’t a Cape Cod socialite, thank God, but had worked in the nearby convenience store most of her life. The bed had been old and creaky, too! –Uh, Jesus, must have been fifteen years ago!

    “What? Uh—sorry: Dutch if you must,” he said weakly. “Try the standard steak sandwich with the horseradish cream, Bunny, it’s to die for.”

    Very, very flushed, Barbara Jenkins said in a strangled voice to the waiter: “Um, that’s a bit much for me, at lunchtime. Could I just have the steak salad, please? Um, and a spring water.”

    Of course she could, and he accepted John’s order for spring water for him, too, and went off looking distinctly pleased.

    “Thought I was never gonna order, I was sitting here looking like a guy that had been stood up,” said John happily.

    “Um, yes! She just couldn’t make it!” she gasped.

    “Uh-huh. Said she was terribly sorry, did she?” he murmured, not without malice aforethought.

    As he’d expected, the poor woman floundered—she always had been incapable of telling the tiniest white lie. “Um, not as such!” she gasped. “But I’m sure she is!”

    Very drily indeed John replied: “There’s absolutely no need to cover up for Mab to me, Bunny. I know all her goddamn tricks, and I wouldn’t dream of asking if you’ve any idea which guy she’s gone off with this time.”

    “Um, no,” she muttered, swallowing hard.

    “Spoilt for choice,” concluded John wryly.

    “She—she does like men, but—but I think she’s charming!” she blurted. “I like her.” She looked at him defiantly.

    “I like her too, Bun—sorry, Barbara. But I do know now that I can’t stand living with her.”

    “Oh,” she said weakly. “I sort of thought—I mean… I thought it was permanent.”

    John Murtrey sighed. “You thought it was permanent because I was fool enough to divorce that bitch Felicity for Mab instead of fifteen years back for you, Bunny! Where the Hell did you disappear to? I went back to Cape Cod that October and the house was sold!”

    “Did you?” said Barbara wanly. “I thought you realised I was only there for that summer, I couldn’t afford to pay taxes on a house I wasn’t living in.”

    “And in any case,” said John sourly, “I’d made it clear I wouldn’t dream of divorcing Felicity’s family influence and ruining my chances of rising in the firm, or whatever goddamn stupid phrase I used.”

    “Consolidating your career and making it to a position of real responsibility with a view to eventually making CEO,” she said dully.

    John sighed. “Yeah. What a cretin.”

    “Um, I think, um, middle-aged men,” she ventured, swallowing, “quite often feel that way, looking back. But an ambitious person in his forties that wanted to further his career couldn’t be happy if he wasn’t allowed to.”

    “I suppose,” he said heavily. “Whatever.”

    Silence.

    John tried to pull himself together. “But how on earth did you meet Mab?”

    “Um, I work round here. We shared a table at lunch here—the place was very full. And just got talking. Then she came back with me to see the stuff I was restoring.”

    “Restoring?”

    “Mm. I’m a restorer. Artefacts, mainly, I don’t do much work with pictures.”

    “Oh, good God, yes! I’d forgotten! So are you with the Metropolitan Museum?” he asked, smiling.

    “Um, no. Fenner’s. It’s just round the corner and up a block. They headhunted me. Only now Josh from the Museum’s trying to headhunt me back.”

    “I see!” said John gaily. “So you’re an expert at your profession, Bunny!”

    “Um, yes,” she muttered, wishing he wouldn’t call her that. Not that it meant anything—just a stupid habit. As a little girl she’d always been called that, and of course all the people Gramma knew had called her that, and so in the local stores everyone had just gone on using it. John had thought it so cute and immediately adopted it… If only he’d stop smiling at her like that! It was just a stupid coincidence, and she’d long since put him entirely out of her head! Well, gee, fifteen years? How long could you go on pining after a person? Not to say, not seriously wanting anyone else.

    It had been a shock to realise, when Mab had burbled on about John, finally mentioning his surname, that it must be him. Not that she cared, and she was glad he was with charming, beautiful, well-dressed Mab. It was just a stupid coincidence.

    Over the lunch John said, smiling: “You’ve hardly changed at all, Bunny!”

    Barbara looked down at herself drily. “I’ve gone up two dress sizes.”

    “Yes? It all looks good to me!” he said with a little laugh.

    Yes, well, she’d acquired the extra pounds: pity she hadn’t also acquired the extra sense, in those fifteen years. He didn’t look much different, either. Thinner, the lines in his cheeks that had always been there now more clearly marked, the dimples that he hated still showing when he smiled. His teeth looked as good as ever, but then, thought Barbara Jenkins bleakly, with his salary and the Doncaster billions to back it up, why wouldn’t they? His hair had been dark but greying and slightly receding, short and well brushed back, back then; it was now silver, less of it at the temples, still very short, still well brushed back. She’d never seen him in a suit but his leisure gear had always been very neat and kind of pressed-looking. Today the suit, a pale grey light-weight thing, was immaculate, the tie indescribably discreet and tasteful… Barbara sighed. He was still irresistible.

    “What?” said John anxiously.

    “Uh—nothing. You look very rich,” she said dully.

    There was a started silence and Barbara told herself sourly she'd shoved her great foot in her mouth—yet again.

    “I suppose I am, by many people’s standards. Though Felicity’s taking me for a large slice in the divorce,” he said lightly.

    What on earth could you say? Desperately she replied: “Mm. So has it come through yet?”

    “Not quite. Had a meeting with the lawyers about—uh—two months since, I think—because she’d suddenly decided she wanted the cars. –This’d be on top of the garage to put ’em in and the house that goes with it, but I hate the dump in any case. I don’t think that ever registered with her,” he added thoughtfully.

    “Oh,” said Barbara in a small voice.

    “I know: you can’t imagine it,” said John drily.

    “Um, not really,” she admitted, swallowing. “In my socio-economic bracket people marry for love. Well, things may fall apart, but— What I mean is, yours always sounded more like a financial agreement.”

    “I suppose it was. Mom and Pop always said she bought me,” he admitted with a twist of the lips.

    “Yeah, but why, if she didn’t want you like that?” cried Barbara, very flushed.

    “In bed, you mean?” He shrugged. “That’s never counted, with her. She could see I was appropriately upwardly mobile, didn’t eat peas off of the knife… And I think, though possibly this hadn’t occurred consciously, she saw that she could rule me.”

    Barbara swallowed.

    “Yes; awful,” said John drily. “Never mind, it’s over, I’m rid of the woman.”

    “Mm. Um, what about your twins?” she asked in a strangled voice.

    “Chris—he refuses to let anyone call him Crispin these days—is in the Air Force: navigator with a bomber crew. Let’s hope he never has to use his skills,” he added sourly.

    She nodded hard, looking horrified.

    “Mm. He’s married with two little boys, five and four: determinedly called Freddy and Tommy!” he said with a smothered laugh.

    That round, still naïve face fell. “Not Johnny?”

    John’s eyes twinkled: “No: Dave got in first!”

    “I—I thought his name was Damian?”

    “It is!” he said with a laugh. “Sending them to that military school was all her idea, but it had the opposite effect to the one intended! It was surnames there, of course—ludicrous—and he was simply Murtrey, Jnr.,—highly unfair, by about two minutes!—but he’s been ‘Dave’ to his buddies forever! His little boy’s six, and he’s Johnny! Dave himself is married to a lovely girl—not that Chris’s Harriet isn’t a sweet girl, too—and guess what they’re doing?”

    Buying up little companies, stripping them of their assets, and making millions? thought Barbara madly. “Um, not the Air Force too? –No. Um, the Marines?”

    “Nothing military!” said John with chuckle. “I’ll give you a clue. Near Napa Valley but it’s not grapes.”

    “Not gr— That isn’t a clue at all!” she cried.

    “Organic produce,” said John, grinning all over his face. “Lettuces, in the main. Several—no, well, numberless—varieties.”

    “Help. Isn’t that a lot of work?” she croaked.

    “Yeah, but they employ quite a lot of people to help do it.”

    “Immigrant Mexicans on slave wages,” she said grimly.

    She always had been a bit of a militant—well, Leftish, politically. “Wrong,” he said smoothly. “Immigrant Mexicans and Guatemalans—whether legal or illegal Dave and Josie don’t enquire—on very reasonable wages. She’s set up a lovely crèche for the kids, too: Johnny as well,” he explained, smiling all over his face. “Though he’ll be starting school this Fall.”

    She just looked at him limply. Why the Hell was the man stuck in New York getting mixed up with glamorous women that turned out to be all wrong for him, and working in that awful bank, when he could be out there with a son and grandson he obviously adored, doing honest work in the fresh air?

    “What?” said John defensively.

    Barbara licked her lips. “If I was you I’d dump the silly old bank and go join them.” She gave him a defiant look.

    “Uh—” John passed his hand over his face. “Didn’t Mab say— No, she wouldn’t have bothered. Not interested in anything that doesn’t directly involve herself, and you can include everything in that, from interior décor, through housework, through fine art… Sorry. Forget it. I ditched the bank last year. Had enough. I admit Mab provided the initial impetus, but I certainly don’t regret it.”

    “So what are you doing now?” she croaked.

    “Nothing, at the moment. Foraging round New York picking up the occasional delicious little Rembrandt print. –I won’t show it you just now, we need to wash our hands,” he said as she looked at the neat parcel on the table beside him.

    “Yes, of course,” said the restorer simply. “Um, so you haven’t found another job? You could go out and join Dave and see his little Johnny!” she beamed.

    Looking at her round, smiling face, alight with simple pleasure at the thought of his pleasure, John Murtrey felt something deep inside him kind of… break. Crack, maybe.

    “Yes,” he said with difficulty. “I could. And I will: this summer. Though that sort of life isn’t for me, I do love the city. Know what I do when I’m by myself, weekends?”

    “Um, you used to ride the subway, didn’t you?”

    “Yes, that’s it! I think of a number, then I walk for a while in any direction from the apartment, find a subway entrance, catch the first train that comes along and go that number of stops! Well, I’ve ended up in a few doubtful-looking places and had to get right back onto the next train,” he admitted, “but generally I just wander. Find all sorts of nooks and crannies that way. Little street fairs, tiny parks that are barely on the map, old industries that you’d have thought had almost faded away, little restaurants full of people speaking unidentifiable languages with the blackboard menu so smudged it’s unreadable in any language…”

    “Yes,” said Barbara, smiling. “Lovely. I love New York, too.”

    He nodded, and ate up the remains of his steak sandwich hungrily. Then he told her about the two banks—well, the main two—that were headhunting him, and the other option, working for a big charitable foundation, which did appeal more, though he knew such places were always bogged down in administration, top-heavy with chiefs and not enough Indians, and didn’t put nearly enough of their huge income into the intended needy cause—or causes, in this instance…

    “After that,” James Kingston had said to Ben, kindly hauling himself out of the clutch of his Naugahyde couch and getting him another beer, “it was all hunky-dory. Don’t ask me how the guy does it, but she agreed to meet him after work that evening and he just took it from there. Ditched Mab that very afternoon, we gather.”

    Ben winced. “That’d be right.”

    “Yeah. So they’re going to go see his son over in Napa this summer—it’s an organic lettuce farm: bit of a change from the fleshpots of Europe, huh?” He laughed.

    Denise bustled in looking busy. “Are you two still gossiping?”

    “Just giving him the full skinny on John’s new woman, hon’,” James explained.

    Denise giggled suddenly. “His Bunny! Yes! He invited us over to that awful sterile apartment of his to meet her, Ben.”

    “Having got rid of all those vases of dead roses Mab left him with,” interpolated James, grinning widely.

    “Shut up, James, I’m telling him!” Denise sat down in the saggy tan armchair and accepted a beer without apparently being aware she was doing it. “No, well, not just the roses, you should see the rings she’s left on his beautiful ash table and that glorious antique sideboard!”

    “Water rings, guy,” said James to Ben’s puzzled face.

    “Oh! –Omigod,” he croaked.

    “Yeah. That woulda been enough to cause a break-up, all by itself, in my opinion,” said James thoughtfully.

    “Shut up, James! Well, we had a very pleasant evening, Ben, Barbara’s the most unassuming woman you could imagine—”

    “And obviously thinks the sun shines out of his ears,” noted James drily.

    “Well, exactly. Not the sort that needs to be waited on hand and foot and always be the centre of attention,” Denise elaborated. “Not that he was taking advantage of her in any way: he didn’t make her cook the dinner or like that, Ben, I don’t mean!”

    “Catered,” said James laconically.

    “Shut up, James! It was very nice. A cold chicken mousse-y sort of thing—not mushy, slices of chicken kind of laid in it, I have got a recipe like it, only mine always turns out messy”—here James winked at Ben—“but this was beautifully done, with a kind of pattern in slices of hard-boiled eggs on top—anyroad, it was all delicious, and the ice cream—no, he called it sorbet—was lovely! Three scoops, cantaloupe, lemon and watermelon, the prettiest thing ever!”—James winked at Ben again.—“But,” said Denise impressively, drawing a very deep breath, “the funny thing is, she looks exactly—exactly, Ben—like a down-home version of Mab!”

    Ben’s jaw dropped.

    “Yes!” said Denise triumphantly. “Brown hair and brown eyes, but the exact same figure, very curvaceous! And of course she wasn’t dressed up in anything from Paris, she’s just a lovely, ordinary woman: she had on one of those Indian print skirts in a lightweight cotton—I must say, I’d thought they’d gone out years back—and a scoop-neck red tee!”

    “For dinner?” he croaked.

    “Informal, fella,” drawled James.

    Ben gave his boss a look of loathing. “But my God, Denise, the man’s—I mean—!”

    “At a loss for words,” James explained courteously to his helpmeet.

    “Shut up, James,” she sighed. “No, well, underneath, Ben, he’s just a small-town boy: his Pop ran a general store in, um—”

    “Hicksville, Iowa. –He only works in outer space,” James elaborated helpfully.

    Ben couldn’t dredge up a smile. “Yeah, but… Are you guys trying to tell me he’s reverting to his roots? Because honestly, I just can’t see it! Not in that pristine apartment of his! I mean, Jesus, he’s been living like that for—”

    “We know,” said Denise kindly. “But that is it, yes. At least as far as his personal life. Well, I think it’s a matter of coming home to some simple home comfort, Ben,” she explained kindly. “He probably will take that job with the charitable foundation: he’s looking at it seriously. And this summer they’re gonna go see his little grandson at the lettuce farm in Napa Valley!” she beamed.

    Why was James wincing? He’d just told him the same thing himself! Ben shot him a puzzled look. “That’s great, Denise! I’m real glad to hear it.”

    “Yeah,” said James heavily. “No, well, me, too, of course! Anything been heard of Mab?”

    “No: Rob said she’s gone home.”

    “Ooh, you can just see it!” said Denise eagerly “Him putting her on the plane for England, First-Class all the way, bawling her eyes out over the champagne, until the billionaire in the next whatchamacallit decides to comfort her!”

    “Yep!” they both agreed happily, grinning.

    And that was that, as far as New York was concerned.

    “Mother, stop crying,” said Isabella uncomfortably.

    “Be-he-trayed!” she sobbed. “Another woman! How cuh-hould he-ee?”

    “Yuh, um, you weren’t exactly faithful to him,” she muttered, going very red.

    “That’s diff-iff-hiff-erent! I can’t huh-help it! I’m the Fair-huh-airy Queen!”

    “I don’t see—”

    “It’s my muh-mission to love ev-ev-everyone!” she sobbed.

    “Um, that is true,” put in Puck awkwardly.

    “‘But huh-him! He swore eternal fidel-it-ee-ee-ee!” she wailed.

    “Mother, don’t,” said Isabella limply.

    “I’m so unhu-huh-happ-ee!” she wept.

    “Um, yes, that's true: I've never seen so many primroses, it's like a flood of them,” noted Puck. “Billows, even:

“Float upon the primrose billows,

Use these flowerets for your pillows,

Sad you be and prone to weep,

Close your eyes in soothing sleep.”

    Titania wept harder than ever. “I’m so unhu-huh-happ-ee! How could he?”

    “Mother, he’s only a mortal, all mortal men are weak and fallible!” cried Isabella.

    For an instant, the Faerie Realm rang with silence.

    Then Titania’s sobs redoubled themselves, lakes more primroses sprang up, the bluebells lay down quite flat in sympathy, and all the leaves and grasses began to drip silver drops from the sympathetic showers…

Next chapter:

https://isabelladowntoearth-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/summer-breeze-makes-me-feel-fine.html