There's Gotta Be A Morning After

13

There’s Gotta Be A Morning After

    Really, it was quite well put. Cogent, even. Well argued, you might say. Not that Ben was concentrating: he’d heard it all before. Though, true, last night had given her even more fuel for the decision that now was the time to establish their priorities—which she then ruthlessly proceeded to establish—and consolidate their position vis-à-vis permanency and a fulfilling relationship that would be both highly suitable and acceptable—to whom, apparently not needing stating. She calculated that a house on Long Island would suit their planned lifestyle—of course Father would help them out just at first—naturally not near them, that was an exclusive area, but as she had no brothers, it wasn’t too soon to start envisioning the future. Now, schools and pre-schools must be a consideration, and though there was some argument for staying where they were and purchasing the floor below to create a pleasant duplex, she had discussed this very fully with Mother and Father, and they were agreed that a pleasant suburban ambiance with compatible neighbours would be far more sensible; start as you mean to go on, Ben! And there was no doubt her biological clock was ti—

    Maybe it was the breakfast of excruciatingly thin rye things sparingly spread with something unspeakable from a health food jar, accompanied by a tumblerful of something evilly green, that caused Ben to get up from the efficiently Tracy-cleared breakfast table and say very loudly at this point: “Shut UP, Tracy! You can take your biological clock and shove it where the sun don’t shine! I haven’t planned out anything, not that you’d have noticed! I’ve had it! I don’t want a future of any kind with you, and you can take your crap and be out of my apartment by noon today!”

    With that he marched over to the door, grabbed the overcoat that luckily he’d hung on the coatrack last night before going to bed on the couch, and slammed out.

    The morning after the Worth, Inglis “anniversary” cocktail party, always held on a Friday regardless of the actual date of the anniversary of the firm’s founding, was sacred to sleeping in, in the James Kingston household. Mercifully, teenage kids were notorious for being unable to get up in the mornings, so James and Denise could rely on not being disturbed with whining demands for sustenance.

    This particular Saturday morning, however, was a bit different. James roused groggily to find her sitting bolt upright staring at the far wall.

    “Uh?” he grunted, reaching groggily for his watch. What? Uh—no: upside-down, He turned it right side up and peered, one eye closed the better to focus. Nine ten. “Headache?” he groaned.

    “No-o…” she replied slowly.

    “Go back to slee’,” he groaned.

    “No. –What time is it in England?” she asked briskly.

    What? “Shurrup. Talking garbage,” he mumbled, putting the pillow over his—

    “Don’t put your pillow on your head! Wake up!”

    “Denise, it’s Saturday, and last night was the unspeakable Worth, Inglis cocktail party,” he moaned.

    “Exactly,” she said with huge significance.

    “Look, if you want a new dress or a pair of ridiculous shoes you can’t walk in, for God’s sake buy it! Or them. I don’t wanna know: geddit?”

    “Not that!” she retorted with huge depths of scorn.

    James hadn’t really thought so, but with women you never knew. He peered at her uncertainly. “Then what? Uh—I’m up for anything within reason, you know that, but there’s no way it’d run to the sort of Tiffany tinsel Ma Inglis had draped round her scrawny—”

    “No!” she retorted, this time with immeasurable depths of scorn in the tone.

     “—neck. No. Good,” he said weakly. “So what is it?”

    “I thought Ben was looking real down,” she said on a horribly firm note, “and I really think you oughta do something about it, honey.”

    Oh, God. “Denise, he’s a grown man. I can’t interfere in his private life,” he sighed.

    Denise reddened. “Of course you can! I mean, it’s not interfering! It’s caring! What sort of a boss are you, James Kingston, if you can’t treat your subordinates like human beings? You’re getting as bad as your father!”

    Oh, God. He took another look at the flush. She’d kill him if he pointed out it was her age, making her sentimental, but it was. Well, always had cared about people, yes, but— Yeah.

    “In any case there’s nothing I can do,” he said, trying to sound firm and reasonable but not patronising—if she accused him of that it’d be all up with him. “I have spoken to him, you know that. He’s gotta make up his own mind.”

    Ignoring this completely, Denise pursued, the round blue eyes narrowed: “Supposing this nice English girl he met called him up?”

    James sighed. “We gather she hasn't.”

    “No, but there could be any number of reasons for that! Didn’t you say she caught a chill? It could have turned to pneumonia, she may have had to be hospitalised—or maybe there’s some sort of trouble in the family: any number of reasons! And if he hasn’t called her— Well, lots of girls don’t like to make the first move, you know!” She nodded significantly at him.

    No, well, she’d certainly been that kind, herself, but he didn’t know of one other. Though given the sort of New York bitch that was all you ever seemed to meet these days—Tracy Inglis being the type specimen—that wasn’t surprising. Maybe this English girl was a shy, unforthcoming, nice girl—well, stereotypical shy English flower? He thought of some of the sights you saw on the British TV reports and winced.

    “Look, Denise, I think my point is, he hasn’t called her and there’s nothing we can—”

    Ignoring this completely, Denise pursued: “I know! I could call his sister!”

    James gulped.

    “She’ll be sure to be able to put us in the picture. –James! Don’t go to sleep again! Is Britain in front or behind us, time-wise?”

    “The Greenwich meridian—I never spoke,” he sighed. That time her mad sister Lavender (named for an old great-aunt of their dad’s, who had eventually left her a prized silver teapot that had turned out to be silver-plated)—that time Lavender had been doing the Europe trip on part of the proceeds of the husband’s huge win at Las Vegas—thus proving that ordinary people could actually win the jackpot, contrary to what James had always assumed, that those shots of bells ringing, sirens pealing and extraordinarily ordinary-looking people engulfed in showers of gold was a Vegas beat-up, performed by paid out-of-work actors thankful to get offered anything and having signed a draconian document selling their souls to the Devil— Anyroad, that time—Denise was scrabbling in the bedside cabinet on her side for the phonebook that she’d banished there because no-one ever looked it up—she had carefully worked out the time difference and called her up at two in the morning, Europe— Oops! He grabbed her just as she was about to fall out of bed. Europe time.

    “Thanks!” she gasped as she was hauled bodily back onto the bed.

    “Denise,” said James heavily, “much as I love you, you have gone right off of the rails. You’re either in bed having a sensible sleep-in after the Worth, Inglis time of trial, or up and interfering in other people’s lives, but you can’t do BOTH!”

    He full lower lip was seen to wobble. “Don’t be so horrible.”

    Oh, Jesus! “Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to shout. But I’m exhausted. Added to which, I missed out on that scene where Ben said something to that fat German guy and set the cat among the Inglis pigeons good an’ proper. –Well, saw the result of it. I’ll be happy to my dying day that I didn’t miss the look on goddamn Inglis’s face. Just wished I’da heard what Ben said.”

    Denise just snuffled faintly and groped for a Kleenex.

    “Here,” said James resignedly, handing her the untouched box from his side. He waited while she snuffled. “Gimme the phonebook, I’ll look up the time difference. Since you’re up and awake, go get my laptop and I‘ll log onto our system and get the sister’s number.”

    “Isn’t it in your cell?’

    “No. He’s back.”

    Not dignifying that one with a reply, she got out of bed and went out.

    Sighing, James opened the book. Did the thing even have the time differences these days? Weren’t you just supposed to hit something on your smart phone, for that? Muttering sourly “There’s an App, for thapp,” he peered at the very small print that got exponentially smaller every year…

    Several ages later she had found the laptop, which wasn’t where she’d thought it was and wasn’t where he claimed it was—etcetera—and was back in bed. With her cold feet.

    James gasped. “Don’t do that!”

    “My feet are frozen!”

    “That’s a reason for giving me galloping rheumatism in the shins, is it?”

    “Yes,” said Denise succinctly.

    “I’ll go to the Mall and buy you yet another pair of warm slippers,” he sighed.

    “They must be somewhere about,” she replied calmly.

    Yeah, all five million pair of them!

    “It’s that horrible cold marble floor your father insisted on for the front hall.”

    “Mm,” he agreed, his head in the laptop. “Uh… shit. I’ve forgotten the goddamn password!”

    Calmly his wife told him the highly secret Fluss, Evert, Maze password for accessing the system from outside.

    “Oh, yeah. Why it has to be different from the office password, God knows. Thanks, hon’.”

    Denise peered over his shoulder with interest at Ben’s highly confidential personnel record. “He’s younger than I thought.”

    “Mm? –Mm.”

    “It’s the suits,” she decided brilliantly.

    “l’da said it was the gloom, latterly.”

    “Yes, didn’t he look hang-dog, last night?”

    Put it well. Up and until he said whatever it was to the influential German guy.

    “There!” she spotted brilliantly.

    “No, next of kin is his mom, honey.”

    “Oh.”

    “It’s the alternative contact number.”

    “Why can’t they have all the contact stuff in one field? Or at least lined up!” she said indignantly.

    “Y—Uh, aligned, think you mean. IT crap. Pointy-headed geeks with an eye on graduating to silly tubes and driverless cars at Google Palace itself,” he grunted, scrabbling in the drawer of his bedside cabinet for a pen—any writing implement—a lipstick’d do!

    “Here,” said Denise calmly, handing him the pristine marbleized antique thing by Parker that his father had given him for his thirty-seventh. Coals of fire or some such: he’d given in and accepted the house from the silly old bastard. Anyroad, it was impossible to write with and she’d put it carefully away.

    The sister’s number, complete with full area code, having been inscribed on a brochure for Bermuda that just happened to be in Denise’s bedside cabinet with the pen, she seized the phone eagerly. Oh, God…

    “Get it!” shouted Bob, up a ladder with the paint brush poised.

    “I dunno who it could b—”

    “GET IT!”

    Jessica hurried out.

    “Bugger,” he muttered. “DON’T RUN DOWN THOSE STAIRS!” he bellowed.

    Rubbish, she was perfectly well, he was fussing worse than he had with Damian! She slowed down, nevertheless. “Hullo?” she gasped. “Are you there?”

    “Yeah: hi. Is that Jessica Masters?” a cautious female voice replied.

    “Yes! Sorry, we’re painting the guestroom, I was upstairs!”

    The unknown voice—there was a curious kind of, not an echo, more a faraway sort of something on the line, but the voice itself sounded perfectly clear and quite near—replied: “You don’t know me, Mrs Masters, but my name’s Denise Kingston. My husband is your brother Ben’s boss.”

    “Has something happened to Ben?” gasped Jessica in horror.

    Upstairs, Bob muttered, “Shit,” and hurriedly descended the ladder. “Hey, is Ben okay?” he called from the top of the stairs.

    “Yes—Sorry, Mrs Kingston! –Yes, Denise, of course! I’m Jessica. It’s so good to hear a friendly American voice! –Ben’s fine, Bob! It’s about Isabella!” she beamed.

    Oh, shit.

    “Yes, that’s her name: Isabella. She’s our neighbour’s sister,” Jessica was now informing this Denise Whoever on the phone. “Oh, gee, hasn’t he? …Um, well, I’m not too sure, Denise. Some obscure country village, I think. But confidentially, I don’t think the parents were too keen on the idea. Lots of English people are real parochial about having their kids go overseas to live, y’know?”

    Yeah, like lots of Americans. Bob came down a few steps. Though if he did run down there what could he do except wrench the receiver off her, tell the woman it was all hot air, and hang up? Subsequently being in the doghouse until the moon turned blue or the Yanks finally got out of Afghanistan, whichever took longer.

    The yacking went on for ages. Jessica told the woman every blamed morsel she could dredge up about the Ben and Isabella thing. Luckily she didn’t know exactly what had gone on in Europe, though, true, she was leaving the woman in no doubt that it had. Sighing, Bob sat down on the stairs. They seemed to agree that it didn’t matter that she was a fair bit younger than him, that often worked out very well, blah, blah... Then the word “protective” got bandied about.

    Bob hunched into himself. Perhaps. Maybe. “Patronising” was also a word that sprang to mind, if she’d stop and think about it. Yack, yack…

    “I know!” Jessica was agreeing with terrific feeling. “I have to say it, Denise, that Tracy sounds the ultimate ball-breaker!”

    Ulp! Bob looked warily in the direction of the sitting-room, but the door remained closed and the faint sounds of Damian’s new and really, really sickening DVD, some ghastly BBC kiddies’ thing, talking of patronising, could still be discerned. Phew! ’Cos somehow it’d turn out to be all his fault if the kid did pick the phrase up. Not to say if he, Damian, asked what it meant and he, Bob, told him. Or even if the kid correlated the phrase with the use of the expression “balls” which he, Damian, was only allowed to use because Jessica hadn’t managed to dredge up a politer alternative barring “testicles”, which apparently they didn’t want their four-year-old repeating to all the kids of the neighbourhood and he wouldn’t be able to pronounce, anyway.

    “Good heavens, Denise!” she was now saying. “Did he really? I can’t imagine it! He’s usually so careful to say the right thing at all these corporate get-togethers, y’know?”

    “Sucking up, you mean,” muttered Bob sourly.

    “–Oh, you didn’t catch it? Oh. …Um, well, yes, he was in Germany, maybe he met this man there. –Did you say Mr Inglis? But isn’t that her father?”

    The phone yacked at length. Bob began seriously to contemplate going back and getting on with the painting. However, he might yet have to leap down there and wrench the receiver off her. He came down cautiously a few steps on his bum, on the strength of it.

    Jessica sighed heavily. “I get the picture.”

    She ought to, by now!

    “No, well, Denise, I gotta admit it, he was always rather like that,” she was now admitting. “There was this dreadful girl when he was in high school, and another one when he was at Yale. I think she might have been one of the Ivy-League types, you know, that come over for the dances.”

    “For the sex,” mouthed Bob silently.

    “She was completely wrong for him, of course!”

    “You and your mum thought so, at all events,” mouthed Bob silently.

    “Very smart, in a hard way,” Jessica was elaborating. “I suppose you could say that college-girl look never really goes out, but conservative? Unbelievable! I mean, nice little Cashmere sweater and pearls for the football game? And there was that lovely Janey Kazekian, right next-door! …No, well, several generations back, I think it was her great-grandpop that came over from Europe. Very natural, y’know? Just a straightforward, lovely down-home girl—but bright with it, make no mistake, Denise! And he—”

    Oh, Lor’, the Janey Kazekian thing: this could go on for years…

    Just when he was thinking he could just ignore the whole thing and go into the kitchen and make some lunch, which had been suggested, please note, some five hundred years back but had been rejected in favour of finishing that wall, aka not letting the paint dry while the wall was still unfinished or it’d look patchy, she suddenly said: “Oh, hi, James! –No, I really appreciate it! …Yes, we’ve been worried, too. –Yes, Denise said; that was real thoughtful of you, James!”

    Bob was now in a state of frozen horror. You did not talk to your brother’s boss about your brother’s bloody love life, for God’s sake!

    “Of course, James! Great to talk to you! –He wants to speak to you,” she said, holding the receiver out with a beaming smile.

    Bob shook his head wildly.

    The beaming smile switched to a steely glare.

    Sighing, he hauled himself up and creaked down the remaining stairs. “Bob Masters here,” he said glumly.

    “Hi, Bob, this is James Kingston,” replied a male American voice with a smile in it. “Real sorry about all that.”

    “Not as sorry as I am, matey!” replied Bob before he could choke himself.

    “Uh—yeah,” said James Kingston limply.

    “Um, sorry, James, that just came out. Well, I mean, don’t apologise for her, they’re all like that,” said Bob glumly.

    “Bob!” hissed Jessica predictably, predictably turning purple.

    “Lunch,” mouthed Bob at her. “—Eh? Oh. No, well, you’re right, we hardly know the girl.”—Indignant gasp from Jessica, predictably. “Our neighbour’s sister, right. … Oh, shit, did she?”—Bloody Jessica had given Kingston’s wife the impression that they’d seen Isabella quite recently!—“Actually we haven’t seen the girl since just after Christmas, when she took off with him on a tour of the fleshpots of Europe.”

    “Goddit,” replied James Kingston heavily.

    “Yeah,” Bob agreed gratefully. “Hardly know her. Well, miles younger than us, of course. She did some babysitting for us—think that’d be ‘sitting’ in your vernacular—only then our kid got it into his head that the girl’s a fairy and Jessica did her nut.”

    Predictably, Jessica hissed, having turned the predictable purple all over again: “Bob! I did not!”

    “Four,” said Bob heavily in reply to the chap’s amused enquiry. “Oh, Lor’, yes, of course it’s a bloody stage! Try telling her that! …Er, well, yeah, the Princes are okay, they won’t mind if Jessica grills them on the rack for ten hours or so, but Isabella’s not with them any more. Think the parents put their foot down—well, I dunno how old she is, but my guess would be over the age of consent but barely old enough to vote. Doesn’t drink, apart from the odd slug of Green Ginger to keep the cold out.”

    “Bob!”

    Ignoring her, Bob explained, since Kingston seemed interested, about Green Ginger Wine, then agreeing judiciously: “You would think it was putrid, yes, but actually on a frosty winter’s night—or Christmas morning, of course—it goes down rather well.”

    “Bob!”

    Bob gave up on the mouthing and said loudly: “Isn’t it about time you took up your wee-wifey rôle and popped into the kitchen and made some lunch?”

    Agitated apologies from the phone.

    “No, that’s all right, James, all you were interrupting was painting the spare room that she’s suddenly decided is gonna be done up like a nursery fit for Prince George himself. …Yes, our second. Oh—thanks,” he said limply to the chap’s polite congratulations. “Not that it was planned. –My fault, of course!” he added quickly, as Jessica was now a sort of mottled purple.

    Blast, that was wrong, now she was kind of gasping on top of the mottled!

    “Eh? –Er, yes,” he said very cautiously indeed to the chap’s amused: “It always is!” Kindly Kingston gave him the intel about their Susie—she was their second, too—to the accompaniment of the expected indignant gasping in the background. Somehow this made him feel a lot better, the more so as Jessica had apparently given up entirely and was now just sitting on the stairs, one hand on the tummy and a dreamy expression on her face. Wryly the chap informed him that the condoms had lived in her bedside cabinet—her idea being that his goddamn father would be too polite to look in there in his quest for anti-her, pro-grandson fodder. Words to that effect. In your Yankee lingo, natch, but it was more than clear.

    “Gosh, thought it was only the bloody mothers-in-law that did that,” he concluded in awe.

    “No, it’s the dynastically-minded fathers,” replied Kingston wryly.

    Got that. Thought the poor woman should produce a boy to carry on the line—yeah, hadn’t Ben said something about this bloke’s father being a senior partner?—five minutes after the wedding.

    “It all becomes strangely clear, James!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yeah. Well, listen, Bob, apologies again. But if you do hear anything more on the Isabella front, we’d appreciate being kept in the loop.”

    Gosh, Americans really did say that! In real life, as opposed to the corporate bullshit.

    “Of course,” he said nicely. “Oh—better give us your number.”

    The chap gave him the number. Bob wrote it down obediently. “Um, hang on, shouldn’t there be a whatsit for America in front of that?”

    Jessica came to. “Honestly, Bob! We can look that up! It’ll be the same as in Ben’s home number, anyroad!”

    “‘Anyway’, woman, you're on the right side of the Atlantic now,” he replied severely.

    Oops, Kingston was choking! “Sorry about that, James. But I always get the bloody area code whatsits wrong, you see!” he said cheerfully.

    “Yeah. Okay, Bob, got your Parker pen poised?”

    “Yes—uh—chewed biro, this side of the Atlantic.”

    “Yeah? Mine’s a pristine Parker: Dad, the birthday after I’d accepted this goddamn house, just after Denise had brilliantly produced the heir for the old bastard.”

    Bob collapsed in sniggers, gasping: “Crys-tal—clear!”

    “Pristine because Denise carefully put it in a drawer when we discovered I can’t actually write with—”

    Bob gave an ecstatic yelp.

    “Rats, honey, the guy thinks it’s funny,” said the phone—not to him.

    “Go on, then, me biro’s poised,” said Bob feebly. He wrote down the string of numbers carefully. Their home phone—right. Then James kindly added his entire office number in case Denise was out, or in the workshop potting up a storm and had forgotten to put “the machine” on. Then adding heartily that if ever Bob and Jessica got over to the States they must look them up, and finally hanging up.

    “Before you say anything, let me just say one word, Jessica,” said Bob in an awful voice.

    She reddened and said defensively, sticking out her chin: “What?”

    “Lunch.”

    “Y—Oh, good Heavens, is that the time? Poor Damian must be starving!”

    Gosh, that had worked. Bob staggered over to the stairs and sat down groggily.

    … One good thing, he was able to reflect groggily, after quite some time: Kingston sounded like a really good chap!

    James hung up, grinning. “Real decent guy,” he reported.

    Denise managed a limp smile. “Did you have to tell him the intimate details of our sex life?”

    “Not all that intimate. Well, the guy was telling me his,” he said fairly.

    “Yeah, but Jesus!”

    “I didn’t tell him just what kind of an accident Susie was,” he  aid on a sly note.

    She went very red. “Shut up!”

    “At least they weren’t offended by being asked to spy on their brother’s casual pick-up.”

    “She was no such thing!”

    “Looked at objectively, most people would say she was, but as a matter of fact I’m not arguing: I’m sure she is a lovely girl; but just calm down for a minute, honey, and think it over. It really does sound as if the parents are against it, doesn’t it? And Bob seemed to think she’s very young. Uh—well, goddamn Ben claims she’s been to college, but Bob had the idea she’s barely old enough to drink.”

    Denise’s jaw firmed. “He's not necessarily right. Most men can’t tell women’s ages.”

    True, or quite probably the human race woulda died out long since. “You got a point,” he said pacifically. “Well, I’m sure Jessica will speak to the—uh—sister-in-law, isn’t it? Yeah. Like she promised. But just don’t expect too much from it, honey.”

    “I’m not!” she snapped back, bridling.

    She was, of course. James just sighed and said: “Since the subject of lunch was mentioned, what about brunch? I’ll make waffles, shall I, for a treat? –Uh, don’t fancy them?”

    Denise was just sitting up in bed, bright red. “No, um—I mean, thanks, honey, waffles’d be great. Um, well, what time was it, over there?” she said in a small voice.

    Heroically James Kingston managed not to laugh—though the effort made him feel ten years older. “Well after their lunch hour, but see, they’d skipped lunch trying to get their guestroom painted—“

    “Of course! For the new baby!” she beamed, all other considerations apparently driven from her head.

    James got out of bed and belted himself into his robe, silently counting the years before poor Harry could reasonably be expected to produce the first grandchild. Uh—ugh. That was a Helluva long time to wait until those emergent granny hormones of hers could be satisfied.

    … Though it did explain, he reflected, going downstairs and as usual doing his best not to look at the front hall as he went in back to the kitchen, the fact that the pottery figurines she made in the workshop had lately diverged away from the “famous literary grotesques” she’d made a whole series of, onto round-faced chubby infants—well, nominally pixies or some such, sitting on toadstools, but chubby infants was what they were.

    —Plus and, he reflected, hunting for the waffle-iron which as usual was not in the place he expected it to be, why she was so keen for Ben to settle down with a nice girl: surrogate grandmother stuff. Yo, boy.

    Everything calmed down, Bob apologised for everything, regardless of the fact that absolutely none of it was his fault, and they had a kind of high tea with boiled eggs with soldiers—Damian’s vote, though actually Bob was keen on them, too.

    He did have to finish painting that wall but funnily enough Jessica didn’t really feel like it, she was rather tired, so she put her feet up and then, surprise, surprise, rang Margot.

    Bob didn’t wait for the report, he just put his heavy anorak on and went out into the back garden to commune with his cabbage patch.

    “You oughta get rid of those cabbages,” warned a superior young voice from somewhere high in the sky.

    “Eh?” he gasped, swinging round.

    From his perch high on the brick wall, young Ronny Prince looked down at him with a superior expression on his round face.

    “Those cabbages. You oughta get rid of them. Two kids is enough.”

    “Eh?”

    Ronny sniffed. “Two kids is enough. Grandmother says you’ll have more if you keep on planting cabbages.”

    Er… “I think you’re getting mixed up, Ronny,” he said kindly. “That story about babies being found under cabbages is just a silly old wives’ tale, you know.”

    “That’s what you think. That mistletoe you had in your house at Christmas was a mistake, too. Had berries on it, didn’t it?”

    Er...  “I suppose so,” he said limply. What was the kid on about?

    Looking smug, Ronny quoted: “Like the rime says: ‘Hang it in the house with care, For a Child your wife will bear, If so be the Mistletoe, Bears its berries white like Snow.’ See?”

    Er... He did have a very, very vague recollection of Isabella saying something like that on Christmas Day, ye-es… “Superstition, Ronny,” he said, his voice coming out a lot weaker than he’d intended.

    Ronny looked superior. “That’s what you think. It worked, though, didn’t it? Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but those cabbages of yours’ll have the same effect.” With this he suddenly disappeared.

    Shit! Had he fallen off? “Ronny! Are you all right?” shouted Bob.

    “Yes, ’course!” came a scornful cry in reply.

    Okay, the little bugger was all right. Bob returned to the contemplation of his cabbages…

    Ugh. Maybe he wouldn’t plant any more, this year. Well, that patch probably needed a change from Brassicaceae anyway, the soil must be depleted. Um... root vegetables, maybe? Carrots? Telling himself firmly that carrots were always acceptable, they’d be a sensible thing to plant, you could just pull a few at a time, Bob went back inside and settled down with a gardening mag.

    … Yes. Carrots.

    Jessica roused from a doze on the sofa. “What?”

    “Oh, sorry, love, did I say that out loud? Sorry. I was thinking of carrots for the garden instead of cabbages,” he explained, repressing an urge to clear his throat.

    “Ooh, great, Bob! Fresh carrots! And they’d be so suitable for the baby, mushed up, of course! I know those canned baby foods are so handy, and of course they have the proper nutrients, but there’s nothing like fresh vegetables, after all! The carotene’s supposed to be very good for you—and they’re good for the eyes, too!”

    Okay, whether or not this was another old wives’ tale, carrots it’d be.

    “I must tell you what Margot said!” she beamed, sitting up straight.

    Bob put a listening expression on his face and tried to think of very soothing things…

    Ben was almost at work after walking out on Tracy when he realised it was Saturday. So he told the cabbie to take him to Mike’s Diner, why not? Since he was at last free to go there whenever he liked!

    The place was empty—he’d overlooked how very early it was. Still, it was open for custom. He sat down in his usual booth—well, usual when he got the chance.

    Mike was polishing his bar top. He put his rag away and came over to him without haste. “Off the leash?” he drawled.

    “Yeah, thank God. Permanently!” he added, unable to stop the grin.

    “Ya don’t say. Threw you out, did she?”

    “No, I walked out. Told her I’d had enough. Permanently.”

    “You said that,” the proprietor of Mike’s Diner recognised. “For real, is this?”

    “Yeah. Gone; over; finished. No more Tracy.”

    The huge, untidy eyebrows rose slightly. “Glad to hear it. So whadd’ll it be? Pancakes, bacon, eggs over easy? Or black coffee?” he ended on a sardonic note.

    “Uh—there was a goddamn so-called cocktail party, last night,” Ben admitted. “Went on for hours. Though admittedly it doesn’t seem real, now.”

    “That’s often the consequence,” he drawled. “Just black coffee, then.”

    “No—sorry, Mike! No, make it pancakes and bacon, thanks. I can’t remember when I last had solid food. –Gee, weeks ago!” he recalled limply. “That great family dinner at James and Denise’s. –Tracy’s been on a raw food diet ever since I got back from Europe,” he explained. “Breakfast this morning was a glass of green sludge and a thin piece of fibrous cardboard. Or woulda been, if I’d eaten any.”

    “That’s real clear, Ben,” noted the proprietor of Mike’s Diner unemotionally. “Okay, pancakes and bacon. If that dad-blamed Paula that’s meant to be doing weekends for us ever turns up she’ll bring you your coffee. Oh,” he added, going: “watch what you say in front of her: she’s a mortal.”

    Ben shook his head slightly as the man headed for the back regions. What? –No, must have misheard.

    Out in back Mike communed silently with his refrigerator for some time before coming to with a jump and getting the bacon out. “Uh—pancake mix,” he muttered. “Right.” Was it worth mixing a large batch of it, in which case no-one else would ask for pancakes this morning? But if he didn’t, a whole bunch of them would come in asking for— Yeah. Sighing, he mixed up a bowlful.

    “Shit,” he muttered, realising he’d forgotten to turn the grill-plate on. Sighing, he turned it on.

    “The thing is,” he said sourly to himself, “if I don’t report it, it’ll turn out to be true and he’ll—” He gulped in spite of himself. “Dunno what, but it’ll be bad. But what if I do and it’s like all the other times and she reels the poor bastard back in?” He shuddered.

    “What poor bastard, Mike?” asked an interested soprano voice.

    Mike jumped ten feet where he stood. “Don’t do that!” he gasped.

    “Sorry,” replied Paula with manifest untruth. “What poor bastard?”

    “Uh—nothing to do with you,” he said lamely. “Get out there and give that guy his coffee. –Uh, black!” he added hastily, otherwise the kid’d be mixing up God knew what. When she started working for them she’d appeared to think that coffee had to have cream and sugar in it. According to her ID she was old enough to drink but Mike was fast coming to the conclusion that it was a fake ID. He wasn’t gonna check it out, it was hard enough finding any mortal help that’d turn up when supposed to, not cheat you, not cheat the customers, and present a neat and tidy appearance. Well, in Paula’s case turn up half an hour late, and dress in a strange full-skirted short floral thing that put him forcibly in mind of some of the sillier fairies he’d met, combining this with fuzzy black tights and high-heeled boots, wool sweater optional depending on the weather. But she was extremely honest; to the point of, on her first day, bringing him five dollars with the puzzled remark: “Mike, a customer left this behind on his table. Did we oughta put it behind the bar in case he comes back for it?”

    Uh—yeah. Be that as it might, this didn’t solve his dilemma, did it? He began carefully concocting a very exact report which would include all his reservations, whilst not giving the wrong idea entirely…

Next chapter:

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