Читать книгу Talk to Me Tenderly, Tell Me Lies - John Davis Gordon - Страница 15

It was eleven o’clock when she came grinding back down the track towards the house. She slammed to a stop in the yard, scattering chickens and ducks. She scrambled out, slammed the door, and strode for the kitchen. She was going to radio Clyde right now – haul him up from underground if necessary – and tell him about Billy! She flung back the screen-door and burst into the kitchen, then came to a halt, staring.

Ben Sunninghill was sitting at the kitchen table, grinning that wide, impish grin, with a six-pack of beer beside him, one opened. A big coil of electric cable and two new door-locks lay beside the beer. And on his knees, with a ribbon round its neck, was a Boxer puppy.

Helen stared at them. At the puppy, at Ben, back at the puppy. Then her eyes began to moisten. ‘Oh Ben …’ she cried. She dashed to the table, dropped on to her haunches, grabbed the puppy.

She held it up to her grinning face, shining-eyed. The puppy blinked at her inquisitively, unalarmed. ‘Oh Ben! And a Boxer! Where did you get him?’ She pulled it to her neck joyfully.

Ben smiled. ‘Burraville Hotel. Jack Goodwin. You told me his bitch had a litter.’

‘Oh, he’s gorgeous!’ She clasped the little animal to her joyfully. ‘But I must pay for him! I bet that Jack Goodwin didn’t give him away!’

Ben smiled. ‘No, my shout. He didn’t cost much, not with your actual Ben Sunninghill of the New York diamond market doing the bargaining. He’s not pure-bred, his mother went to a picnic – even Jack Goodwin finally admitted that under my ruthless cross-examination. His father was a dingo.’

‘A dingo!’ Helen held up the grunting puppy and waggled it. ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘But that’s what I told Jack Goodwin. Nearly threw me out. Said at worst it was Mrs Johnson’s Labrador, Fred.’

‘Oh, Fred’s a beautiful dog!’

‘Don’t bank on Fred. I went over to the schoolhouse to check him out. Black as the ace of spades, Fred is, and this guy’ – he indicated the puppy – ‘is nearly all brown. I saw half a dozen likely candidates for fatherhood as I left town.’ He added: ‘He’s not a very likeable man, Jack, is he?’

‘Jack? No. Has he got a name, this little feller?’

‘Jack called him Biggles, because of that white mark round his neck, like a scarf. Think he was trying to impress me with how well-read he was.’

‘Biggles?’ She looked at the grunting face doubtfully.

‘I thought of Hogan. After Crocodile Dundee, because he came at me with those sharp little teeth—’

‘I know what we’ll call him – Dundee!’

‘Dundee? Yeah, that’s better.’

‘Dundee!’ She jumped up, held the unworried puppy aloft and waltzed around with him. ‘Oh, you’re much more beautiful than Paul Hogan, even when he’s scrubbed up!’ She turned to Ben, eyes shining. ‘Oh, thank you, Ben …’ She crossed the kitchen impetuously, flung an arm around his narrow shoulders and planted a kiss on his bristly cheeks. ‘Thank you.’ She stood back, beaming at him, her eyes moist.

Ben grinned up at her happily. ‘I’m glad. Enjoy.’ Then he glanced at his wrist-watch, banged his hands on his knees and stood up. ‘Well, I thought I’d fix those doorlocks and put an extension on to that generator switch for you, then I’d better be on my way.’

Helen stared at him, clutching the puppy. ‘Oh, you can’t leave today, Ben!’

Ben grinned at her. He could see she’d had a drink already and that was fine with him, he’d had a couple of beers himself in Burraville and felt in the mood for a few more. He didn’t want to leave today either. And who knew what might happen? ‘But I hate to impose,’ he said. ‘I really should leave—’

‘Oh, not today! And you’re not imposing! You can’t leave the day you thrust a new puppy into my arms! We’ve got to … celebrate! Welcome him!’ She shook her head: ‘Let’s have a nice lunch! I haven’t cooked you anything yet! You probably think all I do is drink!’

‘Isn’t it?’ he grinned.

‘No!’ she laughed. ‘You beast! No, no, no, I’ll have you know I’m a pillar of Australian society! I’m the lady they all talk about in reverent whispers in Burraville! I’m the After-lady in the Before and After advertisements! Have another beer?’ She sparkled at him, clutching her puppy: ‘I will if you will …’

Dundee was waddling around the kitchen, sniffing here, sniffing there, occasionally squatting. Helen pulled some paper off the kitchen roll and dropped it on a puddle.

‘I’ll start teaching him tomorrow,’ she said cheerfully.

‘But,’ Ben said, ‘I wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye and thank you. What kind of hippy do you take me for?’

‘I know that now. But I didn’t this morning with a king-size hangover and a terrible case of the blues. And you’re not a hippy.’

He gave that smile. ‘Aren’t I? What’s a hippy? Some guy who doesn’t give a shit about making money and just takes off?’

‘On a 1000cc Thunderbird!’

‘Harley-Davidson. Anyway, that makes me a hippy in the eyes of most Australians I’ve met. Or a wandering Jew, which is worse.’ He added: ‘Without the commercial instinct anymore.’

Helen had moved on to the wine which Ben had produced from his saddle-bags. She held up her glass: ‘Here’s to the wandering Jewish hippy on his 1000cc Harley-Thunderbird then!’ She took a big sip. ‘Did you ever have it? The commercial instinct, I mean.’

‘You can’t spend your life in the diamond trade and not have it, baby.’ (She wished he wouldn’t call her ‘baby’.) ‘You can’t spend your life amongst Jews – even if your name’s Sunninghill – and not have it. Cash-flow,’ he rubbed his fingers together, ‘that’s what business life’s about. But,’ he shrugged, ‘no more, for Mrs Sonnenberg’s little boy.’

She said enviously: ‘But you’ve got enough cash-flow to say to hell with it.’

‘Enough? Yes, if I take it easy on the fleshpots.’

‘And when it starts running low?’

‘I’ll work somewhere for a bit. I’ve got my jeweller’s tools with me; jewellers can always get a job. Anyway, what I’m going to do soon is buy a small yacht – you can always make a bit of money with a boat.’

‘A yacht?’ she echoed, almost indignantly. ‘I thought you were going back to Africa to do your foot-soldiering for the animals?’

‘I am. But when I get back to Africa I’ll need a home of some kind. So instead of paying rent I’ll buy a yacht and that’ll be my base – a mobile one. Between stints in the bush I’ll sail it here and there. In fact, when I get back to Perth I’ll buy a boat there, if I find one at the right price, stick my motorbike on the stern and sail back to Africa.’

Helen didn’t know how much of this to believe – it all sounded too romantically macho for a little New York jeweller. ‘Single-handed?’

Ben shrugged. ‘I’ll try to find somebody who wants to come along for the ride. But, if not – sure, single-handed.’

She looked at him, trying to imagine him doing it. The wind in his hair, his beak-nose to the flying spray. ‘So you really are an intrepid sailor?’

‘It’s not such a big deal, crossing oceans. There’re no rocks out there, are there? The danger for a boat is when you get near the real-estate. It’s like flying an airplane – the higher you are, the more air you have beneath you, the safer you are.’

Helen wasn’t so sure he had a licence to fly a plane either. But it was fun to talk. ‘What about the big waves?’

‘Well,’ Ben admitted, ‘I haven’t crossed an ocean on a small boat yet. But there’s probably more danger from big trucks when riding a motorbike. However, I’ve done a lot of sailing round New York. I know the winds – what to do with them, how to harness them.’ He smiled. ‘Maybe my Jewishness – getting something for nothing. The wind, the elements, they’re free – and non-polluting. It’s very satisfying working with the sea. So clean. So … harmonious with Nature.’ He shrugged. ‘Sure, I can cross an ocean.’

Helen sighed. She believed him. ‘And how much will such a boat cost?’

‘Maybe forty thousand bucks. Depending on where you buy it, its condition and so forth. But I can fix just about anything.’

She believed it. His self-confidence was infectious. ‘And you can always make money out of a boat, huh?’

‘Well, you don’t pay rent, for a start. And if I run low on money I’ll look for yachtsmen who want their boats fixed up. Ten bucks an hour.’ He shrugged. ‘Easy, I’ve tried it. Walk along any marina and holler “Who wants jobs done?” Plenty of work. Anyway, I don’t need much. A bag of rice goes a long way, and the seas are full of fish.’

Oh, she envied him his freedom from worries. That reminded her of Billy. ‘I must radio Clyde at lunchtime about Billy. The bastard’s still drunk. Drunker. His wife too and you know what they’ve done? Torn the bloody door off the hut and used it for firewood!’ She waved a hand. ‘Plenty of wood out there. But no – the door.’

‘Really?’ He added: ‘And what will Clyde do about it, two thousand miles away?’

She glanced at him and sighed.

‘Nothing, I guess. He’ll tell me to get on with it.’

‘And do what?’

She nodded wearily. ‘What indeed? Give him a bollocking when he sobers up. What else? I can’t fire him – I’d just have to look for another Abbo stockman. The devil I know is better than the one I don’t.’

‘So you’re radioing Clyde for his sympathy?’

Helen raised her eyebrows wanly. ‘Guess so.’

Ben sat back and shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not? That’s what marriage is all about. And you deserve sympathy.’

She glanced at him. Was that sincere? She decided it was.

‘No, you’re right – I won’t call him. I called him only last week, and it’s quite a performance to get hold of him. I’ve got to radio the mine captain’s office and get them to tell Clyde to stand by the radio at a certain hour, then call back.’

‘Does Clyde ever call you?’

‘Occasionally. But it’s a favour really, to use the mine captain’s office – he doesn’t like asking too often. And it’s not very satisfactory – you can’t get too personal on the air, can you? Anybody can listen in if they find your frequency. He won’t discuss money, for example – he doesn’t like the neighbours to know we’re hard-up. Though it’s obvious – why else is he on the mines? And,’ she smirked, ‘he can never bring himself to tell me he loves me.’

Ben raised his eyebrows.

‘Well, as long as he tells you in private …’ He paused, then: ‘Does he?’

For a moment she wondered about that question’s possible direction. ‘Of course he does.’

‘Enough?’

She was taken aback by his persistence. No matter how grateful she was for his help and company, she didn’t like that. She frowned. ‘Yes. Why?’

He disarmed her with his impish smile. ‘Because I’m told it’s very important. And I’ve heard that Aussie men are often a bit too macho to show much affection. I’ve heard that the definition of an Aussie male’s foreplay is’ – he put on a creditable Australian accent – ‘“You awake, luv?” Heard that in a New York bar, from an Aussie girl.’

She smiled. ‘Yes, that’s an old one. And I believe it’s mostly true, unfortunately.’

‘But not in Clyde’s case?’

She resented that. Too familiar. ‘No!’

Ben sat back. ‘Sorry.’ He smiled self-effacingly: ‘Too familiar.’

Again she was disarmed, and surprised at his perceptiveness. Word for word!

‘It’s all right.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘But what do you mean you’re “told” demonstration of affection is important? Don’t you know?’

Ben grinned honestly. (No harm in honesty when you’ve got little else to offer.) ‘Well, look at me, I’m not likely to have had much experience in that area, am I? Let alone success.’

Helen was disarmed further, because it seemed so plausible. ‘Oh Ben … But you’re a lovely bloke …’

He grinned. ‘That’s what I tell all the girls – all the time. But nobody seems to believe me.’ He added sadly: ‘Except my mother.’

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘See? It works.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got your sympathy. Your disavowal of my physical limitations. But, unfortunately, that’s all I get.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘Oh, I’ve got lots of women friends. I get along famously with women as a gender. But unfortunately sympathy only works that far.’

Again she wondered whether he was trying to steer the conversation in a certain direction, despite his expression. ‘You’ve never been married?’

‘Married? I’ve never had a woman I didn’t pay for.’

That took her aback. That was astonishing self-effacement. ‘Whores, you mean?’

Ben sighed cheerfully. ‘But even that’s not on these days, with Aids.’ He grinned at her. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve been tested and I’m a Lloyds A1 insurance prospect.’

She blinked. Why should she worry? She began to change the subject, and Ben groaned: ‘Oh, my big mouth …’ He looked at her apologetically. ‘Sorry – again. Why should you worry? But that was just a figure of speech. Believe me …’ he put his hand on his breast solemnly and said, not entirely truthfully, ‘I have enough bitter experience of life not to be so presumptuous as to think I could talk you into the sack.’

Helen stared at him a moment. Then she dropped her head and giggled. ‘Oh, you’re funny.’

Ben nodded wearily. ‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’

‘Both!’

‘I knew it,’ Ben sighed, ‘I knew I couldn’t just be funny ha-ha.’

‘I mean unusual—’

‘Almost rare,’ Ben solemnly agreed. ‘My mother thinks I’m an endangered species. She thinks I’m beautiful.’

Helen threw back her head and laughed. It all seemed terribly funny. Little Ben Sunninghill … ‘But you are, Ben! I mean, you’ve got the loveliest smile. It makes you … shine. And it’s so … laughy.’

‘Got to have a sense of humour with a face like this,’ Ben agreed. ‘What about the nose? I could have it straightened, but not shortened, regrettably. Because, like most people, I do need the actual nostrils at the tip.’

Helen snorted into her wine glass. ‘And you’ve got the loveliest eyes, Ben! I mean, they’re so naughty. And kind.’ She smothered her mirth, her eyes moist, and waved at little Dundee. ‘Like getting me him.’

Ben smiled. ‘I’m glad.’

Helen wiped the corners of her eyes. ‘And,’ she said brightly, ‘you’ve got all your hair!’

‘All over,’ Ben agreed.

‘It shows virility!’

‘I tell the girls that, but I’m just told. I’m a fire-hazard.’

She laughed at him: ‘Oh, Ben …’

He smiled, then picked up the new doorlocks and the coil of electrical cable. ‘Well, I’ll fix the locks and extend that generator switch to your bedroom. To outwit the spooks.’

Helen brought her mind to this change of subject.

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you, but Clyde said it’s best where it is.’

Ben said: ‘You’re the one who lives here all alone each night with the spooks, not Clyde. It’s just a simple override switch, so you can shut down the generator from your bedroom when you go to bed. Clyde will still be able to start it and stop it from the kitchen.’

‘Really?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t he know that?’

‘Maybe Clyde’s not a smart-ass like me.’

Ben changed the locks while Helen got her laundry together. Then she fed Dundee while Ben started work on the switch. The puppy wolfed down his food. ‘Like he’s never had meat before!’ she called happily from the yard.

‘Probably hasn’t, living with Jack Goodwin.’

‘Oh, he’s gorgeous!’

‘Jack or Dundee?’

‘Dundee! Oh, Jack’s a real miser. And a terrible gossip. “Radio-Jack”, we call him – tell him anything and it’s all over the Outback by nightfall. Who’s a beautiful boy, then?’

‘Me. Ask my mother.’

‘Oh, you ass!’ She came back into the kitchen, holding a glass of wine. ‘Oh, dear … I’m having a lovely day. Now then – got any laundry you want done? Smart-ass.’ She burst into giggles.

Ben picked his wine glass up from the floor and took a sip. ‘No, thank you, only dirty people need machines to do their laundry. I did mine by hand this morning.’

‘Well, it can’t be very dry. Where is it? In a plastic bag in your saddle-bag?’

‘Right.’

‘Right, and where is it?’

‘Just behind the saddle.’

‘I mean the bike, you fool. Even I can figure out where the saddle-bag is once I find the bike. But I didn’t see it when I came back from Billy’s.’

‘Outside your front door. Black, you can’t miss it, the only black 1000cc Harley-Davidson there.’

‘Oh, you ass!’ She marched to the front of the house. She ferreted through his saddle-bag and found the wet clothes. She took them to the line in the yard, and hung them up. Socks, underpants, vests, shirts. Then she took one shirt down again and returned to the kitchen.

‘Well, this garment needs strong machinery.’ She stuffed it into the washing-machine with her own laundry.

‘Thank you. But you can’t start up the generator to do the washing while I’m working on these wires.’ He added: ‘You could, but you’d have to bury me soon afterwards.’

‘Standing up beside Oscar?’

‘So the grave would have to be a bit deeper, and that ground’s hard. Not that much deeper,’ he admitted reasonably.

She prepared lunch while he led the cable along the kitchen walls and down the passage, tacking it to the skirting board. He bored a small hole in the doorframe and fed the wire through into her bedroom.

It was not very feminine; it seemed a worn, hard-up sort of room. On the far bedside table was a framed photograph of a man, doubtless Clyde: Ben peered across at it, but couldn’t make out much. On the dressing-table near the door was a photograph; four children. Taken recently, Ben thought. The boy, Tim, looked about sixteen: he was a strapping, good-looking lad; short hair, a generous open face, white even teeth – he was going to be what Americans call a ‘hunk’. The three girls were all pretty, with neatly combed blonde shoulder-length hair and generous mouths like their mother; the little one, Cathy, was going to be a beauty. Ben glanced around the room. The double-bed was neatly made. The rugs on the floor were patchy. The wardrobe door was open, he could see dresses hanging, the shelves jumbled with underwear. Below lay a muddle of high-heeled shoes, several mauve pairs among them. So she likes mauve? It would suit her, too her blue jeans suited her, with her blue eyes and blonde hair. One pair looked very sexy, with thin leather straps that she would wind around and tie above her ankles. He felt a desire to tiptoe across and pick them up. He could imagine them on her. Her toenails painted red? Oh dear, dear … The dressing-table was old and chipped. The little jars and bottles of lotions and creams and perfume had a frugal, husbanded air. He felt sure most of them were almost empty, kept for the last smear or drop. Between the dressing-table and the wardrobe was the bathroom. He glanced towards the kitchen, hesitated, then went to the door and looked inside. Untiled walls, an old tub with claw-and-ball feet, the enamel worn away near the plug. An overhead shower with a dull plastic curtain. A toilet. A bidet, obviously recently installed because the cement around its base looked newish. Some towels, a big, damp bathmat, a broken laundry basket. And, on the floor beside the basket, a pair of panties. They lay there with an air of abandonment, as if she had just stepped out of them.

Ben Sunninghill looked at them. They were red, and lacy. And see-through, and brief. He had an almost irresistible desire to tiptoe inside and pick them up. To feel them between his fingers, to hold them to his face …

‘Gotcha!’

He jerked around. Helen was in the bedroom doorway, smiling, Dundee in her arms. ‘Lunch is ready when you are!’

Ben recovered himself, and said easily: ‘I was considering the best place for this override switch. Here by the bathroom door, which is easy for me, or by your bedside? That way is easy for you, but I’ve got to lead the cable right around the room.’

Helen considered the problem tipsily. ‘Bedside makes sense, provided you’ve got enough cable. Then I haven’t got to get out of bed in all my nakedness when I’ve finished reading, hit the switch, dash back, trip over the rug, bark my shins, cuss, scramble up in the dark, feel for the bed, et cetera.’

Ben grinned. ‘Right.’ He added: ‘You’re a funny lady.’

‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’

‘Both. But delightfully so.’

‘I knew it. Now I’m not only bushwhacked, I’m peculiar!’ She entered the room. ‘Trouble is, if it’s on my side of the bed, that means Clyde’s got to get up – when he’s at home – if he reads later than me, and switch the damn thing off. That’ll irritate him.’

‘Look, who’s this switch for? And how often is Clyde home?’

She pondered a moment. ‘True. To hell with Clyde?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Okay, on my side of the bed, please.’ Then she happened to glance into the bathroom and see the panties. She went in, scooped them up and stuffed them into the laundry basket. On her way back she closed the wardrobe door. ‘Lunch is ready!’ she repeated. ‘Finish the switch afterwards.’

She had gone to some trouble over lunch. Ben fetched another bottle of wine from his saddle-bag. But he ate very little. ‘I had two meat pies in Burraville just before I left,’ he explained.

‘That’s not very good for you – have some more salad, grown with my own fair hands!’ She was thoroughly enjoying herself.

‘Yes, I saw your vegetable garden. Very impressive.’

‘We’re lucky to have enough water for it – it’s a good well. And we swim in the holding reservoir.’

Ben imagined her in a swimsuit. He suggested: ‘Shall we do that, after we’ve finished work?’

‘Why not?’

Great things can happen in a swimming pool after a long boozy lunch. Ben couldn’t wait. At the very least, the prospect of being semi-naked with her in the common caress of cool water was wildly erotic. He said, for something to say:

‘So Clyde’s a Catholic? And Catholics were bad news in Australia?’

‘Oh, in those days, yes. Australia was very provincial when I was a kid, stuck out on the end of the world, and the majority of us are Protestants. Catholics were regarded as blighted with misinformation. Wops were Catholics – Italian immigrants who ran milk bars. As a girl I felt sorry for Catholics. And marry one? Never! It’s different now, of course.’

‘And Jews? How were they regarded?’

Helen hesitated. ‘Well … Jews have always had a hard time, haven’t they? I guess Australia Fair was no exception.’

‘Go on,’ he smiled: ‘say it. Regarded as furtive. Devious. Clannish. Money-grubbing. And too successful.’ He added, regretfully: ‘Present company excepted.’

She felt uncomfortable with this subject. ‘Well, maybe when I was a girl, but it’s quite different now, of course.’

‘Is it? Jack Goodwin evidently doesn’t think so. And that was before I started bargaining.’

‘Forget Jack Goodwin.’ Then she decided to be bold on this touchy point. ‘But why is it that Jews are so successful?’

He grinned. ‘Because they’re superior.’

‘Seriously.’

‘Seriously. Because we believe we’re the Chosen Race. Says so in black and white in the Bible. We’re different from other people, we’re privileged. So, as the Chosen Race, we have to work hard to justify it, and help each other, to maintain our position. We’ve got an Us-against-Them clannishness. So, we’re rather disliked. And we’re generally physically conspicuous, identifiable as Jews; an obvious target for prejudice.’

‘Well, I’m not anti-Semitic.’

‘No … But do you want your daughter to marry one?’

She was taken aback by the bluntness of the question, even though feeling so jolly.

‘I couldn’t care less, provided he’s a good husband!’ But then she added: ‘Well, I suppose every mother hopes her daughter will marry into her own culture. Religion …’ She faltered, then went on a trifle hastily: ‘But do you believe yours is the Chosen Race?’

He sloshed more wine into their glasses. ‘Yep. Learned it at my mother’s knee. And I’ve only got to look around at all my successful Jewish brethren.’ He grinned. ‘Heard a joke in the Burraville pub this morning. I suspect it was told for my benefit. Anyway, what did the Australian Prime Minister say in his telegram to Golda Meir congratulating her on winning the Six Day War? “Now that you’ve got Sinai, can we please have Surfers’ Paradise back?”’

Helen laughed. She’d heard it, but it was funny again coming from a Jew.

‘No, it wasn’t said for your benefit!’ She took a sip of wine, then asked: ‘Did Jack Goodwin know you were buying the puppy for me?’

‘Yes. Why? He asked me what I wanted a puppy for, on a motorbike. I told him about Oscar.’

Helen puckered one corner of her mouth. ‘Hmm. Did the other blokes in the pub know Dundee was for me?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Sure. Why?’

Helen sighed, but said cheerfully: ‘No, it’s okay. But it’ll be all over the Outback on the bush telegraph.’ She shrugged. ‘So what, I’ll say you’re my cousin from New York!’

‘Your cousin? With this nose?’ Ben sat back. ‘I see. It’s a matter of “What’ll the neighbours think?”’

‘To hell with them!’

‘But would Clyde be annoyed?’

She frowned. ‘No, Clyde knows I would never be … silly.’

Silly? That was a dampener. He wished he hadn’t mentioned Clyde – Clyde wasn’t a subject to bring up when nursing ambitions about that swim with his wife. But all he could do was make light of it. ‘To have an affair with me would be silly?’ Then he added: ‘You’re right, of course. So – to hell with the neighbours; I’ll be gone tomorrow, anyway.’

‘Oh Ben, you shouldn’t talk yourself down so! You’re not so …’ She paused, wishing she hadn’t started the sentence that way.

Ben wished she hadn’t started it that way too. ‘… Totally unattractive?’ He smiled.

She tried to avoid grinning, and tried to speak earnestly: ‘You know what I mean … You’ve a very attractive personality, Ben …’ (Oh Gawd, why’d she put it like that?) She waved a hand and blundered on: ‘You’re charming. Amusing. Witty. And I’m delighted to have your company …’ She trailed off, then ended brightly: ‘And beauty is only skin-deep!’ Oh, God, why had she said that?

Ben smiled wanly. ‘But ugliness goes right to the bone?’ His optimism about that swim was going right out the window. He stood up, embarrassed. ‘Well, I’ll finish rigging that switch—’

‘Oh Ben,’ she cried, ‘you’re not ugly! Finish your wine! Let’s have another bottle …’

He grinned. ‘Sure, bring it to the bedroom and talk to me while I finish that switch.’