THE FINAL: Divorcee Merrick Jamieson (35) visiting New York comes into contact with the moll of the mysterious Spiro. The spirited Kirsty Fallon (25) finds she has become attracted and follows the photo-journalist to his homeland and begins working with him. Merrick foils a retriever sent to return Kirsty to New York and then travels to Manhattan and wins her freedom from Spiro. The couple are now in Los Angeles married. Merrick is incapacitated, suffering two knife wounds when defending his ex brother-in-law's wife Margaret. Marg's suppressed sexual interest in Merrick re-emerges and her husband Brian has committed adultery for the first time; it didn't go well for him and left him cleaning unclean and remorseful.
*
The next day Brian Raymond and Merrick Jamieson walked into the house. Kirsty's mother Bess Fallon greeted them, thrusting a hand over her mouth to suppress her excitement. She called, "Kirsty, you better come in here."
Kirsty in white trousers and a multi-colored shirt was on a sun lounger on the terrace reading. She rose, stretched and went in to find out what Bess wanted.
Merrick and Brian were standing with Bess grinning at her. There was no wheelchair.
"Darling, you've graduated," she screamed. "Whoopee!"
Brian told Kirsty the surgeon was happy. Merrick's cleared but was warned to take it easy for the next six months. No violent movements, no undue stress at all on that leg -- and definitely no kick-boxing. He was to use a walking stick for the next ten days when negotiating stairs and steep slopes. Medically he was in excellent condition and there was no sign of weeping around the femoral repair. The stitches would be removed next week.
"He's to have another check up with a specialist in Auckland and a final one in six months and that's it!"
When the excited chatter died, Bess said: "Listen you guys -- take off to San Diego in my car and catch up with the others. I have the address of their hotel. Get Marg to stay down there with you -- Linda and Bella can come back by bus in time to board their plane -- we'll meet them at the bus terminal. It's lovely down there. You can be back here in time for us to head off to San Francisco on schedule on Saturday morning."
"Go on, off with you!"
An hour later Brian, Kirsty and Merrick were on their way south.
Following the San Diego reunion, Merrick was pleased to see Kirsty and Bella so well bonded but was disappointed that Bella made no mention of wanting to live with them.
When the group returned to Los Angeles to farewell Merrick's mother and her granddaughter, Bella kissed everyone goodbye, leaving her father and Kirsty till last. As she prepared to go through for final passenger processing for her Qantas flight, she and Kirsty had a very emotional hug -- both sobbing freely. Then Bella and Linda were gone.
"Bella had such a lovely time," Bess sniffed. "According to Linda she arrived as a girl and in going home a teenager. Bella and Marg related extremely well but poor Marg (Marg was in the other vehicle) dropped out of the picture when you arrived Kirsty. Young girls get excessively romantic -- she thinks of you as a film star."
"That's not excessive, Bess; that just good judgment," Merrick grinned.
Kirsty squirmed. "I was hoping she would say she wanted to come to live with us, but she stopped short of that."
"What -- then she made a hint?" Merrick asked, suppressing excitement.
Kirsty had known it would please him to hear her comments. "Her final words to me were, 'I'm going to talk to mum about my future." She then kissed me and was gone.
"That's fantastic," Merrick crowed. "The initiative has to come from her. I'll do the negotiating and, if it's necessary, the battling."
"You're taking it for granted that she wants to live with you."
"Yes, Bess. Why else would she say such a thing?"
"Here's a bar -- signal to the others behind us and pull over, Brian. The drinks are on me," Merrick said.
"No -- I'm picking up half the tab," Kirsty insisted. "I also have cause for celebration -- she likes me."
Five days later the bride and groom were back in Epsom, Auckland, enjoying the end of summer -- the season changing full circle on the 'down under' side of the globe. The only communication from Bella was a lovely card, thanking them for a wonderful holiday and wishing them a great start to married life.
Merrick and Kirsty organized a post-wedding party for friends and neighbors. Merrick had suggested there was no need to bother while Kirsty was adamant that all the women would want to hear full details.
"Well, why don't you just have a 'do' for the girls and I'll act as wine waiter," Merrick offered, earning himself the first dark look since his marriage.
Kirsty's preference was for an outdoor function, starting at 4:00. Merrick favored that but was mindful of the fickleness of Auckland's weather which often defies the best efforts of meteorologists to produce accurate forecasts. The city is smack on the narrowest section of the North Island, less that a half mile across at one point of the isthmus between the Waitemata Harbor on the east coast (Pacific Ocean) and the equally deep penetrating Manukau Harbor on the west coast (Tasman Sea) between New Zealand and Australia. It's not uncommon for the region to have three of more weather turns in a day when seasons are changing.
Merrick explained this to Kirsty, describing the influence of the two harbors on Auckland's weather. He kindly converted the distance from metrics to imperial but Kirsty didn't require that, being already familiar with both measurements in terms of speed and distance through driving on New Zealand roads. With logic, she was not quite so precise, asking, "Why can't I have a fine Saturday evening when I need it?"
That problem for Kirsty began soon after first landing in New Zealand almost a year earlier.
"This weather here," she'd complained. "It is so unpredictable -- it's like a woman trying to decide what color and style of shoes to buy.
Merrick had stood speechless -- an unusual vocal state for him. But it was such a shock Kirsty conceding that women might sometimes have difficulty in making up their minds. Normally no such concessions came from her,
The current situation was too serious for bantering.
"We'll wait until the last minute before deciding whether to have it outdoors or in the house, Merrick said wisely.
But Kirsty came up with even a better idea.
"I'll ask Mrs Stewart."
Merrick could only shake his head in wonder.
Mildred Stewart the cleaning lady arrived at 7:00. Merrick had left to perform a small photographic job in Tauranga -- a wealthy client in Sydney had an option on an apartment penthouse he'd found on a website and had commissioned Merrick to fly down and produce 'some decent photographs' of the place. The photographs the prospective buyer had received from the real estate agency apparently appeared to have been shot on a $50 digital camera.
Mrs Stewart had arrived excitedly with flowers and a small sleeping suit for an infant, Kirsty told Merrick as soon as he returned from Tauranga. "I held up the tiny suit in surprise and Mrs Stewart said, "You're pregnant, aren't you?"
Kirsty related the conversation in full as she and Merrick sat out on the lawn, he drinking coffee, she preferring orange fragrant herbal tea. "I nodded dumbly and thanked her and said the gift was so lovely. She looked very pleased. I asked why she had chosen blue instead of a neutral color -- that is could be a girl. She just tossed her smiled and said that it would be a boy. Them she looked at my hair and swore: 'Christ, look at your hair. It looks like a wig. Those American hairdressers are like their male counterparts with military weapons -- an overkill of firepower.' She told me that she needed to get some of the stiffness out of my hair to get it flowing freely again, that she'd go out to her car to get her box of tricks. She is full of funny sayings like that."
Merrick's yawn was ignored.
"When she started working on my hair, she rather embarrassed me. She said, 'Right, now tell me about the wedding night. I want a blow by blow description on how you coped and what it felt like considering you would have mentally transported yourself back to being a virgin'. How could she know that I had tried to picture myself like that at the wedding? She wasn't even there?"
Merrick had no idea, and said so. It surprised him to find she'd been playing mind games at the wedding. He'd been too preoccupied about getting through the ceremony and out of the spotlight, feeling such an idiot being wheeled in and then being helped to stand up as if he had been knee-capped and emasculated. A few people, Kirsty and his mother included of course, seemed aware of his predicament -- his embarrassment -- but actually it was only Marg who had whispered encouragement and focused him on the fact that it would soon be all over. Marg really was a brick.
