Australian slang and American equivalents:-
Uni short for University
Ute short for utility, a pick up truck
Mobile = cell phone
Feral = redneck
Bloody oath or my bloody oath = too right
Autumn = Fall
Harry, during a long hot Australian summer meets first one woman then another, who all belong to the same group of friends. Harry is unusually smart but still has more to learn... and so from time to time do the women.
*
The lunch party broke up just after three o'clock. Trixie Llewellyn-Jones, the ministers wife left first, some parish work to attend to. She was soon followed by Bella Mason the new Hawksworth High School principal who also gave a lift to Carol Johnson and her rather odd little partner Lois.
"Come on Susan" said Maria the remaining guest to her hostess, "I'll give you a hand to clear up."
Within five minutes the two had everything in the dishwasher and settled down with a coffee for a good gossip.
"Pity the new doctor couldn't come. What's her name, Frances something or other?"
"Frances Gear" replied Susan. "I've only met her once, she seems very nice, we'll make sure she's invited to the next one. You do think we should do it again?"
"Oh yes, I thought today was really good and everyone got on so well. Carol's partner Lois is a bit of an oddity though, isn't she, rather quiet and somehow a bit cold. Mind you it's not surprising really, Carol can talk enough for two and she is a bit domineering."
Susan looked up quizzically and smiled. "Oh alright" laughed Maria I'm usually the bossy one, but people seem to expect it from me".
"They do" said Susan reflecting that it was hard to ignore Maria considering that her friend the daughter of an American father and Maori mother stood at least six feet three and one ninety pounds even after she kicked off the high heels she invariably wore. She was no skinny model but had the fine figure of the athlete she had been as a teenager. Her almost black wavy hair hung right down her back swishing regularly across the most admired backside in the Australian country town of Hawksworth, an unchallenged status since her arrival a year or so ago. At least, that was the opinion of Susan's dad."No man with any sense will try to look that woman in the eye" he had pontificated. "Not as long as she's got those legs and that ass."
"So" repeated Maria "we agree that the inaugural get together of the thirty something professional women of Hawksworth should be repeated."
"Well," responded Susan. "I don't know about thirty something. I'm almost thirty three and Bella is at least twelve months older than me. Remember, I was on her interviewing committee. Trixie and Lois are the youngest they're only twenty nine. But yes, I guess the way the chatter kept up we obviously have a lot in common, and we seemed to get on pretty well so yes we'll do it again. Who will be the next hostess, you or Carol?"
Maria deftly ignored her friend's sly dig and replied conclusively that Carol should be asked if she would like to be the next hostess and she Maria would stay modestly in the background. "Oh and talking of Carol" she continued, have you got her brother's telephone number? Didn't his firm do your new security system? I need some work done and if you thought his work was ok then I will ask him for a quotation."
"Well" said Susan, "it depends just what you want done I suppose, but I'm really pleased with his work, not cheap, but very good, and it is very reliable. With Alice going to the States this summer and starting Uni in Sydney when she returns in the autumn, I would not have felt secure when I have to return home on my own at night. He has installed an alarm but it also incorporates closed circuit television so that I can check the house before I go in. In fact I can check it from anywhere by calling on my mobile. The pictures come up on the screen and when I am at home I can check the house and show the pictures on the television as well. Come on I'll show you.
"Here is the first shot, the driveway and garage doors. I can also turn the house lights on by remote control before leaving the car. And now inside, the kitchen, dining room, hallway lounge, look there we are. Now let's switch to the upstairs cameras. My room, the landing, Alice's. room and last at the back. the guest rooms.
"Oh my God," cried Susan.
She dropped the remote control because in front of her in thirteen hundred millimetre (Fifty two inch) wide liquid crystal colour was the image of her eighteen year old daughter Alice making very passionate love to a young man who was definitely not Alice's regular boyfriend, a young man Maria had not seen before. Maria picked up the remote but did not switch off straight away. "god they're beautiful" she whispered, "beautiful." Two slim, lithe young bodies entwined, sinuously, thrusting, grasping at each other, obviously close to climax. in a vivid but almost surreal silence.
Click. The spell was broken as Maria pressed the off button and turned to her friend.
Susan was almost frantic "I'm so embarrassed. We shouldn't have intruded, and that's not Wayne. It's Harry, Harry Salt, but he's not her boyfriend. Oh, what shall I say to her."
"Come on, said Maria "it couldn't be helped, we didn't intend to look. Here, have another cup of coffee."
"Huh", responded Susan with some asperity, "it's all very well for you but it's not every day that I watch my daughter making love to someone who is almost a total stranger." Look, will you stay on for a few minutes... until they come down, because I'm bound to blurt something out and then I'll be so embarrassed, Alice will be embarrassed too, and probably furious, and God knows how Harry will react."
Maria privately thought that her friend was over dramatizing the situation but also guessed that given a few minutes she would soon collect herself. "Tell me more about Harry, where does he come into the picture?"
Susan explained. "Harry first went to school with Alice from the age of twelve but the teachers soon noticed that he was exceptional at mathematics, not just exceptional but absolutely brilliant in fact he was pretty darn good at everything else too. Anyway, his last teacher in High School was Carol Johnson before she left to start her own business and she persuaded a retired mathematics professor, Fred Neumann to tutor Harry. Carol told me she couldn't teach Harry a thing. We realized that Harry had a special talent when Fred entered him for a major university scholarship when he was only 16. He didn't just win, he demolished the opposition."
"That's not that unusual" interrupted Maria, "top maths students are often precocious."
"True replied Susan but Fred entered Harry for a graduate not an undergraduate scholarship. He beat a bunch of twenty two and twenty three year olds who had just got good honours degrees. So he went to Uni at sixteen and now he's not quite twenty and he already has a double first class honours degree in Maths and Physics."
"Mmmn" pondered Maria "seriously bright kid then, but" she added grinning mischievously "at least we know he doesn't do everything by numbers."
"You're incorrigible Maria" Susan retorted. "Now, he is fielding offers from Universities all over the world, He'll probably go to the States or Europe, but for this summer he is filling in as a local odd job man mowing lawns, fixing small things for people around the town and such like, he's very good with computers. You'd be surprised, he is very practical. He can turn his hand to most jobs."
Maria was tempted to observe that Harry was certainly doing a fine job with Alice but kept the thought to herself and questioned "what has he been doing here?"
"You know Alice, she is a good student herself and she is so ambitious, she suggested that she ask Harry to come over and tutor her. She told me that she wanted to be top of her year right from the beginning when she starts Uni. Do you think she has planned this" added Susan, suddenly suspicious?
"In a way I hope she has" grinned Maria "it's certainly enterprising, though it puts you in an awkward position. If you think about it you're actually paying a guy to have sex with your daughter and I wonder where her boyfriend, Wayne Holcombe isn't it; where does he fit in? Joking aside Susan, Alice has some explaining to do, to him at least."
"Only after I have been told what's been going on" replied Alice's mother. Susan had taken a grip on herself with the prospect of dealing with her errant daughter."I shan't be able to look Mike and Shirley Holcombe in the face knowing what I know. They're two of my oldest friends and as for poor Wayne." Susan noticed Maria's raised eyebrow "Oh alright" she conceded, "Mike is a terrible football and golf bore but Shirley's not too bad and I do see a lot of them. And there is poor Wayne, he's almost a fixture around here."
Maria was already fairly firmly convinced that if "poor Wayne" had looked out for himself Alice might be otherwise occupied at the moment, but her temptation to say so was stifled as both she and Susan heard footsteps descending the stairs.
Alice and Harry walked in:
Alice was a slightly taller, slightly slimmer version of her mother. She moved with the same easy grace as Susan and as both had similar golden blonde hair the only difference was that whilst Alice was very attractive her mother was more, she was undeniably lovely. Both of them shared another feature guaranteed to cause envy in that they shared the kind of fine looks that would last. Harry was by comparison, nondescript, equally slim he just escaped being skinny and if anything at five foot nine or so may have been a fraction the shorter of the pair. Almost black hair, not bad but not good looking his only remarkable feature was his green brown eyes, which thought Maria, many girls would kill for.
Alice did the introductions. "Harry, you know mum, this her best friend Maria Bunce, Maria has one of those impossibly long, unpronounceable New Zealand Maori names, so she's been shortened to Maria. Maria this is Harry."
Maria stood up to shake hands. She did so deliberately because in her experience a lot of men found it intimidating to find themselves looking up steeply to a much taller woman at close quarters. To her slight surprise Harry did not take the usual involuntary step backwards but held her hand and his ground for a moment, until she resumed her seat. Maria picked up the conversation, asking firstly of Alice what her immediate plans were.
"I'm going to visit my cousins in the US for three or four months, they live near Chicago. It'll be strange having a cold Christmas after the usual hot ones we get here in Australia but I'm so looking forward to it. Then in February I will be back to start Uni in Sydney."
"How about you Harry?"
"Oh, I'll probably be heading out just when Alice is coming back. I am thinking about a couple of offers but at the moment I'm also toying with the idea of taking a year off before any further studies. Both my sisters, and my parents live in the USA so that's probably my next destination though I'll be living with my Aunt Diane here in Hawksworth for at least the next three or four months."
Susan intervened, "so you won't be seeing any more of Alice for a while as she will be leaving on Monday, in three days in fact." Maria could almost sense Susan's relief but then Harry gazed unwaveringly at Susan and said with a big smile "Yes, I know but Alice is a great student, she picks things up really quickly and seems to get better every time I see her."
