Some Australianisms
Esky = portable cooler
Yabbies = Freshwater crayfish(
"Hello," said Harry picking up the phone, "Who is it?" he asked, not recognising the voice.
"Cory Bruton, I was just ringing to tell you that one of my men has dropped off an industrial cleaner at Mrs Bunces place, but," he added, "She may have told you that already."
"She has," confirmed Harry.
"Yeah, well, to be truthful," admitted Cory, "I really rang to find out how long it would be before George could start. He's already managed to find a second hand set of tyres from a wreck, and the tyres are barely worn... saved us a lot of money, but now the old so and so is plaguing me to give him a start time.
"Tell him to give me two clear days," suggested Harry, "I don't know yet what else might need doing, and," Harry added, "You can blame me if there are any hold ups."
"I shall," laughed Cory, "I shall, but thanks for getting on with it. Cheerio for now."
Harry checked to see what he had booked for the day, one lawn and a picture hanging job, which would take ninety minutes each. He wanted to do some shopping, so there was no need to start until later in the morning.
Harry found that his aunt had anticipated him. "I checked your calendar," she said over breakfast, "And wondered if you could run me into town this morning. I have a big list for the supermarket and if you could give a hand that would be helpful." Harry nodded his assent, his mouth being full of toast and marmalade.
Aunt Diane's shopping was like a minor military operation, a limited objective to be achieved with the minimum of fuss. In less than forty minutes Harry was pushing a loaded trolley to the check out. "Hi Mrs Salt," greeted a cheerful assistant, "How much do you think it is."
"One forty six twenty," responded his aunt immediately. A few minutes later the assistant confirmed her figure.
"Does she ever get it wrong?" grinned Harry to the assistant.
"Not since I've been here, and that's six years," laughed the cheerful young woman, "But I've got it wrong a couple of times."
"Now Harry," suggested his aunt ignoring the exchange. "If you could take all this back to the car, then get what you want, maybe we could meet for coffee at Georgeo's in, lets say forty five minutes."
Harry completed his purchases quickly, and in little over half an hour arrived at the café. He lazed, sipping tea, watched the world go by a little, and glanced through the newspaper. His reverie, however, was short lived... "Hi Harry, I seem fated to running into you here," it was Bella Mason the High School Principal; she sat herself down. "I was going to phone you, but as you are here I may as well tell you how the arrangements are going for our conference weekend. First," she announced, barely pausing for breath, "We took Professor Neumann's name in vain a little, because he has contacted me already and sent a detailed agenda but..." Bella's flow was suddenly interrupted, Aunt Diane had arrived.
"Ah Harry," she suggested with her usual meticulous courtesy, "Am I interrupting, perhaps I should leave you and Mrs Mason."
"Oh no, not at all," responded Harry, "We were just talking about the arrangements for the conference, it's only a few weeks away now... sit down and let's order you a coffee."
That done Bella resumed, "There's not much to explain; if you could meet me at school on the Friday at say ten in the morning, we can then drive up to Armidale, we will arrive in plenty of time to liaise, if necessary with the organisers, before the reception in the evening. Then we will have a very full day on the Saturday with all the lectures, presentations, and so on, before returning to Hawksworth, sometime after breakfast on Sunday."
Bella continued to chatter, filling in details and Harry was gradually conscious that his aunt wasn't contributing much other than the occasional nod of assent or smile of understanding. Harry knew his aunt very well, and realised that she was being particularly watchful, almost wary of Bella Mason, he wondered why.
Bella concluded, "That is the outline, but don't worry about remembering it all because I will be sending you the necessary papers and arrangements in a couple of days. "Now," she said rising from her seat, "I must be getting along; I have another appointment shortly at school, bye for now Harry, and goodbye to you Mrs Salt, nice to see you again."
Harry and Aunt Diane watched in silence each thinking their own thoughts as the crisply elegant figure of Bella Mason walked away down the street.
Harry spoke first with a broad grin, "That's unlike you Aunt Diane, to show that you don't like someone."
Aunt Diane tapped her cup with the spoon and took a sip thoughtfully before answering acerbically, "Well, if even you Harry, were aware of my thoughts, I should indeed be more guarded in future."
"Alright," replied Harry ignoring the barb, "But why have you taken a dislike to her?"
"She seems to me," explained his aunt slowly, "To be a rather controlling woman, more manipulative than she needs to be. I do not dislike her, but I do think she is using you a little."
"Aunt," scoffed Harry, "You have to be kidding, using me, where did you get that idea?"
"Harry my dear, like most men you are amazingly unobservant of women, ask yourself this: who is organising this conference? The answer is, that it is not Bella Mason, so why have the organisers not sent your papers directly to you? answer, because she wants you to be under her wing, therefore she asked for them to be sent to her. This conference is about exceptional young people, the stars of the future, Bella wants to make sure you appear as her star, her former student, of her school. It's about her ambition, and how much reflected credit she can extract."
"Aunt Diane," interrupted Harry, but slightly uncertainly, "How can you read all that into a few moments meeting over a cup of coffee?"
"I didn't," smiled his aunt mischievously, and she patted Harry's hand gently, "I ran into Fred Neumann a few days ago and he was vastly amused at the way Bella had taken charge of you. 'Tell young Harry to watch out,' he said, 'Bella Mason is a good Principal but very ambitious, tell Harry not to let her use him."
"I hadn't thought of it like that," responded Harry rather lamely.
"Of course not," said Aunt Diane, "And whilst I will be the first to take you down a peg or two if you get swollen headed, you do need to develop some sort of sense of your own worth."
"And what about Mrs Mason?"
"Oh you don't need to worry about her, so long as you are aware of what her motives are, and what she wants from you, she will be easy enough to deal with. She's basically alright, just don't let her use you."
"Hmm," murmured Harry, "And I thought I was just going to have a pleasant weekend in Armidale."
"I'm sure you will," his aunt replied, "But now you had better deliver me and my shopping home and get yourself off to work."
Harry arrived a little later that day than he had expected at Maria's old house, but as he reflected, there was plenty of time to get the job done. In no time the generator was running, the lights were on, and the ladders in place ready to start on the inside of the roof. It was, however, soon apparent to Harry that he had completely underestimated the amount of work to be done. The roof timbers were exposed, and Harry soon discovered what sixty years of dust meant, he decided to brush off the dust and vacuum the floor afterwards. It was slow, painstaking, filthy work, and it was almost two hours before he even started to use the vacuum. Progress was then much faster and after another hour all that was left was to clean up around the steel trunks and chest in the middle of the floor. He decided to leave the bigger, more awkward trunks until he had some help. Harry had all but finished when he noticed a label attached to one of the trunks. In black ink, faded, but still quite legible, he read a name, 'Elizabeth Massie care of Mrs AJ Connon,' followed by an address in Centennial Park, Sydney. Harry memorised it carefully and smiled to himself, Aunt Diane would be itching to find out what was in the trunks.
Harry looked around: the place had scrubbed up pretty well so far, but as it was past six he had had enough of cleaning and decided to call it a day. Within a minute or two he bumped up the track to stop at the pool for a shower. Harry looked at himself in the mirror, scarcely believing how filthy he was and noticed a note tucked behind it; "there's something for you to eat in the top of the fridge, you'll need it to restore your energy!" There was also a house key taped to the bottom of the note.
I t took a long time to get thoroughly clean, and just as he finished Harry heard a car in the driveway. He emerged from the shower and was surprised to see Susan Tremaine getting out of her car. "Mrs Tremaine, I didn't expect to see... whoops," said Harry, as the towel, his only covering, almost slipped from him.
"Maybe you had better get dressed first," laughed Susan.
"True," acknowledged Harry grinning, "But maybe you had better face the other way for a few seconds."
Susan turned her back to Harry as he picked up the clean clothes he had brought with him. Not for the first time Susan had the opportunity to admire the thoroughness of the German engineers who had built her Audi, in particular the large wing mirrors which gave her an unimpeded albeit indirect view of Harry.
'Mmmm, lean but kinda muscley,'she mused, 'cute butt... oh my goodness, look at them, they're huge, no wonder he's got so much stamina... and his ... that looks pretty good to me, oh yes.'
But Harry was a quick dresser. "Ok Mrs Tremaine, I'm reasonably decent now."
