The Magic Cottage

THREE SCORES

THERE'S AN OLD Chinese proverb I've just invented that goes: "When luck is on your side, numbers don't come into it."

The doorbell woke us around 8:30 next morning. That kind of hour is rarely even mentionable to me, so it was Midge who had to crawl out of bed to answer it. With one open eye, I noticed her face was still puffy and her eyelids red-rimmed from salty tears as she pulled on her nightshirt and left the bedroom. I groaned and pushed my head further into the pillow when she opened the front door of our apartment and I heard a familiar growly "Good morning." Val Harradine, her agent, had heralded in the dawn.

Their voices wandered off into the kitchen, Midge's barely audible and Big Val's grinding on like an asthmatic cement mixer. Actually, Val was okay, although a bit dykey of the bullish kind; what irritated me was the way she sometimes tried to force work onto Midge that Midge didn't want. When I learned of her mission that morning, I could have kissed her big head, moustache and all.

Midge came flying back into the bedroom and leapt onto the bed, her milky thighs straddling my tummy and her hands shaking my shoulder. I yelped and tried to shift her weight.

"You'll never guess!" she cried, pinning me there and laughing.

"C'mon, Midge, it's too early," I protested.

"Valerie tried to reach me all day yesterday—"

"That's wonderful news. Will you get off me?"

"She couldn't, because we were out, weren't we? She couldn't phone last night because she was out herself."

"This is fascin—"

"Listen! She had a meeting with the art buyer at Gross and Newby yesterday morning."

"That's the agency you don't like."

"I love 'em. They've got a huge presentation to make next week and the account's art director wants to use my style of illustration for posters. They want three, Mike, and they're willing to pay a heavy price."

Now unlike book and magazine publishers, advertising agencies are astonishingly high payers where artwork is concerned—usually client's money, you see—so £-signs flashed through my head and cleared the last dregs of sleep.

"Five hundred a piece," said a gruff voice. I looked over to see Big Val's broad visage peering around the door, not a pleasant sight on an empty—if Midge-burdened—stomach. However, it wasn't unwelcome on that particular morning, and I did my best to be nice.

"Less your twenty percent," I said.

"Naturally," she replied without a smile.

I blew her a kiss anyway—it wouldn't have been decent in my naked state to make it physical. My hands rested on Midge's thighs and I asked suspiciously, "When are they going to need 'em?"

"Monday," she told me.

"Aah, Midge, you're gonna knock yourself out."

"It'll be okay, I'll work through the weekend. If the campaign goes through, the agency will double-up on the price."

"Three thousand?"

"Less my twenty percent," out in Big Val.

"Naturally," I said.

The idea of Midge producing three such illustrations worried me: she never skimped or cheated on her work, and she had a particularly fine-detail style. Even with the restrictive time limit I knew she would put everything she had into those paintings.

"Do you realize what it means, Mike?" Her eyes were wide and shining. "We'll be able to afford the cottage, we'll be able to meet their price."

"Not quite." I reminded her of the figures involved. "We'll still be a thousand short, even if you do eventually get the full amount for the posters." If I imagined that would cast a cloud, I was wrong: my words didn't seem to have any effect on her at all.

"I just know everything's going to be all right. I knew the minute I woke up this morning."

"We really have to get moving, Margaret," interrupted Twenty Percent. "I promised I'd get you to the agency for a briefing as soon after nine as possible. I'm going down to find a cab and I'll give you five minutes to join me."

Within seven minutes, Midge was gone, leaving me with the wet imprint of a kiss on my cheek and a semitroubled mind. I was both pleased and concerned at the same time. The money just might allow us to compromise on the amount of work to be carried out on Gramarye. Maybe. Anyway, I promised Midge before she left to give Bickleshift a call and propose a revised offer to him. Things turned out the other way around, though.

I'd shaved and showered and was spooning my way through my cereal, nose into Rolling Stone, when the phone rang. Bickleshift was on the other end of the line.

"Mr. Stringer?"

"Yeah." I sipped the coffee I'd carried through into the hall with me and winced when I burned my lips.

"Bickleshift here."

I became instantly alert. "Oh, hi there."

"I said I'd call if there were any new developments concerning Gramarye. You know, I did understand your plight yesterday and I took the liberty of getting in touch with the late Flora Chaldean's executors after you left."

I didn't say anything about the queue of prospective buyers he'd mentioned. "Really? That was kind of you."

"Yes. You see, I don't quite know how to put this, but the sale of Gramarye is unlike any other I've undertaken."

"I don't understand."

"Well, apart from the purchase price, there are certain other aspects regarding the sale. I've been asked by the solicitor in charge of the estate, a Mr. Ogborn, of Ogborn, Puckridge and Quenby, to keep him advised of the, er, type of purchaser interested in the cottage. It seems Flora Chaldean was rather fussy as to who should take over if her niece put the place on the market."

"I see." No, I didn't see, but what else could I say?

"Mr. Ogborn wondered if it would be possible for you and your—sorry, Ms. Gudgeon—to pop along to his offices in Bunbury some time tomorrow, or even today."

"Uh, that might be difficult. I don't think Midge can make it—she's pretty tied up for the next few days." I didn't like the idea of being vetted, either.

"Ah." There was a short silence at the other end. "Well, it is rather important apparently that your good lady goes along too. Mr. Ogborn is most anxious to see both of you."

I get my own kind of intuitions now and again and something told me that Midge was the important part of the partnership. "She isn't here at the moment, so I can't give you a definite answer. I suppose we might both be able to make it down there." Poor Midge was really going to be under pressure workwise.

"That would be excellent. Now let me give you the telephone number of Ogborn, Puckridge and Quenby, then you can make your own arrangements regarding an appointment. With regard to your earlier offer for the property, I think you'll find Mr. Ogborn very amenable, although he might not come down to quite the figure you suggested. I wish you luck, anyway."

I took the number and we exchanged good-byes. I suppose I was a bit numbed when I returned to the kitchen, because I sat there for some time staring into the bowl of muesli, wondering what the hell was going on. And the morning was still not finished with surprises.

The next call came about an hour later. Midge hadn't come back yet and I was pondering on whether or not to call the agency to get a message to her. Between ponderings, and now in jeans and gray sweater, I had been sitting at the kitchen table working out figures on a sheet of paper, while propped up against a milk bottle before me was a list of Gramarye faults that had to be fixed (like that floor-to-ceiling crack in the bedroom). I walked out to the phone again, tucking the pencil behind an ear, still mumbling numbers to myself.

"Mike? It's Bob."

Bob's a tour manager (for rock groups and the like) friend of mine and we go way back. We used to be quite a team where play was concerned, but I was the one who got the girl. Fortunately there isn't a jealous bone in Bob's body.

"Hey, Bob, what're you up to?"

"Never mind. You busy next week?"

"I could fit something in."

"I mean all next week. The Everlys are back in town."

"Another Reunion?"

"Never fails. Albert's getting another backing group together and he wants to know if you're free."

"Are you kidding?"

"Do I ever?"

"Yeah, you do. I can break off all my other engagements."

"You familiar with their routine?"

"They're a bit pre my generation, but I know most of the stuff, and Albert'll put me right on anything I don't."

"Terrific. It's a grand in the bread-bin, by the way."

Score Three.

After arranging details and promising to meet Bob for a "definitely the last one" (muso-speak for a drink-up) in the nearest future, I hung up and wandered back into the kitchen, shaking my head at this funny day. Now I was left with no excuse at all for not buying the cottage, and I wasn't quite sure of my feelings about that. Nevertheless I grinned in anticipation of the look on Midge's face when I told her the news.