"I need you to stick to the list, Hugh," Dottie had several things simmering on the cooker and seemed to be everywhere at once, "We don't want a repeat of the 'salmon incident' now do we?"
The 'Salmon Incident' had been an early attempt at married communication gone horribly wrong. Dot agreed to help Mrs. Stanley with a benefit dinner. In an attempt to prove to his new bride that he could be helpful he'd gone out to help with the shopping for one of the dishes; a new dish Mr. Butler was preparing: Salmon Almondine.
Only, Hugh couldn't find salmon. He didn't think he'd ever tried salmon. But he was an avid fisherman, so after failing to find salmon at the fishmongers, he hit the banks of the Yarra, and came up with several pounds of Murray cod. Surely that's nearly as good? He was also meant to get almonds to crush, but he had a time finding those as well. There was a store selling peanut butter. That seemed a good substitution, and so he went with that. For the life of him he couldn't find lemons, but, "citrus was citrus" he decided, so a bag of oranges joined the mix.
Hugh had not been trusted with any shopping since.
"No," Hugh agreed, "We don't want that."
"Hugh," Dottie stopped her frenzied preparations and carefully folded a piece of paper in his hands. She looked up at him earnestly, "It is vitally important that you do not improvise this time. Get exactly what's on this list, and nothing else. Do you understand?"
Hugh nodded. He would not let her down this time.
"Good. Now everyone is coming for Christmas dinner and I have too much to do to stop! Mr. Butler will be back this evening, or I wouldn't ask. I can trust you, can't I Hugh?"
"I won't let you down this time, Dottie."
Dottie rose up on her toes and planted a kiss on Hugh's nose, "I hope not, Hugh. Today means a lot to me. It's my first Christmas dinner as hostess."
Hugh left through Wardlow's kitchen door, grabbing his bicycle to pedal to the grocer's.
It was a hot mid-summer day. Christmas was just around the corner and everything had gotten a bit mad lately. Miss Fisher was still in England sorting out some sort of mess with money. Inspector Robinson tried to explain it to him, but the details were difficult to follow. The Inspector was quite cranky lately. More so than usual. He'd tried to follow Miss Fisher, but got caught up in the Fletcher-Sanderson trial. He seemed to be a little happier today, however. Apparently, the telegram from Miss Fisher was better news than expected.
Most of the time, the Inspector's moods didn't bother him. Hugh was much too excited about being a dad soon! Now that Dottie wasn't sick every waking moment, it was even better! They were still living at Wardlow at Miss Fisher's insistence. "Someone needs to keep the place lived in whilst I'm away," she'd told them.
Hugh parked his bicycle in front of the shop and pulled out Dottie's carefully written list.
1 - pound of butter
2 - sack of flour
3 - bottle of vanilla essence
4 - sachet of mixed spice
5 - bag of dark brown sugar
6 - jar of black treacle
7 - jar of marmalade
8 - dozen eggs
9 - bag of lemons
10 - jar of glacé cherries
11 - canister of icing sugar
"How am I supposed to get all…?" He steeled his resolve, mumbling beneath his breath, "You can do this, Hugh Collins. You can't let your wife down. Not again."
"Oi! Collins!" Hugh was just about to open the door to the grocer's when he heard Bert's crude greeting from across the street.
Yes! Just what he needed, for once.
"Bert! Cec! Over here!" he waved.
Dot finally had everything under control she'd be ready to bake the Christmas cake as soon as Hugh returned from the grocer. Where was he? It shouldn't be taking this long to get to the grocer's and back.
The sound of a familiar car engine in the back alley alerted her to the cab pulling up. Dot rushed to the back door to witness Hugh and Cec pulling Hugh's bike off the back of the cab.
"Hugh! What happened? Are you alright?" she rushed out to him.
"Oh, I'm fine, Dottie, the boys just came along at the right time to help me with your list. Can you help me load it all inside, fellas?"
"As long as we get some of the spoils," Bert negotiated with a laugh.
"Help you?" Dot said, "There wasn't all that much on the list."
Cec opened the boot of the car and Dot saw it completely packed.
"Hugh! What did you buy?"
"I did exactly what you said, Dottie. I stuck only to the list. Nothing more, nothing less. We did have to drive to Richmond to find more eggs though," Hugh seemed quite proud of his accomplishment.
"More eggs? How many eggs did you get? I only asked for a dozen eggs!" Dottie was starting to get a louder than they were used to hearing her. Bert and Cec each grabbed an armful of the parcels and took them inside.
"No… it's on the list," Hugh pulled it out and showed her the list, "See… right there you wrote 8 - dozen eggs."
Dottie gaped at her husband. He wasn't an idiot. She knew he wasn't an idiot. He was getting quite good at his job as Senior Constable. She had thought there might even be hope for him to take the detective's exam soon. But this… This…
"Those... weren't... quantities, Hugh! Those were list items!"
Cec and Bert came back out grabbing more parcels. Bert's clinked with the sounds of many jars. Cec picked up both sacks of flour.
The dawn of understanding broke over Hugh's face in shades of pink and red. "I… I didn't… I thought…"
"Oh… Hugh!"