A Friendly Demonstration
Chapter 41
Harm woke early on Saturday morning, luxuriating not only in the knowledge that he didn't have to be up and doing immediately, but also in the warmth and fragrance that filled his bed as Gill lay still peacefully sleeping next to him, her dark hair spread like a fan over her pillow, her face faintly flushed with sleep and her breathing slow and easy.
Harm slowly turned onto his side so that no sudden movement should jar her from her sleep, and propped himself on an elbow so he could study her without fear that she would suddenly lift her head, grin, and ask "What?" in a lovingly suspicious voice, the way only she could.
Gill, he considered dispassionately could never be described as beautiful, at least not in the Hollywood-Playboy sense of the word, and pretty seemed too… too… immature a description. But she was undeniably a very attractive, very desirable woman. A strong woman, who knew what she wanted out of life, and as experience had recently shown him, she wasn't too shy about the way she went about getting it! She was also the owner of a roguish sense of humour that made her even more attractive when she engaged it, but even now, asleep, her face at peace there were still vestiges of her underlying nature showing through, a hint of a smile on her lips, a slight crease at the corners of her eyes…
Eyes that were now looking at him as her quizzical smile settled on her lips, "What? she murmured.
"Oh… just trying to figure out what a gorgeous, sexy woman like you is doing wasting her time with an old washed-out ex-jet jockey, like me," Harm grinned in return.
Gill pretended to think for a moment, then she too wriggled over onto her side and propped herself on one elbow in a mirror image pose to Harm's. Using her free hand to brush a few errant strands of hair out of her face, she regarded him steadily and then at last spoke, "Oh… didn't I tell you? You're my latest project. I have taken it upon myself to civilise at least one of the barbarians!"
Harm chuckled, "You're not ever going to let me forget about that first date, are you?"
The humour instantly fled from Gill's face, "Why, is it something you want to forget?"
"Good God, no! Never! There isn't a second of that evening that I don't hold and cherish in my memory!" Harm said earnestly. "I do have one regret about that evening, though."
"And what was that?" Gill asked, on the verge of suspicion.
"Well, actually, two regrets. The first one is that the evening didn't last long enough, and the second is that I didn't have the nerve to do this…" he leaned forward and captured Gill's lips with his own, feeling her instant response as she opened to him.
The kiss broken at last, Harm lay on his back, with Gill's head resting on his shoulder, a soft smile on her lips and one finger idly twirling the hairs on his chest. "If remembering our first date has results like that, I hope you'll never forget it! So if I have to keep reminding you I will!"
"You can remind me as much as you want," Harm smiled in reply, "I don't need reminding, but I do like it!"
Gill felt his chuckle as a deep rumble in her ear, and was contentedly slipping back into a state of drowsiness when she felt Harm sigh, "Something the matter?" she asked.
"I hate to disturb you, but I need to get up," Harm said regretfully. "Don't you move though, I'll get myself sorted out and then I'll get breakfast ready before I call you, okay?"
"M'mm… 'kay," Gill murmured.
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Julia woke to an empty bed, sleepily she raised herself onto her elbows and blearily through still sleep-clouded eyes she looked around the room. No sign of Johnny there, and no sound in the bathroom.
"Johnny?" she called, but received no answer, now slightly worried she sat up in bed and reaching out snagged Johnny's shirt off the back of the chair where it had been carelessly thrown last night just before they… well… just before… but if his shirt was here… and his pants were here… where the hell was Johnny?
Now worried that he might have slipped and fallen in the bathroom, Julia swung out of bed and padded barefoot to the bathroom, and hoping not to see what she feared, she opened the door. The bathroom was empty.
For a second Julia dithered over whether or not to call the front desk to ask if they had seen him, but how would they have seen him? And if his clothes were here, then what was he wearing? And if he'd gone sleep-walking in what he wasn't wearing in bed – despite herself, Julia nearly giggled at the thought – he wouldn't thank her for drawing attention to that fact. But before she could make up her mind the door opened and a t-shirt and shorts clad, sweat damp and still slightly breathless Johnny entered the room.
"'Morning, sweetheart," he grinned as his heart gave a leap at the sight of Julia dressed in his shirt – and only in his shirt if he guessed correctly, but to his surprise, his cheery greeting didn't meet with the reception he had expected.
"Don't you 'Morning, sweetheart' me!" Julia said furiously.
"What? What the hell is wrong with you? What did I do?" Johnny asked in confusion.
"You… snuck out of here without a word of warning! I woke up and you were gone. I even thought you might have fallen in the bathroom and knocked yourself out! I was about to call the front desk and ask if they'd seen you!"
"For fuck's sake!" Johnny yelled back, "You work for a lawyer! Ever heard of reviewing the evidence before you condemn someone?" he brushed past her and snatched a slip of paper off his pillow and thrust it at her, "Here read that! I'm going for a shower!"
Julia stared after him as he stormed into the bathroom and then winced as he slammed the door after him, and even through the echoes of that she could hear the bolt being slammed across. Tears starting in her eyes e=she remembered the sheet of paper in her hands and looking down, unfolded it.
"Good morning, beautiful. I've gone for a run. I won't be too long, back at about 0800!
Love 'n' xxxxxxxx
J"
Julia plumped back down onto the bed, and let the note fall into her lap, as she let the tears fall down her face.
She was still sat there, her face still wet when Johnny came back out of the bathroom, a towel around his hips and using a second one to vigorously dry his hair. From his scowl it was obvious that he was still in no good mood, but then he saw the tear tracks on Julia's face, and his anger fled in a nano-second.
Instantly he was on his knees in front of her, taking both her hands in one of his and tilting her reluctant face up so that he could look into her eyes.
"Oh, sweetheart, please, don't cry. I'm sorry I snapped at you… I should have been…"
"I'm not crying because you yelled at me…" Julia said miserably. "I was crying because I was such a witch to you… You were right… I should have looked properly… I know you wouldn't just walk out…"
"Oh, Julia… that's never going to happen, not in a million years…" Johnny slid on to the bed next to Julia and slipped an arm around her waist, breathing a relieved sigh as she let her head fall against her shoulder.
"Can you forgive me?" she asked, still tearfully.
"Nothing to forgive, sweetheart!" he dropped a tender kiss onto her forehead.
"Yes, there is!" she insisted, "We've just had our first fight, and it was entirely my fault!"
"Well… that's true… but look on the bright side, we'll never have our first fight again, it could have been much, much worse, it was over something so silly that when we get ourselves back together again we'll either laugh over it or we'll wonder how on earth we let something so stupid upset us. Or more likely we'll have forgotten what the hell we were fighting over anyway. And as for it being all your fault… well… I don't think I can agree with that. Well… not entirely…" he grinned.
Julia wriggled upright and free of his arm, "Johnny Walker! You… you just handled me, didn't you?"
"Just a smidgen," Johnny confessed holding up a hand, his finger and thumb only just not touching.
"Well… if it was only that much, then I suppose I could let you slide," Julia granted as she snuggled back under his arm.
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"Did you ever meet the Captain's RIO, from when he was still flying?" Victor asked.
"No it was before my time… but you must have been there then?"
"Well yeah, but I never met her, and in fact the only time I can recall hearing about them flying together is when they flew a CAP over the Superbowl, and he kept it quiet… apart from winding everybody up!" Victor grinned at the memory.
"Winding them up, how?" Jen asked.
"Oh… The Colonel, Colonel MacKenzie told me that he just let it be known that he had scored two seats for the Bowl, and kinda hinted that he might let a friend have the other seat. Well, Commander Turner, Lieutenant Roberts and Colonel MacKenzie all went into a kind of feeding frenzy trying to persuade him to donate the seat to them. Of course he just laid low and said nothing, milking the whole thing for everything he could get, then just before he left he promised to bring back a photo. Well, if you remember that Superbowl was played in the Louisiana Superdome, so all he got was an aerial shot of the dome!"
Jen smiled, "Yeah," she said softly, "There was a time he used to pull stunts like that. Before…"
"Before?" Victor queried.
Jen nodded doubtfully, "I know you respect Colonel MacKenzie, and in a way I still do, but I'm finding it hard to forgive her for what she did to him…"
"Just what did she do, Jen? I expected that they'd be married by now, maybe even with a passel of kids. I mean, if you'd have seen them together in Afghanistan… that was the happiest I'd ever seen them!"
Jen shrugged, "I don't really know what happened. All I got from Mattie before she clammed up was that the Colonel turned him down when he asked her to marry him."
Victor nodded as he considered that Jen's words went some way to explaining the grim lines around the Captain's mouth and the shielded look in his eyes that he didn't remember from his days in Falls Church.
Jen took advantage of his silence to probe gently, "But why were you asking about his RIO, Victor?"
"Huh? Oh… it turns out that his new driver is his old RIO's niece, and I'm just wondering if that's good thing. It wouldn't do for a Captain to get too involved in a private's life."
"I don't think you need to worry. The Captain took much more of an interest in me, he even had me living next door to him, and everything worked out okay. So quit worrying!"
"I can't help it! I'm a First Sergeant, it goes with the territory!"
Jen straightened in her char, "Okay… if it makes you feel any better, I'll have an unofficial word with her on Monday on woman to woman basis and explain just exactly how she needs to behave around him."
"It can't hurt," Victor agreed "and it might even help."
"Gee, ya think?" Jen chuckled.
Victor nodded, "I do… Now changing the subject completely, what would you like to do today?"
"Oh… not much… I need to take an oily rag to this place at some stage today, so if you want to bug out…?" Jen suggested.
"Hell no! I'm a marine! We're not afraid of a little light housework!"
"Good! In that case, how about going to see a movie this evening?" Jen suggested.
"Not just get a DVD?" Victor asked.
Jen shook her head in a decided fashion, "Nope, I want the full experience tonight, the movie, sodas, hot dogs, popcorn… the works!"
"Do they even have popcorn and hotdogs in British movie theatres?" Victor asked.
"They will have, if they know what's good for them!" Jen said darkly.
"Okay… the movies it is… Is there anything special that you want to see?"
"Yeah, there's an adaptation of the latest John Le Carré novel that's just been released over here, 'The Constant Gardener'."
Victor looked at Jen with growing suspicion, "It isn't a chick-flick is it?" he demanded.
"From John Le Carré? I shouldn't think so!" Jen defended her choice of entertainment. "And anyway I'm saving up the chick flick nights for when Mattie gets here!"
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After a day of doing mostly nothing, apart from the dreaded, from Harm's point of view, going to the stores for groceries, Gill and Harm had started getting ready for their dinner at the Davenport's home across the street.
But as Harm stood in front of the bathroom mirror, his face slathered in shaving gel and his razor in his hands he decided that even the trip to the local superstore hadn't been too bad. No, well, actually it had, right up to the moment when with a loaded shopping cart he had fumed while standing in line for the checkout at the slowness of the other customers in front of him. Why was it he wondered that women in particular always had to wait until they were told the total of their bill before they even started to think about how they were going to pay it? And then the process of paying was even more drawn out, involving a search of their purses for their wallet, and then the agonising decision as to whether to pay by cash or card, and if by card, which card? Harm was ready to pay. His card was out of his wallet and tucked into the breast pocket of his polo shirt, so why couldn't they be more like him, dammit!?
Something of his state of mind must have communicated itself to Gill, as with a sidelong look from under her lashes she murmured slyly, "Mummy would be so proud of me if she could see me now."
"Huh?" Harm grunted, taken a little by surprise by her remark delivered without warning out of the blue.
"M'mm, yes. Here I am just like the little suburban housewife she always wanted me to be, at the supermarket on Saturday afternoon, complete with a full shopping trolley, sore feet and a bad-tempered partner," she answered in her most innocent tone of voice.
"I am not bad-tempered!" Harm began to dispute hotly, but then broke off and smiled sheepishly, "Yeah, I guess I was being a little…"
"Tiresome? Boring? Irritable? Bad-tempered?" Gill offered helpfully.
Harm laughed, drawing some curious looks from other shoppers, "Yes, any or all of the above!"
Maggie Parker rang through the last of the items from the shopping trolley, and smiled brightly as the tall man, an American, by the sound of it, slipped his card into the reader almost before she had finished reading out the total spend. The transition was swiftly completed, the trolley repacked and he and his dark haired companion left her to face the next dragon of the day. Why couldn't more customers be as pleasant as that couple she wondered? And he had such a lovely smile.
His grin threatened to cause the razor to inflict some nasty wounds as he shaved, so Harm fought down his smile of reminiscence as he recalled just how adroitly Gill had handled him. He would, he thought, have find some fitting method of payback.
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Harm finished knotting his neck tie and then slipped into his jacket, checking his appearance in the three-quarter length mirror on the inside of the closet door before he turned to look at Gill. Already dressed in her 'prize' for going shopping with Sue, as she had laughingly described it Gill looked at Harm appreciatively.
His light-grey Italian suit – one of Trish's presents from a recent trip to Milan – had been matched with a mid-blue shirt and his dark blue, Navy Aviator's tie with the scattering of gold wings across it and to Gill's critical eye looked superb. 'Some say,' she reflected 'that clothes make the man, but not in this case. This is very much a case of Harm being the ideal clothes rack to show the suit to its best advantage.' And the knowledge that she now had full access to the body inside that suit gave her a warm inner glow that she couldn't help but reflect in her smile.
That smile caught Harm's eye, "What?" he asked, his voice verging on the edge of suspicion.
"I was just thinking that you clean up pretty well," Gill said, deliberately understating her opinion.
But Harm was not deceived. He had caught the teasing look in Gill's eye and was becoming more accustomed to her dry sense of humour, "Well…" he drawled, "You don't look too shabby your own self!"
Gill stood, a glow of pleasure at the compliment, no matter how it was phrased, she knew that he meant it, and gave a little pirouette to show off her new dress, "You like?" she asked almost girlishly.
"What's not to like?" Harm asked, and he did like what he saw, the dress was a sleeveless dark burgundy, Empire line, modestly high-necked, with a band of Celtic knot work around the neck-line and a further panel of knot work set high, just below her breasts, the skirt falling in soft folds almost to ankle length in back, the front rising to just below knee height to show Gill's legs to advantage and came with a matching wrap edged in panel of Celtic knots to drape her shoulders and arms. She had chosen to wear her hair loose this evening in a simple fall that brushed her shoulders, and far from not looking too shabby, Harm thought she looked the picture of perfection.
Unaware of just how long his visual inspection had taken it took a slightly blushing Gill to recall Harm to the here and now, "If you've quite finished leering, Mon Capitaine, are you ready to face the lions?"
Harm looked at his watch, "We've ten minutes to go," he quirked an eyebrow, "Unless you want to be so uncool as to arrive dead on time?"
"Heaven forfend!" Gill cried, "That would be the height of bad form, don't you know?"
"Yeah, I'd kinda figured that out all by my own self," Harm deliberately exaggerated his accent.
"And I hope you don't intend to talk like Pa Clampett all night!" Gill said warningly.
"Waal, hush my mouth iffen I didn't go to fergitting not to do just that!"
Gill couldn't help it, she giggled, but then said, "Don't even think about it, pal!"
"Are you sure they're not expecting some sort of barbarian?" Harm asked slyly.
Gill eyed him fulminatingly, but then decided to give him a pass on his sly dig by loftily ignoring it, "After meeting Tim Davenport, and him helping you with those ramps? Are you serious?"
"Not entirely, but then again, I'm not entirely used to being put on display," Harm argued.
"Oh, it won't be like that, I'm sure!" Gill protested, picking up her wrap from the foot of the bed and draping it over her elbows.
Harm nodded, still not entirely convinced, but he offered Gill his arm, "Shall we?" he asked with a smile.
Gill tucked her hand into the crook of the proffered arm, "We shall," she agreed.
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Tim Davenport, in a darker grey suit than Harm opened the door once Harm had pressed the bell and stood back with a welcoming smile, "Harm, good evening!"
"Good evening, Tim, you remember Gill?"
"Of course come on in the two of you, and meet the mob…" Tim led them through to the lounge which to Harm's eyes seemed packed, but the crowd soon resolved itself into its component parts and Gill and Harm realised that with themselves there were actually only ten people in the room.
"Firstly of course," Tim smiled as they were joined by a pretty, plumpish red-head who forcibly reminded Harm of Harriet Sims, a notion that was further reinforced when she smiled up at him as Tim finished his introduction, "My wife Bella, a domestic Goddess of the first order! Bella… Harm and Gill!"
"Good evening, Mrs Davenport," Harm said, while Gill smiled her greeting.
Bella Davenport felt herself go weak at the knees, 'Oh, my… that is a killer smile!' she said to herself and then to her chagrin felt herself blushing like a schoolgirl, but still managed a little laugh and "Oh, no, no Mrs Davenpoprts here, if you please, it's very polite, but really you must call me Bella!"
"Alright, then, Bella it is!"
"Come on in, I'll get you both a drink – we have a pretty good fino sherry, or maybe you'd prefer something stronger?"
Harm and Gill both shook their heads, "Sherry's fine with us," Gill smiled.
"Good!" Bella led then to a sideboard and poured each a generous schooner of sherry, "Now, I'll let you meet the others," Bella smiled, "But don't worry if you can't remember all their names right off. Now, Tim, you take Gill to meet the other girls, I claim the right to introduce Harm to the chaps! You don't mind, do you?" she added as a slightly anxious afterthought addressed to Gill.
"No… no, you go ahead! That is if you don't mind me borrowing your husband?"
"It was my idea," Bella said slyly, exchanging a mischief laden smile with Gill, before continuing absolutely straight-faced, "But remember, dear, 'borrow' is the operative word; you can't keep him!"
Gill chuckled, "I'll try to keep that in mind!" while Tim and Harm exchanged a slightly worried look.
Bella laughed and with a hand on his arm turned Harm towards the expectant faces, "Harmon? Or…?"
"Make it Harm… Bella," Harm said hesitating slightly over the name, "I'm only Harmon when Mom wants to blame for me something!"
"Very well, then, Harm, I'd like you to meet Peter Taylor, one of our weather gurus, he's married to Annie, she's an Admin type, and Martin Robson… he's our token civvy, married to Emily, over there…" she indicated a tall rather severe looking woman in a blue dress, "Emily is one of our Air Traffic Controllers, they live… oh… four doors down from you. And last but not least this Pat Griffiths, he flies Tornados, and his wife is Eleanor, that rather glamorous looking blonde in the light blue, she does something esoteric in the city…"
"Gentlemen," Harm offered a general smile, "I am pleased to meet you, but although I promise I will try, I may not be able to get all your names straight right off the bat!"
"Oh… I'm sure you'll manage," Pat Griffiths replied with a grin, "You mustn't underestimate our persuasive nature! Tim tells us you haven't been with us all that long, but we've already got you using cricketing terms!"
"Have you?" Harm asked in mild surprise, "Well, if I am using cricketing terms, then you must lay the blame – or credit – for that squarely at Gill's feet!"
"No! There will absolutely no talk of cricket tonight!" Bella interrupted sternly.
"You don't like the game?" Harm asked.
"Oh… I love it! But I'm still fuming over the first test!" Bella said with a wry grimace.
"But England won the Ashes," Peter Taylor interrupted with a grin, and a broad wink to Harm on Bella's blind side.
"And for the first time since… what was it… eighty seven?" Pat added.
Ella looked as if she was about to explode, but whether with anger or laughter, Harm wasn't quite sure, but he figured the guys were having far too much fun teasing their hostess, "Well, that's all beyond this poor old sailor. Gill did try to explain cricket to me once, but just ended up confusing me all the more!"
His sally brought a round of laughter and a grateful smile from Bella before Eleanor Griffiths approached with what Harm immediately detected as a predatory smile, that reminded him somehow of… of… he cudgelled his brains for a moment trying to think just where he'd seen that smile before, and then it came to him. And with a silent groan he realised he should have spotted the second he saw her. Eleanor Griffiths was a Renée Peterson clone.
"Good evening," she said warmly, "Your… ah… friend Gill has just been telling us all about you!" she smiled at her husband, "Pat, did you know that Harm was a fighter pilot too?"
"Yes, was. The emphasis being on the past tense!" Harm said firmly, "These days I'm an attorney!"
"Oh, bad luck!" Pat replied with every evidence of sincerity, "What happened?"
Harm gave a light shrug, "Anno domini, and then they phased out my ride and the Navy didn't reckon it was worthwhile to cross-train me into its replacement." That wasn't quite the whole truth, Harm silently acknowledged, The Navy hadn't thought it economically viable to re-train him to fly the Super Hornet, or as it was becoming more widely known the Rhino, but the Company had, and had trained him on more types than most aviators ever dreamed of, or even knew about.
Pat Griffiths took a sip of his drink and regarded Harm shrewdly, "Tomcats, hey? I never flew one, never really saw one close up, but from what I did see they were pretty impressive. Almost as good as the Tornado!" he grinned.
"Ah… but we're not comparing apples to apples, are we?" Harm responded. "The F-14 was designed as a long-range interceptor, while the RAF version of the Tornado, as I understand it, is a strike-fighter?"
Pat nodded, "Yes, indeed… and anyway it looks like I'll be joining you behind a desk soon. Like yourself, the years are catching up on me, and it is unlikely I'll be allowed to convert to the Typhoon."
"Oh… if you boys are going to talk aeroplanes all evening, I'm going to find some more congenial company!" Eleanor pouted.
"Yes, alright, dear," Pat replied, barely seeming to notice what his wife had said, but Harm had the feeling that the man missed very little.
"But she's right you know, it's bad form to be talking shop at a social occasion. So let's say we shut the hangar doors and find a top up. This is rather good sherry!" Pat grinned.
Harm felt a sense of relief as Eleanor drifted away to talk to the severe looking brunette, and anxiously cast his eye around to see that Gill wasn't sitting alone in a corner. He needn't have worried, Bella Davenport was far too good a hostess to allow that to happen, and Harm was relieved to see that Gill was in the middle of a lively three-way conversation with Bella and Annie Taylor.
Pat reappeared with the two refilled sherry schooners and said to Harm, "Look, I am sorry about banging on about aircraft with you, but Eleanor is a lawyer, and once she found out you were a lawyer too then she'd have bent your ear all evening." He gave an apologetic grin, and continued, "After all you are a bit of a local focus of curiosity, we don't get many high-ranking US officers here, and even fewer Navy officers, and you have kept yourself pretty much to yourself. I don't think anyone's ever even seen you in the Mess. So everyone's agog to find out all they can. But I'm, sure you wouldn't care for one of Eleanor's cross-examinations!"
"Oh… I hadn't meant to be stand-offish, but this is my first command slot, and my XO and AI billets have been gapped, and of… oh… there were all sorts of reasons, which seemed perfectly valid at the time for working long hours and then only coming home to eat and sleep before starting again."
"Good God, man! You don't have to justify yourself to anyone – least of all me! But I daresay the distaff side wouldn't mind hearing a few snippets while we eat?"
"Well if he doesn't feel like it, then they'll just have to know what it feels like to want!" Tim Davenport came to Harm's rescue, "But it shouldn't be too long bef…" Whatever he was about to say was cut off by the ringing of a small hand bell and a clear girlish voice announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen! Dinner is about to be served, please take your seats!"
Harm looked around to find a younger, casually dressed version of Bella Davenport standing in the doorway that evidently led to the dining room, a welcoming smile on her face.
"One of yours?" Harm asked with a smile.
"Indeed," Tim smiled proudly. "She's been supervising the last minute affairs in the kitchen. Oh, don't worry, Bella did most of the cooking, but Karen's developing into quite a cook on her own part!"
Bella came up to them, "Well come on through you two, don't let all mine and Karen's hard work go to waste! Tim, you're at the head of the table as usual, Harm if you sit on Tim's right next to Gill. I'll sit at the foot…" she dropped her voice to a whisper, "I've put Eleanor alongside me…" she grinned and her right eyelid flickered in what Harm was almost sure was a wink.
Harm allowed Bella to usher him to his place and looking around saw that the table as set for ten, "Your daughters aren't eating with us?"
Tim laughed, "Not a chance! They'd be horrified at the prospect. Karen will take something up to eat in her room while she pretends to study instead of being on the phone to her friends, and the twins are on a sleepover at one of their friends' houses!"
"I've always said you've got them well trained!" The smiling brunette opposite Harm said, "We haven't met, but I'm Annie!"
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"And the verdict is?" Gill asked as she and Harm strolled back across the street.
"A pretty good dinner, if a little heavy for me," Harm said. "I would normally serve a salad with salmon en croute, rather than potatoes and roast vegetables. But the fresh fruit salad was good!"
"I wasn't meaning the food, I meant the company!" Gill chuckled, as she rubbed her cheek against Harm's bicep.
"Oh… well… Tim is Tim… you met him before, he's the same at home as he is in public. And Bella is wonderful!"
"H'mm… should I be feeling jealous?"
"Well, there's no need, but you can if want," Harm answered carelessly.
"Okay, in that case, I think I'll pass," Gill chuckled, but then added, "What about the rest?"
"Well Annie was very pleasant, Pat Griffith is all right, once you can get him to shut up about flying…"
"I would have thought you'd have loved that!" Gill said in some surprise.
"Not at dinner." Harm said firmly, and then took a deep breath, "The Robson's were okay too, Emily looks a bit off putting, but was pleasant enough…"
Gill did a quick piece of mental arithmetic and came up with the missing name, "And Eleanor?" she asked shrewdly.
"Ah… Eleanor… The Video Princess clone!" Harm laughed.
"Video Princess?" Gill asked, intrigued by his answer, "What that all about?"
"Oh… in my far off salad days there was this TV commercial director who was contracted by the Navy to make a recruiting video…"
"And you were her poster boy?" Gill guessed.
"Hey, who's telling this story?" Harm protested, as he turned the key in the front door lock.
"You are, sir," Gill said humbly, and then as the memory of Harm's confessional came back she asked, "That was Renée wasn't it, the woman you were dating when you crashed into the sea?"
"Yeah… so now you know," Harm grinned.
"H'mm… if she was so awful that Eleanor reminds you of her, why on earth did you date her, and for so long?"
"That my inquisitive treasure, is one of life's greatest mysteries! Now… would you like a hot drink before we retire?"