Chapter Twenty-Nine: Some Articles
"How did you know I liked this place, Ian?" Samantha asked me, her eyebrow raised but not so sharply as when she had asked how I knew which House she had been in. We were walking toward a Tube station from the classic-movies theater Jess had recommended, and it was beginning to snow again.
"Asked my sister," I replied. Honesty and common sense always seemed to catch Sam off-guard, and I relished her cute little pause of incredulity. It was much like the pause a cat makes just after falling off a precarious stack of books and just before washing itself as if it meant to do that all along.
"That's going to be a thing with us, isn't it?" I tried not to let my face show how much I relished that 'us' as she continued, really I did. "Any time you want on my good side, you have access to my best non-related friend, and any time I want insight on you, I need only beat Jessie at poker."
"Have you ever had a relationship that didn't involve some sort of friends-and-family overlap? I mean, it isn't as if the wizarding world were all that large, really. Our generation especially could be considered small."
"Often, actually, but that's more because I don't feel constrained by nationality –or magical status, for that matter." It was things like that, so scandalous to the right people and yet so matter-of-fact, as if Sam were daring me to change my opinion of her…I liked that. "And how often are the sort of girls who follow England National friends with your sister?"
"Your own sister Kendra has home-pitch season tickets."
"Yes, and I'm not above seeing a game myself, with my Dad…but there's a difference between casually watching a game and removing one's shirt for the signature of a favorite player."
"It was one bosom! And I only signed it because she seemed so awfully drunk, I felt finding the signature and realizing she'd gotten completely pissed in front of someone she's a fan of might be a good lesson." Sam was snorting a little into her glove. "It wasn't even a particularly impressive bosom –I mean, as bosoms go, not that I make a comparative study." The snorting continued. "What?"
"You keep saying 'bosom.'"
"Well, what else is it called?"
"Chest? Cleavage? Décolletage? Boobies? It's common knowledge that by the time one has anything describable as a bosom, it's stopped being interesting to anyone over the age of ten months old."
"I don't think this one ever was interesting, and the poor ten-month-old wouldn't get much of a meal on it."
"You could wind up with a nasty paternity suit if you're not careful. Girl gets sloppy pissed, you sign the sweater kittens, she gets even sloppier and goes to bed with some bloke –morning comes, followed by eventual morning sickness…you'd have a bit of a job to get out of that."
I choked a little at the mental picture her metaphor provoked.
"Who calls them sweater kittens? Is that some evil American slang?"
"Think so. It's a mess of muddle, being a colloquial polyglot."
"Better that than a pro athlete. I actually have a solicitor on retainer for just such occasions –not that there's really a need, but it's been known to happen on damned flimsy pretexts." I wondered if now was a good time to mention…but no. I hadn't even told Jessie I had really gone through with it, and she was my own sister.
"Ever have to use the fellow?"
"Twice. One, the child in question turned out to belong to the lady's current boyfriend, and very obviously, given that he plays Chaser for Botswana and she was our decidedly Irish sports therapist."
"That must have been a little embarrassing."
"Sort of. He asked me to take the test despite my protestations that we were just friends and always had been, I didn't mind because I had nothing to fear and afterwards he was so contrite that he proposed to her. She turned him down six times in two years before giving in, and I sent nice presents for the baby and their wedding. I didn't blame the fellow, he'd been sued himself on flimsier pretexts and didn't even believe he could have children."
"Noble attitude," Sam observed. "What was the other occasion?"
As we entered the Tube station and slid our cards through the turnstile, I decided it was best to just tell her.
"…First, what is your opinion on gay rights?"
"I'm half-American."
"You object, then?"
"No, that'd be half-backwater American or half-moron. I'm in favor of all civil rights, especially those that benefit people I care about."
"And if a gay couple want to be parents?"
"They don't make straight ones take a test. Considering how many unwanted kids there are, I can't see how it could do anything but good."
"Yes…but considering, too, that a wizarding gay couple would have the problem of getting, specifically, a child with magical abilities…what'd be your take on –erm, genetic material donation?"
"...You have a kid?"
We stepped onto the train and I nodded.
"Genetically speaking, yes, I have a sweet little biological son, whom I consider more like a nephew. He sends me owls through the agency who matched me up with his two mothers, and we decided before he was born that I'd be called 'uncle' until he's old enough to understand... well, things...and then we'd kind of go from there. I don't know his name or where he lives apart from 'somewhere in the UK,' they have no idea who I am, and neither party is permitted to divulge such information to the other without legal action until the child turns seventeen or both parties decide it would be best. I only involved my solicitor because I felt that if the boy should somehow be orphaned or in dire financial or medical straits, I wanted to be notified and I wanted some legal proof that he was at least biologically mine, so that he'd have a home or an Uncle Ian to pick up a tuition cheque if he needed one." There. My bomb dropped, I looked up from my trainers to the first girl I'd ever told. "…Does…does that bother you?"
"…I think it's actually kind of adorable," Sam smiled. "Those women have a son because you did a kind thing, and you have a sort of nephew who sends you owls. Can he write yet?"
"Yes. He's nearly eight now, and while neither party's allowed to send gifts that'd identify who they are, it turns out Quidditch tickets can be managed, with a few qualifiers, so he's seen me play. I sent tickets for his last birthday."
"Aww!"
"Trouble is, the agency insists for legal reasons that tickets must be purchased by box office voucher, so the giver can't know where the receiver will be sitting. Just as well, I'd have gotten my head knocked off otherwise looking for the little guy. We did beat Zimbabwe, too, so he got to see England win."
"Did he write back about the game?" Sam asked with a hopeful smile. I took out my wallet and unfolded the letter, which had begun to get a bit frayed with age.
(Well, of course I carry it with me. It's one of only four possessions I really can't live without.)
'Dear Uncle,
Thank you for the tickits to the quidditsh game! England won! I likd the cheers we did in the stands. Mum and Mommy taut me the chant for when the seker is going to get the goldren Snich and we chanted it really lowd and he got it! I wish I could be a Quidditsh player when I gorw up, but don't think I can. Mum says almost nobody gets to play Perfessonal quidditsh, but Mommy says she knew a couple of peple at Hogwarts who do now and I mite get to meet them on my next birfday. That would be awesome! If I could be a quidditsh player, I would be a Seker, because the seker is the bravest! The Seker for England is called Eeyan Tiks, he is grate. Mommy says he could have ben kiled doing the crazy ivuns and wronsky faynts he did in the game, but Mum says that's how the brave b-word manags to get more snitch than and then Mommy made her stop because she was going to say a bad word I think. It was a good bad word thoug. Quidditsh has bad words in it sometimes but that's okay I know not to say them in Mixed compunny, which means Grandma or ladies who haven't said a bad word ferst. Also at the quidditsh game we had chips and I drank a whole bottel of soda and Mommy said I would be sik, but I wasn't. Do quidditsh players get sik or do they just ask the heelers who took care of the injrred player at the game to make them a coco? Mum says coco is beter than most of what heelers do. If I were a heeler I'd make coco for everyone and not do other things that aren't nice. Thank you agan for the tickits! I will send you something soon to!
Love from Nefew.'
"What do you think of that?" I asked, not a little proudly.
"'The Seker is the bravest,' he says," Sam quoted with a little smile, pronouncing it as spelled. "You know, I bet there are a lot of ordinary fathers who never get a letter like this."
"I'm pretty sure there are."
"It probably took him all day to write it, too." Sam remarked, admiring the straight, perfect letters. "Look how neat his penmanship is. I was never that careful as a child. His 'Uncle' probably means the world and a half to him."
"The agency helped his mothers and I decide before he was born on a form of address that was...well, close enough for it not to be a bad shock in case it was decided we should meet but not so specific as to complicate a little child's view of things. 'Uncle' seemed…sensible, so he knows I'm his family, but not as close as a father, since I'm really not, not in the ways that count. He's supposed to be told the biological specifics once he's old enough to understand them –though it's up to them when 'old enough' is."
"I do have one question."
"What?"
"Why?"
"Why do his parents decide?" I hadn't caught which question of many she was asking, so Sam clarified:
"Why did you do the donation with the agency? I think it's one of the sweetest things I've ever seen someone do, but I wonder what brought it on."
"Did you happen to see the match between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, my seventh year and your first?"
"I think so…oh."
"Yes. Madam Pomfrey was able to –erm, patch me up, and there wasn't any damage, but I did catch a lecture about one more accident like that keeping me from ever having kids. So once I graduated, I thought it might be worthwhile to bank –er, genetic material, just in case, and when I was looking into agencies that did that, I learned about donation and it sounded like a nice deal –all the fun of a long-distance, anonymous child you can spoil with presents, none of the responsibility. I chose an agency specializing in gay couples because so few others wanted to donate to them, that, and I've known several gay and lesbian couples who'd make or have made fine parents."
I didn't mention the fact that since I'd made first-string on the team, I'd finally had girls interested in me –including some who had been openly nasty before. After a few attempts at relationships went south, I'd more or less given up hope on finding a nice girl who liked me for anything but the jersey, at least until retirement, at which point I thoroughly expected to turn back into weedy, stammering Twitchy Tickes from second year, but taller.
"That's one of the most unselfish things I've ever heard of –except you did take some responsibility, didn't you? With the paperwork requiring contact if the boy has some hard times, and the legal right you still have to him if something should, heaven forbid, happen to his mothers, you could become -well, I won't say a more real, but a more involved father any day."
"It was the sonogramme photo that made me do that," I confessed. "He just seemed so little and by the time the sonogramme photos were actually showing baby instead of a tentacled see-through thing with a tail, I was beginning to make decent money at the game and wanted the chance to help the little fellow out, if he ever, you know, happened to need it. Any more, my solicitor said he didn't think the two mothers would permit. He was surprised they agreed to have the last-resort papers done. Apparently I'm one of only five donor fathers at that agency who even offered."
"It was good of you. I wonder if he looks anything like you."
"It's possible, though his mothers picked me out by anonymized photograph, among other details, so it's possible he resembles one of them just as much. They said gay couples often like to pick a donor who looks like the noncontributing parent, so the child resembles both."
"Sensible. How do you cope with wondering, though, every time you see a dark-haired woman?"
"Better than I did before. Now, instead of stumbling over my own tongue, I can walk over and make a good impression."
"Why would you-"
"Jess says I have a type." Samantha started to say something, than stopped as if noticing her own very dark hair, and frowned.
"Seriously?"
"Well…I like dark-haired girls. They're the prettiest, and once you get to talk to them, they're usually the smartest. Uncle Gard says it's atavism and that Dad never looked twice at a blonde in his life, but I think it's probably just what I'm wired to look for." She still seemed a little disturbed and I stuck my hands back in my pockets. "Isn't there something you like particularly well? Enough to look for in potential mates?"
"Tarrnme," she mumbled.
"Huh?"
"I like guys who are taller than me. Which makes things a little challenging, as you can imagine."
Samantha was, like her sisters, almost 180 cm tall, which was saying something for a girl. I'm only about 194 myself, which is not much taller, but enough not to burst my self-esteem like an overripe marrow squash under the boot of aesthetic preference.
"Height never really occurred to me as potentially negative."
"Of course not. You're within the average for your gender."
"You aren't? What is the average for women?" Sam bit her lip gently and a little trace of a smile crossed her face. Was it because I hadn't said 'girls'?
"Five-eight is the upper end of 'average.'"
"And you're…five-ten? Five-eleven?" I converted from metric in my head.
"The latter. See the shoes?" I looked down at her right foot and saw she was wearing a kind of peculiarly flat Muggle-looking trainer with canvas sides to it. "Kendra skips about in heels and Melanie has a fondness for boots…but I prefer flatter shoes. Makes me stick out less."
"Did they tease you at school for your height?"
"Bean-pole, Sammy-long-legs…you name it."
"Too-Tall Tickes, oughta' be playing Chaser?"
"…That's right, you are pretty tall for a Seeker."
"It was better than Twitchy Tickes, shortest boy in Ravenclaw. I made the team in third year and was put onto first string at once, since all three Seekers had graduated and I was the shortest decent player who tried out. By fourth year, I was ten centimeters taller and by seventh…well, here I am. Thing was, I didn't stop playing when the growth spurts hit, so I didn't have any awkwardness on the pitch. And the extra reach helps some, according to the magazines."
"I bet it does. You know, I never thought I'd be on a date with a professional athlete."
"I never thought I'd be on a date with a woman more successful than I am." Sam's eyes went wide and she looked up at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Explain."
"You own a one-third interest in the most successful shop in Knockturn Alley and fifth-most-successful in the London shopping district, excluding restaurants and Gringotts. You can also reasonably expect to own that interest, if not more when the shop branches out, for the rest of your life. Most Quidditch players make more up-front, but we can only play until we're perhaps forty at the absolute most. That leaves coaching, refereeing, merchandising and administration, if we want to stay in the industry, and we're up against wizards and witches who've actually been doing proper work instead of playing a game professionally. It's partly why I'm relieved to be working for Jess in the off-season…I literally need the business experience, if I'm to have any career whatsoever once the old pins and paws give out."
"That's true, but you're forgetting that our business virtually hinges on a sub-par economy. As a pawnbroker, I deal primarily with people on the edges. Either they need money fast and can't get a more socially-respectable type of loan, or they're looking for respectable items at a bargain price because they have to maintain a position in reduced circumstances."
"How is pawning less respectable? Anyone with a grasp of maths can tell that those paycheque loans are utter usury, and what else is there when one needs a comparatively small amount, say, fifty Galleons, quickly? Hell, the charge for an overdraft alone is something in the thousands of percent, if you think of it as loan interest. Nobody's fairer than pawnbrokers."
Sam was looking at me with the prettiest, most unguarded smile I'd ever seen on her, so I continued. "Instead of a weak little promise-to-pay that can only be enforced by loan shark violence, ruinous interest, obscene fees and destroyed reputation, the pawnbroker accepts a real and solid item as sign of good faith. If the borrower can't make the debt good, the pawnbroker keeps and sells his item, making back the loan amount and a small profit to keep the business running and compensate her for her time. If the borrower can pay it, he has his item back and knows the pawnbroker is there for him, should he ever be in bad straits again. I'd rather deal with a pawnbroker than a bank or a moneylender, every time."
"I wish you could say that to customers! Half of them look down their noses at us for being in Knockturn, for running a pawn shop…the lot of it, and wouldn't you know the snobbiest ones want to skin us the worst on price? I had a lady in yesterday with a Tickes watch to pawn. You know as well as I do that they have the dates of manufacture marked and the values are incredibly straightforward based on model, age and condition."
"Which was it?"
"Gardner Tickes ladies' pendant, size two with the gold case. It was dated mid-1921."
"Condition?"
"Fair case, working condition. It'd been to a Muggle pawnbrokers a couple of times and had a little worse than superficial case scratching. Oh, and the chain was badly tangled."
"So about twenty, maybe twenty-two Galleons on the antique market, at most."
"You have the prices memorized, too?"
"…Don't tell Jess."
"Why do you have the prices memorized?"
"How much is a 1941 edition of Waffling's Magical Theory?"
"Sixteen and five if it's in good shape, thirteen, three and seventeen if it's… I think I see what you mean. Can't really avoid the family business, eh?"
I basked in her smile as the train shook a little. It was rather full and we'd been hanging onto the straps –and evidently the flat trainers were not perfect at keeping a girl on her feet, what with the slush-slick floor. I caught her easily and our eyes met for a moment before we straightened and awkwardly got back to talking. It was a pity, too.
"So what'd you offer for the watch in pawn?" I asked.
"Ten Galleons."
"Sounds fair to me. Not everyone collects antique watches and if it was scratched, it'd cost at least thirty Sickles to have the thing replated."
"Well, at retail. Jessie does a lot of our replating for us, with materials at cost and labor in shop credit."
"That's an…interesting arrangement." I was thinking of the Redferns' more unusual inventory and blushing a little.
"She mainly likes broken jewelry for the metal and ancient watches because busted timepieces are her cryptic-crossword puzzles." That made more sense. "Besides, customer confidentiality is our most critical stock in trade, Ian. Thought you'd know that!" Sam gave me an arch look and I knew she knew what I'd been thinking. "Anyway, the old baggage, after remarking to Kendra that our tidy shop was a credit to our class –not meaning shopkeepers, by the way, felt the need to throw a bit of a tantrum when we offered such a low price for her oh-so-valuable watch."
"What'd you do?"
"Suggested she take it over to Tickes and Sons for appraisal and bring a slip with its' up-to-date pawn value."
"Oh! Fierce!"
"So not only would she have to go into a crowded, high-class place and admit she was trying to pawn something, but Jessie'd give an estimate based on the movement, the case and what it'd cost us to have her restore the thing. She'd be lucky to get eight for it."
"I take it she resented your suggestion?"
"Accepted ten Galleons rather gracelessly and then had the gall to return on day eleven in tears, explaining that she'd got the money but was only a day late and 'please tell me you haven't sold it!'" She gave a funny imitation of the woman's voice.
"Had you?"
"Gods, no. We'd never sell a Tickes watch in that kind of shape. It was over Jessie's for restoration –where she'd talked to it, by the way, 'poor thing, we'll get you replated,' and all of that. Has she always talked to watches?"
"I catch myself talking to Snitches, too. It's an unfortunate trait."
"Endearing, though. So I told the old baggage where it was and that we'd have it in the next day, if she wanted to pay back the loan, her interest and the restoration costs. She was pawing through her purse pretty frantically, trying to find something we'd take to cover the extra. Then she said something about not realizing it had been her mother-in-law's and her husband would be so angry if he found it missing."
"I find that a little hard to believe."
"I don't. These society dolls, they don't usually think before they pawn. And she hadn't thought to play the sentimental value card when she first brought it in, which means either she honestly hadn't known or she really didn't realize how pawn shops work."
"So what'd you do?"
"Gave her a Kleenex, which she'd never seen before, so I showed her what one was for, and she laughed a little, then I explained how our business worked, gently as I could. I…I'm normally somewhat abrupt with people, and what with Mother visiting, I was making an effort to be nicer."
"Mums bring that out in people?"
"Nauseatingly so. Anyway, Society Doll seemed to understand and since I'd been sympathetic, she thought, about the whole thing, she explained why she'd pawned the damned thing in the first place –her husband had forgotten her allowance and she needed –not wanted, mind you, needed to get her son something for his birthday. I know people, when they need to get somebody else a present, they care about that somebody."
"Wouldn't the dad have been more than happy to go shopping with her or give her cash for a present?"
"That was what I asked, except I phrased it along lines of 'why not ask his father to pick out the sort of present boys his age like?' If you need to steer people, it helps to paint attractive little pictures in their heads –and punking out of the birthday shopping sounds a lot better with abstract father-son bonding in, doesn't it? Except, of course, it turned out her husband isn't the boy's father at all, but his stepfather, and apparently there's no love lost."
"Oh, how sad!"
"So I said I completely understood her predicament, slid over the box of Kleenex and rolled a bar-chair around for her. That got her talking, about her son, her late husband, her new husband, the whole shebang. I fixed her a tea and she'd never seen Styrofoam cups either, but she thought they were charming and asked where they were from. So I told her, and she confessed that she'd actually liked Muggle Studies class very much and thought about going into the field before she got married. The key to the bar-chair and tea trick, by the way, is to get the customer so far on your side that she forgets you're a mean old businesswoman who wants money to hand over the stuff."
"Did it work?"
"Well, she certainly had me confused with a bartender in that I heard all about New Hubby's dealings with the You-Know-Whats, and how worried she was that their little men's club was going to get violent one of these days and what would she and her boy do if he got himself killed –you know, truly plumbing the depths of shallowness, this doll was."
"But she just up and told you her husband was a…?"
"Ian, I sell jewelry. For some of those society dolls, that's the closest they get to a therapist short of the manicure girl at Madam Primpernelle's." Sam grinned ruefully. "And boy, do some of them need it."
"What did you do?"
"Recorded the whole conversation. Everything in the shop winds up on tape, pretty much, for security reasons, and since we don't use the conventional methods, most people never realize we have them until it's too late. I said I'd owl the restorer and see if the watch could be gotten back faster, and Society Dame suddenly thought I was her bestest friend ever, so while I waited for Jessie's owl back, the two of us talked about men, jewelry and, of all things, our Other Inventory."
"The –erm, bedroom accessories?"
"Pretty much. You'd be a little disgusted at how baldly some of those purebloody types will come around to the subject of smut, thinking that Mudbloods are so much more free and liberated about that sort of thing, as if we were bonobo monkeys or something. This one actually up and asked if it was true 'my kind' were more liberated sexually."
"Please tell me you messed with her tiny mind."
"No, I just agreed and said wealthy businesswomen always had more expansive tastes. That got an apology out of her, and I asked what gave her the impression blood status had anything to do with it, and she stammered out some wharrgarble about her husband's club and the other girls at school. I disabused her of the notion that Purebloods were any better or worse about Naughty Things and implied that I had a client list that looked like Who's Who."
"Which I bet you do."
"Well, naturally. We're the one place in town where a person can be temporarily impecunious with no loss of social status, and since we also carry vintage things bought at estate auctions and the like, it's possible for the people with their noses highest in the air to come in 'looking for something for someone who has everything' or for 'bargain antiques.' I swear, we barely have to advertise on weeks where two pole-up-arse rich ladies run into each other at the shop."
"Why's that?"
"They insist to each other loudly and long that we're the best place to look for obscure objets d' art, choice antiques at bargain prices -whatever case or shelf they're standing near, and they make us out to be this best-kept secret of the sort of ladies for whom shopping is a hobby, then of course to keep up appearances they have to repeat the same story to all their friends, lest the other accuse them of being there to actually pawn something. It's like Melanie subcontracted with their egos to cover part of our ad budget."
"Do you ever have difficulty with the tourist trade?"
"We only get tourists relatively rarely, but since Knockturn was opened up, it's been more frequent. They're generally well-behaved, and Americans love seeing other Americans with a shop in 'a land abroad' as it were. They give you any attitude?"
"We had a real winner last week, came in, spoke to Jessie about a watch that I know beyond the shadow of a doubt she personally designed, thinking himself an expert and generally being extremely annoying, and then asked to speak to the master clockmaker."
"What'd she do?"
"I didn't wait to see what she'd do. I came over and asked a question, addressing her as 'boss.' She went to go check on it and the customer asked if she was my superior, so I informed him that she was, in fact, the owner of the shop and the designer of the watch he was looking at. And then you wouldn't believe how polite he got. Wound up placing a custom order, I think out of embarrassment."
"I wish our customers were that easy to bring around. Of course, it has to help, your blood status not being known as obvious to all and sundry."
"That only ever mattered to people whose opinions didn't, to my thinking. And it's generally remembered that Mum was Muggleborn, if you're talking about trade families, who don't always give a damn. Frankly, it was our great-granny's being a 'blood traitor' that lost us love from the purebloody pole-up-arses, and that was donkey's years ago."
"It's a lot worse to have a father married to whom everyone assumes is a Squib," Sam sighed ruefully. "If they knew the real truth, well, even with bargains and reasonably-rated loans, I'm not sure how our business would do long-term."
"So right now it's a little fashionable in certain sets to be a bigot. I'll bet you ten Galleons once the mess with You-Know-Who's over and bigotry's out of style, you'll be in 'great demand socially' and 'move in all the best circles.'" I imitated the posh types' accent and tone.
"That's assuming I don't laugh myself sick just imagining that. Could you really see me in an evening gown, nobbing it up in the fancy first-class staterooms and wherever it is snobs hang out?"
"Snobs and organized labour, mind, but yes, I can picture that easily." And what a picture it was.
"Organized as in your fancy old Tradesmen's Guilds? Knockturn hasn't got a guild I could join, no matter what I do, and Diagon wants nothing to do with us pawnbrokers."
"We Tickes aren't in any London guilds, apart from the Chamber of Commerce; just the Chronologie Mechanique."
"The international clockmakers' organization?"
"Exactly. There'd be no point in joining the jewelers or mechamagical artificers' guilds, as watches aren't really part of either discipline, though they do have aspects of each. That, and the burden of dues versus potential value just doesn't bear it out. Oh, and also we can't be arsed to do anything that doesn't mean a good chance for more business."
"Still, you have your white-tie balls and your posh-socks ritual investitures. Not much there to appeal to us half-Americans."
"Because Americans are so egalitarian," I couldn't resist pushing her buttons back. "Funny, I was under the impression it was mainly Americans who camp outside the Queen's palace and think titled lords and things are the height of romantic aspiration."
"There are morons in every group," Sam snapped, evidently feeling the remarks a bit keenly but not willing to back down. "And it's Englishmen who say 'England' when they mean 'Britain,' note the burr in a Scotsman's voice and make a crack about how far he can stretch a Galleon, before nodding when they hear his daughters are pawnbrokers -because it must be natural for those kilted misers to make a Knut any way they can."
"But it's Americans who think every Englishman in the world is a chauvinist, who'd never forgive the worst remarks of the lowest scum and who become so resentful of the few true bastards in the world that they never notice an honest attempt at a compliment."
"It's Englishmen who can't manage a compliment without qualifiers!"
"It's Scotch-Americans who can't tell a fellow's half-Irish, who'd qualify anything up to and including a marriage proposal and who look...so lovely when they're angry."Sam whirled and looked at me as if I had suddenly begun speaking in a whole different language, such as that of ducks. "I can tell the world hasn't been fair to you, that you've gone hard and spiky to fight it back...and somehow, all I want to do is watch you glare at it and see what it might take to see you soft."
She yanked a metal lighter and a packet of chewing gum out of a pocket, only to remember a half-second later that the gum was gum, which provoked a muffled expletive. So instead she took a long belt from a hip-flask and shook her head before offering it to me. I sniffed it and blanched, but tried a drop. Firewhiskey, and a strong proof at that. It made me cough.
"You okay?" Sam asked suddenly, with a concern in her voice I wouldn't have believed if it wasn't in her eyes as well.
"Yeah...just not quite used to stuff that strong." I replaced the lid on the flask and handed it back. "So, how long ago'd you quit?"
"Six months since my last. And I didn't smoke that long; the cravings only come back when I'm stressed as hell."
"I normally wouldn't say this, given just what you drink, but the flask is almost certainly healthier." She still looked...well, severe, which seemed to be her natural state much of the time. "And six months is a milestone, you should be proud. I know fags are harder to quit than anything else wizards have and most of the Muggle stuff."
For some reason, that remark caused her to laugh, long and hard. It was a lovely sound.
"Dear Ian," she managed to sputter between gasps of mirth, "please make a point never to use that particular sentence around straight women who aren't Brits in the future, lest somebody get the wrong idea of what you meant and become horribly depressed."
"...Huh?" We were just getting off the Tube and I, distracted by the turnstiles, didn't quite understand.
"Nevermind."
"Which word could possibly have a different meaning in...oh. Oh, my."
"...Yeah, see how that could make a girl who likes guys depressed over you?"
"Amused, yes. Depressed, I don't know..."
"Say, a girl whose 'type' was witty, affectionate men in about the same line of work who were at least two inches taller than she is?" Sam gave me a look of guarded interest and I did the only sensible thing I could think of, which was to stop, walk behind her and lean my back against hers.
"Feel between our heads. I'm sure we've got five and a half inches difference, at least. No use getting depressed over a confused slang word for less than three." She obligingly felt the difference, then turned and gave me a more amused version of her glare. "If it helps, if I were American, I'd never have tried fags at all, and since I am British, I'll tell you they made me cough the one time I tried."
"Did you light it on fire?"
"It was that kind, yes. Nothing against the other kind, I mean, if that's even a polite term, which I kind of doubt, but I'd prefer something in a model with...what was the other horrible American slang word you taught me tonight? It wasn't bosom..."
"...Sweater kittens?"
"Yes, with a pair of those."
"I kind of assumed you had a preference for women, yeah. Apart from being kind of the default, there was the bit during the movie where you thought I didn't notice you noticing my shirt, or the fact that I wasn't just letting you put your arm around me because that theater was freezing."
"It was, wasn't it? I wonder if their furnace is having difficulty, because it's cold out here, too." I would have taken off my coat and put it onto her, but she already had one on, so I gave her my scarf. For some reason, this made her pause thoughtfully, then tilt her head to ask a question.
"Do you have a preference for not being cold?"
"Very much so. Specifically, I'm partial to fireplaces."
"So am I! I like the kind you can make popcorn over that isn't so greasy with fake butter it makes you sick."
"Sweet kettle popcorn, I think, in a real kettle, with cinnamon."
"Cinnamon? Really?"
"It's delicious. And I happen to own an actual popcorn kettle. Between that and the noodle pot, I've managed not to starve as a bachelor."
"What an astonishing thing. Have you also a fireplace?"
"My generous sister has left me full use of no less than three, even if you don't count the furnace downstairs."
"And I believe the little shop at the next corner sells popcorn. Tell you what, I'll buy the supplies if you've got the tools and the spot."
"Sounds like a plan to me."
And with that, we ducked into a little corner market. Sam headed off to the popcorn section, while I paused near a display of caramels. "Say, Samantha?"
"Yes?"
"Do you like caramel popcorn also?"
"Only on holidays, why?"
"I'd heard that was something Americans eat. Just wondered."
"I'll make you some. Get a packet of the plain ones?"
"Sure."
"Want to come over here and let me know what kind to get?"
"Okay." I picked up the caramels and walked toward the sound of her voice...right past the popcorn to a display of wholly different articles. She looked at me curiously and gestured vaguely toward the rack.
"I mean, there are certainly distinct possibilities here."
"...You think we might need some...to go with the popcorn?"
"I hope you don't mind."
"Mind? No, not at all. I always use...well, suffice it to say, I've never once done without. I wasn't certain you'd want to...well, need..."
"I was thinking it could be...well, if it's something you'd like to do."
"Only if it's something you'd like to do."
"I do believe I would...but it's been long enough, that we'd need to pick up more than just caramels and popcorn."
"It would, indeed." This was an awkward conversation, but we seemed to be managing it. On the one hand, I was thrilled beyond logic that she had even brought up the items on the rack, but it seemed a bit soon, and I didn't want to make her uncomfortable. "Have you a preference?"
"Not particularly, though I've seen interesting advertisements for several kinds."
"How about these..." I gestured to what seemed like a sensible assortment, "...mixed ones? Some of each?"
"Good idea!" Sam did not take the box I had gestured to, but instead selected one twice the size. "Cheaper in volume, you know, and it'd be terrible to run out."
"...Terrible," I breathed, managing not to sputter only by dint of effort. "You...don't think it's too soon to...do things that...need supplies?"
"Would you think less of me if I said I was afraid I'd lose my nerve otherwise?" For once, the ferocious, independent businesswoman looked vulnerable.
"Only if you didn't think me a sentimental fool for wanting to make sure you didn't by taking a bit more time and making absolutely sure we could be, if not permanently close, then at least good friends for a long time after."
"I think I can promise cordiality."
"As can I. But can you also promise not to laugh when I explain that a night eating popcorn and...having a need for certain supplies they sell in Muggle corner shops is not, at least to me, merely an interesting diversion with a prospective friend? It happens that party the first has a decided interest in exploring the possibility of contractual arrangement between oneself and party the second, with initial trial term and potential for permanent buy-in."
"Bureaucrat's brass ones, you can do that, too," Sam sighed, either in exasperation or breathless fascination, I'd never know. "Contractual...trial...I'm bilingual, for peace sake, and I haven't the vaguest clue what you meant."
I waited. It takes people who aren't used to bureaucratese a second or two for it to sink in.
It did.
"...Did you just...propose an arrangement of some kind to me, Ian Tickes?"
"And you accuse me of using too many words. The 'arrangement of some kind' is superfluous to the sentence, if one's using vernacular."
"You can't be serious."
"Yes, I can. An initial, pre-contractual trial period, to be followed if successful with a preliminary contract to further relations and, in the fullness of time, secure a permanent arrangement with all due legal and social ramifications."
"You're seriously asking the question I think you're asking?"
"If you think I'm asking you to please date me some more, then become engaged to me, then marry me, assuming the first two go well, then yes. What other aim did you think I might have in mind?"
She seemed to think for a moment.
"Come to think of it, I think that's more or less the social contract of every date between people for whom...well...the necessity for these, isn't the end goal." She shook the little box.
"Why would that ever be the end goal? So unambitious! For someone like you, I'd imagine the opportunity to require said articles would be more or less everywhere." At that, Sam gave me a wide-eyed, shocked look. "You're strikingly beautiful, Samantha. I would imagine you receive more invitations to use those things than I receive requests for autographs."
"You're assuming too much, Ian. Firstly, if invitations are made, only a few of them come from people with sufficient sense to even know the needed accessories exist. Second, there are those who would rather not be seen with someone like me, even if there were a guarantee that I would be joining them for, well, item use afterwards. Most of the invitations...and however else I vehemently disagree with your statement, I will concede that I do get propositioned, but it's generally drunken clients old enough to be my father, obnoxious snobs who want a wild story to add to their repertoire and, of course, one of three school acquaintances who would like to date me so that they might borrow money."
"What ungentlemanly gits."
"I do refuse, of course. However, I will also confess that if you'd hoped I'd always refused in the past, well...I wasn't always so sensible about wizards and I've never been the sort to look askance at the potential of Muggles."
"I've been refusing because the invitations I get have more interest in the jersey than what's under it. And are there really people who still don't know what those are?"
"Did you learn about them at school?"
"Yes. The Ravenclaw Gentleman's Manual, a secret text stored behind the boys' lavatory pipes and contributed to by every gent in the house to have even a bit of luck with the fairer sex since time immemorial. There was an entire section dedicated to their importance and proper use."
"Well, we're Ravenclaws. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs almost never hear of them unless one crops up in one of the girls' soppy novels or the boys' bawdy comic books, and I'm convinced Slytherins only know they exist to prevent the spread of hideous diseases from Mudblood trollops who might well dally with subhumans. Which, come to think of it, is a little true in my case, though I don't think of any of my exes as subhuman for that reason, Muggle or otherwise."
"Nasty break-up?"
"Only the one. I'm still good friends with the other two."
"That's three. You must have more experience than me, I've only dated one witch seriously enough for that activity to come up in the context of a relationship and the other was simply a dear friend in a similar situation with whom the benefits normally associated with more romantic entanglements were shared, and despite her eventually marrying someone else, we are still good friends also."
"That might really depend. If you're measure experience in variety, maybe, but in terms of duration of practice, you might still win. I've never had a relationship or a friendly entanglement last longer than six months."
"Perhaps I might. Though I suppose there are different types of experience."
"I would hope so. So, shall I get this or not?"
"You can get the popcorn if you must, but I'm afraid I must insist on buying these and the caramels myself. It's not correct for anyone to buy something for their date to wear, except for a corsage, on the first date."
For some reason, my perfectly sensible opinion on items for a gentleman to wear made Sam crack up laughing.
"Good lord, you've read Algernon Moncrieff's 'Manual of Manners.'"
"And I intend to live up to it, in all the rules still applicable. You'd be surprised just how many are."
"I suppose the need for a gentleman to tether a lady's broomstick is right out?"
"Definitely -though I still do in my sister's case."
"Well, she's terrified of heights. I would hope so."
"And if you like, I will still bring you the first spring flowers, even if modern railways and hydroponic farming techniques do mean the first ones are no longer particularly rare or special by comparison."
"On two conditions."
"Which are?"
"One, that we do make an effort to use the items in that box before the expiration date, whether it's better to wait a little longer than my first impulse or not."
"Considering that date's nearly a year hence, I think I can reasonably promise a good-faith effort."
"And two, not roses."
"Anything to please a lady," I agreed, with a courtly bow that made the poor Muggle girl behind the counter, who had been giving us occasional odd looks anyway, gasp and grin with excited envy even as Sam rolled her eyes. "...Just out of curiosity, why not?"
"I suppose this is when I could spin a story of tragedy, heartbreak and pointy thorns, but the fact of the matter is they make my eyes water and face swell up to where the overall effect is about as romantic as a bee sting."
"Oh. Allergies."
"Exactly."
"Are there any others I should be aware of?"
"Bee stings, roses and, of all things, walnuts. I can do peanuts fine, but walnuts could make me surprisingly ill, and there isn't a whole earthly lot I can do for that one, considering a lot of allergy potions use walnuts."
"What about the Muggle things? Little pink pills, or white ones, or white-and-pink...I think I've even seen a sort of green pill that's meant for those."
"Muggle medicine does work better, yes. I'd best get that popcorn, then."
All in all, it was one of the better first dates I've ever heard of, and definitely the best one I'd ever been on. As a gentleman, I can report only that we stayed up quite late and finished two-thirds of the -well, there isn't that much popcorn in a container, but when you consider that it puffs up some when cooked, I suppose we did eat an unusual lot of it, but that was a long time after dinner and popcorn is really quite good for you compared to some other things. I also walked Sam back to her flat around five o'clock in the morning, which was good, given that it was her sisters' turn to open and Tickes and Sons opens ten to five on Sundays, so we both had time for sleep before work. We did have a nice early breakfast before parting, and I sent home a basket of cinnamon rolls for her mum and sisters, since you really can't make that recipe much smaller than it is and we were still somewhat full of popcorn and caramels. (We ate all the caramels.)
I realize that other accounts of the war years may have considerably more candor in the area of romantic after-hours activities, but I feel no need to elaborate, except where the conversation is historically interesting, or, as in Sam's and my case, edifying and of practical educational value to the readers. It isn't right for a fellow to kiss and tell, as it were, but I can assure posterity that Samantha Redfern and I had an excellent first evening out that began a very happy relationship.
Handwriting changes completely.
I got home around five, kissed Ian until I saw stars and almost shut the door on the basket of cinnamon buns, as I tried to go inside and wave goodbye at once, then sighed happily and leaned against the door. Sure enough, Mum, Ken and Mel were all awake, breakfasting in the kitchen and watching me. I jumped a bit in surprise.
"Somebody had a nice evening," Mum observed, sipping her breakfast coffee.
"You didn't wait up, did you?" I asked.
"No, we just thought we'd get an early start on the inventory," Mel explained.
"It's your morning off, and we know you hate that," Ken agreed. My sisters are such darlings.
"How was your evening?" Mum asked.
"...Remember how you told us when we were sixteen how your first date with Dad really went?" Our mother had owned up to carnal knowledge within the first four hours of knowing our father, which scandalized us all (except perhaps Kendra,) and generally put us off the idea of the activity until we were nearly out of our teens.
"Yes."
"Good advice, Mum. Good advice." I set the basket down on the kitchen table and headed towards the stairs. "Ian sent cinnamon rolls for y'all."
"I've said for weeks that you needed to get laid," Mel remarked with a grin.
"Actually, I managed not to bang him like a screen door in a hurricane. He wants to...wait and enjoy matters properly."
"What a refreshingly sensible opinion, though not one I'd personally have any truck with," our mother the sybarite observed, "though it doesn't explain the sighing and general just-got-laid look of you."
"Yeah. You actually look...relaxed."
"And happy. It's like that movie Mum produced with the pod people."
"...We ate popcorn and talked all night."
The three closest and dearest women in my life stared at me like I was, well, a pod person.
"By Merlin's clanking codpiece," Mel sighed, grinning, "I just won thirty Galleons. Pay up!" And with ill grace and growly sighs, my mother and sister did.
"I really thought she would bang this one," Mum remarked, "because lord knows she's needed it."
"And I didn't think they would hit it off," Kendra sighed, "at least not on the first date. I had kind of an argue-argue-snog eventually-hit-it-off kind of pattern down."
"You three are incorrigible and I'm going to have a nap," I replied smoothly, leaving the room. As I headed up to my room, I could hear them happily tasting and loving the cinnamon rolls, which Ian really does make well.
And in the interests of complete honesty, there's a lot one can do without the need for certain articles. So, so much. I've never felt more like a giddy teenager than I did that morning, despite being a sensible grown woman of means and property. The mad thing was that for the first time, I could imagine a life with someone besides myself.
It's a strange thing, love. When I think back to those days, how the one thing we were naïve about was the one thing that survived...it does make a little sense. I was completely and totally in love with Ian Tickes, and as terrifying as it is to admit it in retrospect, the mere inkling that I actually had at the time was pretty damn scary.
But still, pretty awesome.
I think that may count as the best first-date ever.
A/N: Apologies for the long delay. I began this story, as you can see, quite some time ago, and now that I have a little more free time (and circumstances so different it's nearly unimaginable compared to when I started,) I'm going to take a good crack at really and truly finishing it.