Dolly And The Cookie Bird - Dorothy Dunnett - Johnson Johnson 03 (25 page)

Wait. Of course. Spy money. He’d offered Derek five thou…

I said, “Enough for a flat?”

“Yup.”

“Enough for a car? Maybe an E-type…?”

“I hear these are looked on as a little bit common, She-she,” said my mother. “I believe souped-up Minis are said to be groovy, if the rod doesn’t snap. But anyway, you can get it. Maybe not a mink coat every year, and you can’t join Annabel’s, but a nice comfortable existence. You can give up your cooking.”

“Oh.” It had seemed to me that I could never give up cooking, except by marrying money. All the other things I was good at were unmarketable, except to a husband. And even cooking, I knew, would never bring me the income I needed, to live in the way my friends did, without cadging to do it. I thought about it, and I made a sudden, peculiar discovery. I said, “But I like cooking, you know. I like to organize people and help them and sort of give them surprises. I’ll maybe just keep it on.”

“Do you suppose,” Johnson said, “that you are one of the few mixed-up brats of this world whose morals will actually improve with a large gift of money? What about Gilmore?”

“I will thank you,” said Mummy, rising and feeling for a cheroot, “to lay off young Gilmore. I have him in hand.”

I got up, too. “What do you mean, you have him in…”

“I mean,” said Mummy coldly, “that I am placing my business interests, such as they are, in that young man’s hands, and I am going to see that he works at them. He has the makings of a real fine executive, if he would keep his mind off sex and fast cars and tennis. I don’t wish him disturbed.”

I stood, with my hands hanging by my sides. “You’ve moved over from poets?”

“You can have them,” said Mummy. “You’re welcome,” she added.

I stared at her. “Why? A loss leader to inveigle me into the business?”

“What business?” said Mummy.

“A partnership,” said Johnson mildly. “Join her, Sarah. Together, you and your mother will fell your men like a two-handed chain saw.”

[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[A 3S Release— v1, html]

[July 07, 2007]