Leonora

Leonora walked over to him to do the kissy-kissy routine.

Leonard did not like the kissy-kissy routine, well not with Leonora anyway, and wondered if she did it on purpose to annoy him. As with everything else.

He waited, wondering whether the first dig would be about his weight or his smoking.

"Oh, Leonard, darling," she gushed. "You look even fatter than ever. I suppose you are still smoking too."

Get right in Leonora, he thought. Two digs at once, very good, girl. That gave him an idea.

"We can't all be as skinny as you. Girl," he said pointedly, knowing how much she hated the use of the word girl instead of woman. Although Leonard had no understanding of her wretched feminist ideas, he had heard enough lectures on the subject to know what were the wrong things to say.

Predictable as ever, she rose to the bait.

"Leonard," she said, in a long-suffering, patronising tone, "I thought I had told you more than once that a woman of forty-something is most definitely not a girl. And that you are merely infantilising women by using such unacceptable words."

Leonard smirked, and Leonora realised she had bitten. He was determined to get back at the fat/smoking snipes.

"Anyway, if you will excuse me, I need to go and clean my gun after my successful day's shooting," he said.

Leonard was proud of himself. That was a good one. Right on target, so to speak.

A horrid hush descended on the room. Tata and the little crutch waited expectantly. Mrs Leonard cleared off into the kitchen to check on the food.

Leonard realised it hadn't been quite such a smart comment after all. And waited for the outburst.

Leonora bent down and flicked something off her boot.

And eventually said: "Really, Leonard. You just never change." Then she walked off to join Mrs Leonard in the kitchen. Tata promptly followed her.

Leonard stood there with his mouth open and then decided the best thing to do was definitely go and clean his gun.

Meanwhile the two women and Tata were nattering away happily in the kitchen again about Women's Things and Life In General. Leonard spent a long time cleaning and polishing his gun, spent five minutes wondering why on earth Leonora was so argumentative and the rest of the time dreaming about his very expensive new AirRanger gun that he had ordered. He briefly considered whether or not to mention it when he went back inside, but thought it could wait for later.

Feeling somewhat chilled, and actually pleased that he had not had a confrontation with Leonora, he wandered back into the house after an hour or so.

He was met with black looks from Leonora. Oh no. Now what? he thought.

"So. You knew I was arriving and you decided to go out shooting," she said in a very annoyed tone of voice.

He should have realised she would not have let it go so easily. Clearly all the time he had spent chilling out and cleaning his gun, she had been brooding over his absence and getting more and more annoyed.

Leonard decided to be logical.

"Actually I had no idea when you were arriving apart from "soon". You can't seriously expect me to sit around for days on end waiting for you to arrive - sometime when you choose."

He was pleased with that. A good argument he thought. He also noticed the usual suspects were listening. The little crutch seemed to be far too alert and Tata, although curled up at Leonora's feet, had also perked up.

"Perhaps you could have rung to check before you went out," she said, frostily.

"You are usually out," he countered.

"I have a mobile," she came back.

"Aw Leonora, you know what I am like for numbers and stuff."

Big mistake.

"Yes. Well-enough organised when you want to be. The man with a million gadgets can't manage to key in my mobile number to any of his 'phones?"

At which point Leonard seriously wished he had reversed back out of the drive and gone back to the woods. He looked at the little crutch and Tata and they were both waiting for his next move. He sighed.

"You're staying for dinner then?" he said brightly.

"Actually Leonard, I'm staying for a few days. Mrs Leonard said it would be really nice if I spent a bit of time with you while you are on leave. So I accepted her generous offer. After all, we don't see much of each other," she said, equally brightly.

Round One to Leonora. Even Leonard had to admit that was a bullseye. He made a mental note to plan as many geocaching trips as possible over the next few days. Leonora hated geocaching.