Sandflower

by Jane Arbor

  Liz asked, “But must you move him? Couldn’t he stay here?”

  “He could, but not without almost continuous vigilance, which he’ll get best in hospital, you know.”

  “Yes, better, of course,” she agreed eagerly. “But if it’s only a matter of time—waiting for the fever to fall and watching over him—couldn’t I cope?” She hesitated, swallowing hard. “I mean, over the phone you said, ‘Let’s see what you’re made of,’ and if you take dada away when I could look after him, you can’t expect to ‘see,’ can you?”

  His eyes met hers levelly. “Not, certainly, the sort of nurse your St. John’s course made of you. And yet, do you know, I can bear to forego that, for the sake of getting another glimpse of what you are like when you are really trying to put the interests of someone else in front of your own.”

  She flinched at the harshness of that before clutching at the small consolation that he had said “another.” “You mean—you’ve seen me do it once?”

  “Yes, and I must say you got the idea pretty smartly, once I’d given you the hint. That’s why I’m hopeful now that you are going to let me take your father into hospital while this attack is spending itself. He’ll have to agree if you do. So what do you say?”

  “Of course I must say ‘Yes.’ But—”

  Roger Yate nodded. “Yes, I know. What is to become of you in the meantime? That’s certainly a bit of a poser, since you can’t stay here by yourself.”

  Pulling at his top lip, he subjected Liz to a pensive stare. Looking through me, not at me at all, she thought before saying tartly, “Why make a problem of me? I could stay here.”

  “You could not! My good girl, you’re not within hailing distance of Kensington High Street now, you know! Obviously you can’t camp out here alone.”

  Not for worlds would she have admitted to him that she was secretly relieved at his vehemence, since the thought of being alone in the bungalow by night appalled her. So, with an air of conceding an unimportant point, she said, “Well then, I daresay the Simons could up me up in the hotel.”

  “Yes.” He considered that. Then, “No—I’ve a better scheme. One that’s likely to please your father better, too. I’ll tell him I’m sending you to a mutual friend of ours, a Mrs. Carlyon. Perhaps you remember—when we parted on the airfield yesterday I said I was expecting to get a lift from Janine Carlyon?”

  “I remember.”

  “Yes, well—as it happened, it was Beth Carlyon, Janine’s stepdaughter, who collected me, practically on her maiden trip as a car driver. Anyway, you can count it as settled that Janine will put you up. Leave it to me, will you? I’ll fix the arrangements for Andrew, and ask Janine or Beth to come for you as soon as you’ve seen him away. You needn’t take much luggage with you. If all goes as it should, we’ll have him back again in, say, ten days.”

  Not knowing whether she wanted to go to the Carlyons’ or not, Liz demurred, “But how can you be sure Mrs. Carlyon will want to put me up?”

  He looked surprised at the question. “I told you—she is a friend of mine. Besides, you and Beth must be pretty much the same age, and Beth lacks companionship.” As if that clinched the matter he turned toward the door, only to swing around again to ask, “By the way, were you able to broach the matter of your staying on with your father?”

  “I did, and he wouldn’t hear of it,” said Liz flatly.

  “No? What reason did he give?”

  “That it was a sacrifice he couldn’t ask of me. Not fair to my future. That sort of thing.”

  “Not that he didn’t want you? Not that he doubted your sincere will to stay, if he would let you?”

  “No, he wants me, I think.” It should have been easy to say no to the second question also, but to her surprise Liz found that she could not. Instead she heard herself admitting, “I don’t think, though, that I did convince him I really meant it and wanted to. He—he called it 'a sudden about-face,’ which he didn’t trust, and said I’d thank him later for not taking advantage of it.”

  “Hmm.” Again Roger Yate was watching her intently, and for the first time, almost as if he liked what he saw. He repeated his thoughtful “Hmm,” and then said, “Do you know, I call that rather handsome of you. It couldn’t have been easy to see your big gesture rejected out of hand. And it must have been less easy still to admit to me that Andrew believed he saw through it and didn’t spare your feelings in saying so. You needn’t have told me, and I’ve a hunch that, as little as twenty-four hours ago, you’d have scorned to confess as much. It’s a step in the right direction, at least.” Before Liz could ask him to enlarge on that, he went on. “However, where do we go from here? I mean, how sincere were you by the time you got around to saying anything? And when he refused, did you feel reprieved, or not?”

  Liz said nothing for a moment. Then she raised candid eyes to his. “By that time, I didn’t want to be reprieved and I don’t now. Dada looks so different out here—much thinner, and as if he were driving himself too hard. As soon as he met us yesterday I knew you were right. He does need looking after.”

  “Exactly. Although you shouldn’t worry too much about his looks. With this lot—” Roger Yate jerked his head toward the bedroom door “—hanging over him, you couldn’t expect him to be in top form. But if he has dug in his heels against your staying, that calls for diplomacy. Look—” paused to survey her again from under the leonine brows “—if I can persuade him, once he is well enough to discuss anything, are you prepared to stand by your side of the bargain?”

  “Of course I am!”

  “No ratting, no crying for the moon, West End edition?”

  Her chin went up. “I don’t ‘rat,’ and I’ve said I want to stay, haven’t I?”

  He nodded. “All right. I’ll do what I can, when I can. Now I’m going to telephone, and you’d better get back to our patient. I’ll join you in a minute or two and we’ll tell him what we’ve arranged for you both.”

  When they had taken Andrew away, in an ambulance on a jeep chassis, the bungalow seemed even more grimly empty, and Liz could not settle anywhere while she waited for her new hostess to send for her.

  She had liked the sound of Janine Carlyon’s voice on the telephone. It was quiet, with a faint but attractive French inflection. The older woman’s cordiality was warming, too. In reply to Liz’s diffidently proffered thanks, she had said, “But of course we are delighted to have you! Besides, I understand you are about the same age as my Beth. Ever since we heard you were coming to stay with your father, she has been dying to know you. And when Roger—Dr. Yate—called, she was enchanted at the thought of having you to stay with us. And though naturally I would rather you were coming in happier circumstances, do believe, won’t you, that under Roger’s care—oh dear, I’m afraid we always call him Roger—Mr. Shepard couldn’t be in better hands.”

  Janine had gone on to say that, as she had to teach all morning, Beth would fetch Liz, who had only to say when she would be ready. So Liz had gratefully named an hour and, after throwing a few necessities into a case, spent the intervening time fidgeting around the bungalow, torn by worry over Andrew and wondering why she could not feel as “enchanted” as Beth Carlyon at the prospect of their meeting.

  Just before Beth was due, it occurred to her that she ought to have some hospitality to offer. She remembered there were the usual drinks in the living-room cupboard, and she was setting these out with some glasses when the car she had seen on the airfield drove up.

  She met the other girl at the door. “This is awfully good of Mrs. Carlyon and you—” she began as she stood aside for Beth to enter. Today, she noted, Beth was delicately fragile in pale green. She was taking off dark sunglasses, but she still wore no hat. Her feet were bare in high-platformed thonged sandals scarcely less sturdy than those both Andrew Shepard and Roger Yate wore.

  Beth smiled. She said, voice and smile equally engaging, “Why, not at all! Roger asked it as a favor to him, and naturally maman would do anything for
him. So would I. Besides, we were awfully sorry about Mr. Shepard. He’s such a pet. Grim for you, on the very first day of your holiday!” She glanced at the case Liz had stood in the hall. “Are you ready to come now? I can wait, you know, if you’re not?”

  Liz said, “Yes, I’m quite ready. But won’t you stay for a drink first. I’ve raided dada’s ‘cellar’—just a wall cupboard in the living room, really—and I hope there’s something you like.”

  But when her hand hovered over the bottles Beth shook her head. “Oh no, I don’t drink,” she said. “Maman doesn’t mind, of course. It’s Roger who wouldn’t like me to. Just lime juice or plain soda, if you’ve got either. I mustn’t be a spoilsport, though. Do have whatever you want, yourself. I daresay, in your set in London, you all drink awfully hard?”

  Some imp of contrariness sorely tempted Liz to retort with something like “Do we ever! In fact, I’m a bottle-a-day woman myself.” But knowing she could not keep up the fiction that she even liked the taste of alcohol, she poured lime juice and soda for herself when she had served Beth.

  “Not really. I suppose my crowd could be accused of overdoing it with espresso coffee. But even that’s only because espresso bars are handy for meeting people and nattering for as long as you like.”

  Beth’s brow puckered. “Oh, but—” She checked herself in some distress. “No, of course I must have imagined it, because no one would have said so if it wasn’t true. But do you know—please don’t mind, will you—I did have the impression that you’d been rather wild in London, and even that you were involved in some kind of scrape over a man.” Something inside Liz curled up in distaste. What had been said of her before or since she had arrived in Tasghala? And who had said it?

  Roger Yate had known of dada’s intervention and of his plans for her. But even he hadn’t been spiteful over the story. At least, he hadn’t to her face ... Behind her back, though, what had he said? If, for Beth Carlyon’s entertainment, he had garbled what she herself had confided to him about Robin, she would never forgive him, never!

  But seeing that Beth was worriedly waiting for her reply, she said coolly, “Well, I suppose wildness is a matter of values really, isn’t it? I mean, older people often think you’re wild when you are only groping your way around and beginning to feel grown-up. I think that’s all I was doing, though with several of us doing it together, we probably did make a bit of brouhaha over it. As for the rest—” she felt the defensive white lie was justified “—all there was to that was that I was practically engaged to an artist named Robin Clare, but had—had broken it off before dada came on leave.”

  Beth clicked her tongue sympathetically. “Imagine! The nonsense people can make of news they don’t get hold of properly! When they gossip to me, I always want to remind them about the three wise monkeys, somehow.” She paused, then raised shy eyes. “All the same, I’m afraid I must confess there was a tiny thrill to meeting you, with that rather gay reputation. You see, between maman and Roger, who are both terribly sweet and understanding, I don’t get a chance to go out myself. Not that I really want to. You mustn’t think I do.”

  “No. Do you remember who gave it to me—that reputation, I mean?” Liz asked.

  Beth’s laugh was a musical trill. “Heavens, no! I don’t think it was anyone in particular. Just talk that went about when we heard you were coming.” Before Liz could ask another question Beth changed the subject. “I do like your word ‘dada’ for Mr. Shepard,” she said. “It’s not so babyish as ‘daddy’ and not so stiff as ‘father.’ It’s like my ‘maman’ for my stepmother. I couldn’t call her ‘mother’; it, would sound so odd when she is really like an elder sister to me. We get on terribly well together, and you’ll love her, too.”

  “I’m sure I shall,” agreed Liz sincerely.

  A minute or two later they decided to be on their way. But as Liz picked up her case she saw Beth glancing dubiously at her head.

  “Shouldn’t you have kept a shady hat?” Beth asked. “The sun is about at its full height, you know.”

  “You aren’t wearing a hat,” Liz pointed out.

  Beth smiled. “No, but then I’m used to it. I mean, sunstroke can be a terror, and it would be silly to be laid out by it for half the time you are here, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Feeling unreasonably irritated, Liz produced her hat and thumped its crown down on her head with no good grace. Silly of her to mind the other girl’s innocent assumption that she wouldn’t be staying long...

  But as they went out to the car Beth was nodding down at her thonged sandals and advising, “Even for the time you will be here you’d be wise to get yourself a pair. Pattens, we call them. The stitching of ordinary sandals just won’t stand up to desert wear, and the sand merely runs into these and out again.” And then the thing happened.

  As crisply and as tautly as if it were true and already settled, Liz heard herself saying, “Well, as I shall be staying here as permanently as any of you, naturally I mean to get some. I’ve noticed that everyone seems to wear them, so of course I shall, too.”

  There was a moment’s silence during which she almost panicked. What on earth had possessed her to jump the gun of dada’s decision like that? She would die of mortification if she had to eat her words by finding herself bundled onto the first outgoing plane as soon as he was better!

  Then Beth asked, “I don’t quite understand. You’re not just on a short visit? You’re staying on in Tasghala?”

  Liz nodded. “For as long as dada wants me to.” (That was noncommittal enough!)

  “But I thought Roger said—I mean, does he know this?”

  “Oh, yes.” Telling herself it was high time she admitted the truth, yet not entirely sure that this was the real motive for her belated candor, Liz added, “In fact, Dr. Yate told me he thought I ought to.”

  “Roger asked you to stay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh!” said Beth. Just the monosyllable, nothing more. But her eyes narrowed a little and her gentle smile went out like a snuffed candle flame.

  CHAPTER THREE

  As SHE HAD EXPECTED she might, Liz took to Janine Carlyon at once. She was a serene woman of about thirty-eight, unremarkable of feature except for a wide, generous brow and the coronet of warm brown hair about her head.

  Liz was to discover that her charm lay in her ability to regard knowing even her acquaintances as a rewarding adventure, and from the moment of her welcome at the little villa in a shady avenue on the far side of the town, Liz found herself more at ease with Janine than with Beth. Among other things, Janine was a sympathetic, unobtrusive listener, and Liz had not been her guest for many days before she found herself confessing to Janine a great deal which she instinctively withheld from Beth.

  The villa’s routine was comfortingly ordered and regular. They all rose early, making good use of the cool hours. Every morning, before Janine went to her teaching, she and Liz, or Liz and Beth, would go marketing in one of Tasghala’s smaller squares where, in the deep shade of the colonnades, every kind of produce, from pottery to live poultry, from brassware to spices, was on sale at stalls set up afresh each dawn and dismantled each drowsy midday.

  On the days when Liz was able to see her father, Janine drove her to the hospital on her way to school, and Liz walked the short distance back from the hospital. Meanwhile, under Beth’s somewhat indulgent direction, the work of the villa had been done by Luleck, the half-French, half-Arab woman employed by Janine. They did not lunch until two, when Janine returned, her day’s work finished; afterward Beth was sent to rest in her room for two hours, while Janine and Liz took a less strict siesta on the villa’s cool veranda. They dined early and simply before strolling into the town on not very important errands, or they listened to radio programs that at first taxed Liz’s schoolgirl French to the utmost, but which, with Janine’s help, she soon began to enjoy.

  She liked best her afternoons alone with Janine. They would read or doze, or talk while Jani
ne sewed and prepared handwork for her pupils. And sometimes it was Janine who proffered confidences, sometimes Liz.

  Janine loved her work passionately. “Not that it doesn’t seem sadly unrewarding sometimes,” she told Liz ruefully. “You see, most of my youngsters are the children of camel drivers, crossbreeds like Luleck and a few Tuareg whom we can hope to keep in school only until the whole encampment moves on. So ‘domestic science’ is rather a grand description for all I have to try to teach in its name—the most elementary hygiene, child care and housewifery (in a goatskin tent!), and how to manage the little money their menfolk will ever allow them to handle. I never know how soon the best of them will forget all they have learned, or whether they take away with them anything of lasting value at all.”

  “I suppose,” Liz offered slowly, “you can only hope that something you’ve taught them stays with some of them long enough to do good.”

  “That’s about all, I’m afraid. One girl approaching marriage, really knowing her job; one baby’s life saved, or even one husband regarding his wife as an equal because she has come to expect to be treated that way. You know, Liz,” Janine smiled, “we are very fortunate in the West. When Beth marries, when you do, you’ll have dignity and equality in marriage as a right. And equality means your dependence on one man that’s matched, in a different way, by his dependence on you. It’s a lovely, valuable thing to have, and ideally, the balance is quite, quite even.”

  “But is it?” Liz demurred. “What about that proverb which was quoted in a radio play the other night? You translated it for me, don’t you remember—‘In love there is always one who kisses, one who turns the cheek’?”

  Janine laughed. “Touché! But the play was a frothy comedy, the kind in which Paris excels. And of course it’s permissible for either the man or, the woman to keep a flirtation one-sided if the heart isn’t engaged. But in marriage—no! I’ve always told Beth that she ought to be very sure, before she marries, that the giving won’t be all on one side, and if you’d permit it, Liz, I’d like to say the same to you, too.”