Cane Music

by Joyce Dingwell

  Half a loaf was better than none. Roslyn took over Belinda from Connie, and Connie, glad of the opportunity to visit the places that Marcus had evidently forbidden her when Belinda was with her, places probably where Filippo would be, raced off at once. Roslyn and Belinda had a happy time together in the garden, later the tropical orchard, examining the pineapple acre to see if any of the tops were fruiting yet.

  Marcus, joining them, found other fruit that Roslyn had not even heard of ... Five corners, Soursops.

  He watched Roslyn try them for taste ... or so she thought at first. But not so, it seemed. He said very abruptly:

  “You’re not like her, you know.”

  “Her?”

  “The mother.” He nodded cursorily towards Belinda.

  “Should I be?”

  “You’re a relative. You said so.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Well, you’re certainly not a relative on this side, so it stands to reason you must be—”

  Roslyn hesitated. It seemed ridiculous not to tell him. She decided to do so, but at that moment she heard a light plane putting down.

  “That will be Carlton,” Marcus said.

  “I thought flying was out.”

  “I said the airfield would be closed. But Carlton knows the tune now. He has his own take-off high up.”

  “What about Clementine’s field?” Roslyn asked.

  “Like all Clementine, perfect.”

  “Including its owner?” She could not resist that.

  “Don’t look at me, I’m not the owner.”

  “You weren’t, but—”

  “I was not and I am not. The child is.”

  “Belinda—” she began.

  ‘There is no other child, unless, as with everything else we were never informed.”

  ‘No other,’ Roslyn agreed. She was looking at him in surprise. He seemed to be taking the fact of his noninheritance very amicably. No doubt he had known all along, but it still seemed a strange thing to Roslyn for a legator to skip a generation in a legacy.

  “I thought—” she began inadequately.

  “Then you thought wrong. I have my own canefield further north. Not quite so absurd as this—”

  “It isn’t.”

  “No, Clementine has a certain charm, I’ll admit. But a charm that is Marco’s, never mine. Anyway I’ll show you one day.”

  “I won’t be—”

  “No.” He came in before she could finish. “You won’t be here—I forgot. Well, I’d better drive out and bring in the doctor. He turned and picked up Belinda. “Like a ride out in the jeep, kid?”

  Belinda, who liked a ride anywhere, gladly allowed herself to be put in the tough little waggon.

  “Sorry there’s no room for you, Sister,” Marcus called falsely, starting off.

  There was room, he knew it, Roslyn knew it, room even with Doctor Carlton on the return trip if Belinda was nursed.

  But Roslyn did not fret at her omission. She was looking around her. Belinda the heiress to all this! No wonder the child had had to be returned with such care! But why had old Marco cut out Marcus for Belinda? It simply made no sense.

  She was still standing pondering when the jeep returned. The doctor later found her there. He had gone first with Marcus into the house, but when he came out again he was alone. He came across to Roslyn.

  “So our patriarch has gone.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you, but I knew you could cope.”—That was a favourite phrase of Marcus’s, Roslyn thought.

  She said: “Mr. Moreno did as much as I did.”

  “Yes, he was fond of Marco. We all were.” What an odd way to put it, odd, anyway, as regarded Marcus, Roslyn thought. “However, anno domini, all that,” accepted the doctor. “Now you, Sister, how are you placed?”

  “I’m still here, as you can see, and will be until I can get out again. Now that Connie has taken over Belinda I’m no longer required at Clementine.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I’d like to agree,” shrugged Roslyn ruefully, “but T know what children are, Doctor Carlton. During the week I was looking after the patient I barely saw Belinda, and I very much doubt if she even noticed.”

  “Perhaps I wasn’t speaking about Belinda.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Good, then,” the doctor pounced. “That suits me.”

  “Suits you?” she queried.

  “Sister Young, I’m in desperate need of a nurse down on the coast.”

  “The hospital—” she started to suggest.

  “It’s overtaxed on its own account, in fact it would rush you itself if I didn’t get in first.”

  “Get in first where?”

  “Get in first up here to secure your help down there. With me. I have at least six shattering weeks in front of me. You name it, I’ve inherited it with the flood. Limbs larynxes, the lot. Well, will you come?”

  “I—I don’t know. I mean—”

  “But you don’t want to leave yet, do you?” he said shrewdly.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  The doctor gave a small smile. “Yes.”

  Roslyn was silent a moment. “I think you must know I have no choice,” she said ruefully. “Your fault as well as Mr. Moreno’s, Doctor Carlton, for you did urge me.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “It was either the care of old Mr. Moreno or Belinda, and I—well, I backed the wrong horse.” She paused. “Mr. Marcus Moreno’s words.”

  “No doubt.” Another small smile. Then he said seriously: “But there’s no doubt, too, that you’re unhappy over the result.”

  “If you mean I don’t want to leave Belinda yet you’re right.”

  “Then here’s your way out. Accept this position and help me as well as help yourself. Also” ... once more that smile ... “damn Marcus.”

  But Roslyn’s smile back was full and delighted. “That does make it attractive,” she admitted. “But how could working for you on the coast be any nearer to Belinda than if I was back south? I mean, Mr. Moreno would naturally wipe his hands of me once I left.”

  “You don’t know him much, do you? In fact I’d say you don’t know him at all.”

  “Look, Doctor, I’d be an ex-employee, and I hardly think even in this relaxed state that ex-employees can come and go as they please with a Welcome mat on the door.”

  “I’m the doctor up here, Sister. The sole doctor. Moreno has to have me whether he likes it or not.”

  “That’s you,” she reminded him.

  “Whither I go, comes Nurse,” he tacked on triumphantly.

  “But nobody might get ill.”

  He looked at her incredulously. “You can’t seriously offer me that on a canefield employing the number that Clementine employs plus the usual wives and kids. Oh, no, Sister Young, Moreno knows as well as I do that here there’s something that he can’t hope to attend to out of his first aid chest or from his home doctor.”

  “But he himself may be leaving. He has his own cane-field, he’s told me.”

  “Fields. His place is even bigger than here.”

  “Bigger? Is that why—” Roslyn paused. She had been going to ask if that was why Belinda had been left the smaller concern.

  “He has a manager on it, of course, has for a few years, ever since—No doubt now he must continue that way for the child. You knew she inherits?”

  “Yes,” said Roslyn.

  A few moments went past.

  “Well?” the doctor asked.

  “I don’t know how Mr. Moreno will react.”

  The medico looked at her challengingly. “I’m offering you a chance to find out.”

  “It’s only Belinda interesting me, not any challenge.” But even as she said it, Roslyn knew that that was not entirely true. She did not want to leave Belinda yet, but the thought of scoring on Marcus Moreno who wanted her out, right out, was a heady one. An irresistible one, she found.<
br />
  The doctor must have read her expression. “Well?” he asked again.

  “I’ll come.”

  “Excellent. Today? Now?”

  “Now?”

  “I do need you badly, Sister Young.”

  “Then yes,” she said.

  They started back to the house.

  “Will you tell him while I say goodbye to Belinda?” Roslyn asked.

  “Shall be done.”

  Roslyn searched out Connie and Belinda, instructed Connie about a dozen things concerning Belinda that she knew the girl would forget the moment she was gone, then told Belinda she was going with the doctor to look after some more sick people but that she would be back to see her. After that she packed her bag.

  Doctor Carlton was waiting at the front door for her when she came down. He took the bag from her and stowed it in the jeep. At the wheel of the jeep sat Marcus.

  When they reached the Clementine paddock that they used as a field, the doctor’s small craft awaited them. Marcus said casually: “I’ll be seeing you, Doctor.” He did not include Roslyn.

  “Yes,” Carlton agreed, “no doubt we’ll be to and fro as usual.”

  “As usual was not with a nurse.” Marcus opened the jeep door for them, but he still did not look at Roslyn.

  “The winds of change and all that,” Carlton said cheerfully. “Just put it down to Roberta and Marianne.”

  “Not Nesta?”

  “Nesta?” the doctor queried.

  “Our next cyclone. Didn’t you know? Also it’s tipped to choose your part for the eye next time. You’ll find out.”

  “I trust not. I’ve enough on my plate as it is.”

  “Plates now. Doctor’s and Nurse’s. The winds of change, remember. How is the bus going?”

  “Still flying.”

  “That at least should reassure Miss Young.”

  They had climbed into the Cessna now, and the doctor had pressed the starting button. Marcus stood back as the craft taxied forward. They skimmed across the field, then Roslyn felt the lift of wings. She looked down at the paddock below, but already Marcus Moreno had retreated.

  “He’s a quick mover,” Doctor Carlton commented. He banked the Cessna and they turned towards the coast.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was only a short flip by air, but Roslyn did not need to be told by the pilot that a road journey would take much longer. As soon as Clementine’s fields cut out, the range began, and though it was only a narrow row of mountains the mountains were still steep, and any tracks would be arduous, probably hazardous.

  Staring fascinated over the rising then falling Cessna wing, Roslyn noted the end of the range, then the beginning of the gentler hills, levelling out eventually to the coast, that flag blue coast of North Australia.

  She saw checkered crops on the slopes, but not the usual pattern of varying growths of cane but other vegetation. The doctor identified them as they flew over, pineapples, bananas, pawpaws, the Macadamia nuts that now comprised a new large market, then something else that Roslyn asked about.

  “Ginger,” he smiled, “not the white-flowered ginger of the romantic islands but good domestic stuff with a rosy shoot and a lucrative future.”

  “White ginger blossom could be lucrative, too,” Roslyn reminded him brightly, “if worn over the appropriate ear to snare a millionaire.”

  “This red variety may not look so glamorous, but it’s still a relation and could have the same result. Care to try it?”

  “On a millionaire?” she laughed, and he laughed back.

  She asked him about the islands away to the east, small gems of islands shown to perfection in a showcase of glass now that the cyclone had flattened down the sea.

  “All part of the Barrier Reef. They’re mostly coral atolls, all but few without water but certainly with bird.. Millions of birds. I think every variety of noddy are there. You must—”

  “Go there one day,” said Roslyn before he could. “Are you putting down?”

  “Yes, while we’re still safely above coast level.” He nodded, and Roslyn followed the direction of his nod. She gave a little cry. The place was still very much under water, still a flood area. Yet here and there on higher ground some houses emerged dry and normal.

  “One of those few lucky places is mine,” the doctor said, “not luck so much as intention, really, a doctor’s surgery had to keep dry or else. Also being a comparatively old hand now I always put my craft down in this paddock well above any wet.”

  “Yes, Marcus Moreno said you knew the tune.”

  “That would be Marcus. It’s a bit squelchy even so, so hold on.” He came down, a little bumpily but safely. He leaned across Roslyn and opened her door.

  “Wait till I come round to catch you.”

  “I can scramble down,” she assured him.

  He laughed, and, scrambling down himself, was round before she could disentangle herself from her harness. He caught her, and for a moment held her.

  “Just in case you’re giddy,” he smiled, his tawny coloured eyes not far from hers.

  She withdrew, knowing from the heat in her cheeks that she had flushed, knowing she looked her best a little pink, a little disarrayed, and pleased about that. He was nice ... and very like Chris.

  “Do we walk?” she asked a little breathlessly.

  “I have an old jalopy up here.” He nodded to a rough shed at the end of the field. “Will you wait till I fetch it or will you walk over with me?”

  “Walk, of course.”

  “Not very good for tights.”

  “I haven’t worn any since I’ve been up here.”

  “Then not very good for legs. Some of the weeds are scratchy.”

  “Well, you’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

  “Yours?” he asked unexpectedly.

  “Seeing you’re the only one here,” she laughed, “I expect you’ll have to be.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Then like what?” she asked.

  “Like—not medically.”

  “Oh,” she said, tossed up whether to administer a reproof, then smiled instead.

  Together they crossed the field.

  “What happens to the plane?” Roslyn asked.

  “Celia? Yes, I call her that. She goes into the shed when the jeep comes out. That is, ordinarily she does. But just now the calls are coming so thick and fast I’m not worrying about covering her up. Not a wise procedure, perhaps, but she’s a nice girl, and so far has never let me down.”

  They had reached the small hangar, or large shed, by this time, and the doctor told Roslyn to wait while he reversed out Miranda.

  “Do you call everything by a girl’s name?” Roslyn asked, amused.

  “Only if I like it. I am very fond of my Cessna, fond, too, of the jeep. Fond most of all, you could say, of girls. So what better compliment can I give my transport?” He was in the jeep by this time and backing out.

  Roslyn climbed in beside him.

  They drove through the tattered dandelion of the rough strip on to an even rougher track, barely two wheel indentations to make it a road. At once the wheel tracks plunged into bush.

  The road descended, ascended, wound forward, wound back, then all at once they were rid of it, and on the outskirts of the town, or what was visible now of an inundated town.

  Roslyn looked out and saw a preposterous sea, preposterous since it was trespassing so much further than it should. She had not expected an ocean onslaught like this.

  “On top of the rain,” the doctor sighed when she asked him, “there was a king tide. As you see only the places on higher ground have escaped. There’s the hospital.” He pointed to a sprawling, one-storeyed building to the left. “There’s my house-cum-surgery.”

  It was a large house, like most Queensland places, Roslyn had noted, and also on stilts.

  “Do you look after yourself?” she asked.

  “Not likely, with my calls. No, I have a housekeeper, which should
set your mind at rest if you have any Victorian hangovers.” He grinned at her.

  “I lived on the Victorian border,” she laughed back, “but I have no hangovers. All the same, I’m glad there is a housekeeper; it should set all minds at rest.”

  “You mean Marcus’s. He already knew. He wouldn’t have let you come otherwise.”

  “Let me come?” she echoed.

  “That’s what I said, for that’s our Marcus.”

  “Yet he doesn’t seem the circumspect type,” mused Roslyn.

  “He would be when it came to family, and I believe you fit in there somewhere.”

  “Somewhere is the right word,” said Roslyn. She felt in no mood for an explanation, and anyway, they were now running up the drive.

  Doctor Carlton gave a feeling grunt. “No rest for the wicked,” he sighed.

  “Are you?”

  “I must be. Look at that crowd waiting. Also, here comes my housekeeper, Mrs. Marriott, the bearer, as always, of bad news.”

  “It might be good,” she pointed out.

  “Good would be a permanent resident at the Cottage, instead of a three-days-a-week attendance from our nearest big town, which is all we boast now. Also, because of the cyclone, for the past fortnight there hasn’t been even those three days to help out.”

  “Then how has the hospital been coping?”

  “Just Sisters, nurses, and when I’m not on my own patients yours truly. But don’t get any ideas of aiding them, Sister, you’re strictly for me.”

  Mrs. Marriott was upon them now, greeting Roslyn like a long-lost friend at the same time as she warned Doctor Carlton of what lay in store. Roslyn, noting the sudden weary pull to the young doctor’s mouth, followed Mrs. Marriott to her room and immediately took out her uniform. Carl Carlton ... she had seen from his name-plate that that was his name ... rewarded her with a quick grateful look when she came back, and from then neither of them raised their heads until Mrs. Marriott appeared with a laden tray, telling the waiting patients that they’d have to wait longer unless they wanted a sick doctor on their hands.

  They proved a cheerful crowd and there was not one complaint as Mrs. Marriott firmly shut the door.