The Mutual Look

by Dingwell, Joyce

  `Oh, no, not when the hop festival's on. Roberta has been practising her steps for weeks, and I did hear Robert say he may join the Greek group, seeing it's strictly male. You can't expect them to do things like that in shorts and T-shirts.'

  `I don't expect them to, I expect them to be put to bed.'

  `By whom?' Jane ventured to ask. 'As far as I can see no one will be left here except Sam.' Sam was a pensioner rouse about, and not interested in festivals; quite definitely also, believed Jane, not interested in putting juveniles to bed.

  `There'll be others rostered.'

  Jane said nothing.

  `Then I,' proceeded William Bower, 'am not incapable of putting a child to bed.'

  `Two children.'

  `Two children,' he said coldly.

  There was a silence. Jane could see she would get nowhere like this, and she knew how terribly keen the twins were to stop for the night's festivities.

  `I would look after them,' she offered humbly.

  `Between the reels, the flings, the jigs, the cariocas, the tangos and the rhumbas,' he came back disbelievingly, `and that's only half the list. Every nationality down there, and, believe me, there'll be few nations left out, will insist

  on their dance, and with women-shortage as prevails everywhere here, you won't be off the floor to watch anyone.'

  She could not argue that, not having been to such a function before. She stood uncertain a moment, then spontaneously she appealed : 'Please let them, William.' The moment she heard it, she could not believe it of herself. Not only the appeal to this man, but his name.

  There was a silence. A long one.

  `Very well then.' His voice was gruff. He did not look at her. 'Send down to David Jones for anything you need.' He walked away before she could thank him.

  Robert wanted some mod gear. He made a list of it, and Jane, when ordering it, made the request that if it was not store-available, could someone get it for them from an In shop. Roberta simply wanted long skirts.

  The clothes arrived, to both their satisfaction, and on Hop Day Jane packed their evening gear separate with her own, and sent them off ... they were going in a decorated haycart that one of the hands was entering in the procession ... in serviceable overalls.

  She went in one of the jeeps, the rest of the unrostered staff in cars, bikes, vans, even horse-boxes. She noted that William Bower's car remained at his house, but then she had expected that, it would not be the sort of function, she thought, that a Big Boss would attend.

  The barbecue and sporting events were to be held in the reserve at the creek, the hop-picking competition at one of the larger fields, and the dance on a floor that had been laid down on perhaps the only level ground of all the lower district. As Jane passed the setting for the night festivities, she saw that coloured lights were being strung between the trees.

  It was impossible to believe that this busy, bustling place was their sleepy valley. The quiet, almost dreaming little community had burst into cheerful laughing life. The sound of the river that punctuated the gully silences, the songs of the birds, could not be heard for human noise.

  There were tents and caravans everywhere, cars turned into beds, stretchers on tabletop lorries, sleeping bags and simply folded blankets.

  The Bowers crowd went straight to the hop-picking, which, Jane was assured, was worth seeing. The picking was being done by families, and it was fiercely competitive. Each family was supplied a large timber-framed receptacle, and that was all the equipment needed besides nimble fingers. Jane appreciated the size of the receptacle, for it was as big as a horse trough, after she had tried hop-picking herself. She admitted ruefully that it would take a lot of leafy cones to reach one pound. Also, she was told, no leaves or stems were allowed.

  The signal was given, and the families began to pick. It was really something to watch, Dad's large yet nimble fingers, Mum's, the children's, sometimes cousins' and aunts', all darting and dancing through the vine's thick leaves and sending continuous streams of little hops into the bin.

  Jane did not wait for the winner, it would go on for hours, but she did do a tour of a kiln, its upper level spread with a ten-inch layer of hops under covering mesh, the drying floor on the lower level. The hot air was being drawn through now, and John, who had offered to show her, said, `That steam should make you hungry. Feel like coming to the house for a bite?'

  She had been looking at all the good things laid out for the pickers—chunks of sausage, slabs of cheese, pyramids of boiled eggs and tomatoes—and gave an eager yes.

  `No Johnny cakes?' she asked, and John gave her a rather curious look.

  `No. No, Jane. I thought ... well, I thought you knew.' `Knew what?'

  `Come and have a bite,' he said.

  But it was not a bite, it was a feast. An exciting foreign feast redolent of olives, capsicum and spice.

  `It's wonderful, John!' she exclaimed.

  `It's Estonian. The same' ... John smiled boyishly ... 'as my girl.'

  `Your— But John, I didn't know. I knew that you were—well—'

  `Anxious? I was. What's the good of a house without its woman? a home without its heart? Jane' ... a little concerned ... you don't mind?'

  `I mind,' Jane leaned over and touched John's hand. 'I think it's great. What's her name?'

  have her tell you herself, it's rather a mouthful, for us, anyway. She'll be back soon ... her family are down for the picking ... that's how I met her, Jane. She's lovely. I'm sure you'll think so I call her Ennie.'

  `And you're terribly happy, I can see that.'

  `Terribly happy. And don't think it was as it must sound to you, I mean you knew I wanted to settle and settle soon. Well, it was like that, I suppose, but it was also a

  `Mutual look?'

  `Exactly, Jane. The very words.' He beamed on her.

  But Jane could not entirely beam back. Then where did Kate come in, she was wondering, Kate who had been so anxious to keep on her valley commitments, Kate who had grown so much more mature lately, so much more attractive. Everyone had commented on it. She started to ask John, but his Ennie arrived, just as lovely as he had said, and after they had talked there was a Polish wrestling match to attend, a Latvian boxing bout and an afternoon singsong.

  Then it was time to change for the night. Jane, Maureen and the twins changed at John's. When Jane asked about Kate, everyone was so intent on themselves she received no answer, but Kate must have changed somewhere, for later, half dusk now, and the lights by the dancing floor being switched on, she saw Kate in her cornflower skirts, and beside her a man Jane vaguely felt she had seen before

  but where? There was no time to think about it, though, an Italian who had been strumming a serenade on a guitar

  nodded to several companions with fiddles, then drums came in, saxes, every instrument that could be carried along, the children even wrapping conabs in paper, and the music began.

  Oh, what music! As William Bower had told Jane, it went on the whole gamut. Jane was claimed at once and not let go through any national dance, even though she protested she did not know it. Even in the Greek dances, those strict prerogatives of males, Jane danced, as did all the girls ... Maureen with Tim, John with his Ennie, Kate with that man whom Jane had felt she had seen before.

  A party of Spaniards down for the picking did the sara-band and the fandango, the bolero was performed, some very spirited Polish steps, then an English group were showing quadrilles and Lancers, some Americans the old Cakewalk and the less old Charleston, and after that the foxtrots and one-steps were getting the crowd to their feet ... then the fiddles were becoming more muted, the guitars were picking sweeter notes, and the waltz was beginning.

  Jane was in the arms of a young South American who had previously been showing her the intricacies of the tango, when the man cut in. It was such a definite cut there could be no protest. The handsome Argentinian stepped back ruefully as It was William Bower who calmly took over.

  'You!' Jane murmure
d.

  'Why not?'

  No reason, except—'

  'Except you couldn't see me one-stepping and foxtrot-ting, Miss Sidney? You're right. But I think I can manage this one. Please complain to me if I can't.'

  will,' she promised. Then : didn't know you were

  here.'

  'You know now.'

  Yes, she knew. His arms were iron-hard around her, his fingers held hers lightly yet she knew the grasp was ines-capable.

  `You've been impolite,' she said for something to say. `It's not a cutting-in evening.'

  `It was not,' he corrected.

  To you always ride roughshod over people?'

  breed horses, I don't go in for the intricacies of riding them.'

  `And other intricacies, Mr. Bower?'

  `You're never explicit, are you, Miss Sidney? You deal in subtleties and innuendoes, never a spade's a spade.' `Shall I now?' she asked demurely.

  lust now, little girl, you will shut that very pretty but tiresome mouth of yours. Have you no ear for music?'

  She had, and for that very reason she had been chattering frantically, trying to escape the sweet gipsy strains that the strolling players were coaxing from their strings. For the penetrating beauty of the soft throbbing waltz was taking possession of Jane. She felt herself drawn closer and knew that he was taking possession, too. She knew by her instinctive response that she was not withdrawing from him. She half-closed her eyes, gave herself over to the tender music, to his light yet firm guidance, to the heady rapture of the swelling rhythm.

  `Don't look now,' he said in her ear. 'We're the spotlight, Jane.'

  He had never called her Jane, and for a while in her surprise she did not look. Then she realized that all the other couples had left the floor and that they alone danced as one person.

  `Embarrassed?' he asked.

  No,' she said truthfully.

  `I'm not, either. I think we're a team, Jane. I think ...' William stopped at an arm on his shoulder. He looked thunderous. But it was not a cut, it was one of the Bower men. Chad Addison's face was grave. Jane tried rather hazily to recall which mare was due, or whether one of the horses ailed.

  William went to the side of the floor with the man. The

  spell broken, the other couples resumed dancing again. Presently the stud boss came to Jane and said : 'Addison tells me I'm wanted up top at once. I feel for all his insistence that it can't be urgent, because I checked everything before I came down. So wait for me, Jane.' Again he said Jane. This time : 'Wait for me, Jane.'

  And Jane knew she would wait.

  She did wait. She waited all that evening. As though they knew she was waiting, no one came after William went to ask her to dance.

  After a long while she sat down to wait. She grew cold ... and as an hour, two hours went past, she grew indignant as well as chilled. How dared he treat her like this?

  When she saw the dancers forming more intimate pairs, she knew she could stand it no longer. A group of the Bowers people were leaving on one of the lorries, so she went with them.

  In her indignation she felt like seeking out William Bower, telling him what she thought of his conduct, but that could emphasize everything, suggest an importance that she might have put on the night's events, and she didn't want any importance conveyed to that man. Besides ... furiously ... there had been no importance, not to her. She repeated that to herself as she got down from the tabletop and ran across to the big house.

  He was coming out of it as she went to enter, and at once he flung out an arm and guided her away.

  `I thought you'd never come,' he said hoarsely.

  `I—I waited. You said to.' Her voice shook with resentment and she hated its betrayal.

  `I know, I know.' He shrugged his shoulders as though to shrug all that away.

  She could not understand him, he had been so different down there. Was he going on like this now to tell her that down there was not here, that the gipsy music and what it could have meant had stopped?

  `It's the kids,' he said shortly.

  'They're all right. Maureen and Tim are bringing them up.

  'I should have said their parents, adopted parents, foster-parents, whatever you like to call Gareth and Dorothy.' 'They're home?'

  'They're not coming home, Jane, not this home—any earthly home. There's been a major plane disaster. Only a few survived. They were on that plane and their names are not among the survivors.'

  He turned away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WILLIAM had drawn Jane away from the big house, but they had not got as far as his house. A cloud had temporarily obliterated the moon, but Jane could still see the droop to his big shoulders, the tug to his long sensitive mouth.

  `There could be some mistake,' she whispered.

  `No,' he said. 'They were on that flight and the list is official.'

  `The children.' She said that tremblingly, and he answered just one word.

  `Yes.'

  A silence encompassed them. It seemed to encompass Plateau as well. No leaf stirred, no night jay called.

  `Poor little mutts,' the man said troublously at last, `they've had more than their share, Jane.'

  `Yes, William.' It came as instinctively, she knew, as his `Jane' had come.

  `Children are resilient,' she said presently, and he nodded back soberly.

  `I know that, I know they'll recover. Thank heaven Gareth and Dorothy possessed the wisdom to tell them the truth. The question is how much did they know of it themselves?'

  `Your cousin and his wife?'

  `Yes.'

  Jane looked at him in inquiry, and he went on, 'Did they know the real parents and the situation?'

  `It's not usual,' Jane said.

  `But, I think, in Gareth's and Dorothy's position very probable. I believe the twins came from their own circle, Jane. In time, being the wise people they were, I believe they intended to tell Robert and Roberta. But meanwhile they never got round to telling me, and now I don't know. I just don't know.'

  `Do you have to know?' she asked gently. 'Can't you just accept them with love?'

  `Of course. What do you think I am? But it's not as easy as that. Those kids are not a studman's children, they're a different breed. How can I make them happy when I don't understand?'

  `They're children, William. Children.'

  `Whose?' he asked. 'And how can they ever know now?' think you're creating something.'

  I don't want to. I want to go and say to that pair : You're home. Home .—But they're not. I know it. They know it.' He looked at Jane. 'You do.'

  I don't, William. They like it here. They're fond of you.' `Fond,' he repeated hoarsely.

  `Children are adopted every day,' Jane said. 'It happens smoothly, it's not the rough passage you anticipate.'

  He listened to her, but his face remained crumpled.

  `The thing is—I don't believe Gareth and Dorothy ever did adopt them. Oh, I know to all appearances they did, but I think they were really "keeping" them for someone, someone who might not have known, though Gareth and Dorothy did. Now—well, no one knows.'

  I really meant when I said that,' Jane came in, 'your adoption of them.' She looked up at him.

  `The studman takes a child?' he interpreted. 'Heaven knows I wish it was as simple as that. But it isn't, Jane. No, I was right when I told you I had to grow my own.'

  `Love ' Jane endeavoured.

  `Doesn't come into this. The kids like me, yes, but I don't belong, Jane. I'm an outdoor man, a factual character, anything but a person of finer perceptions, but I still know that, that I don't belong.'

  `Then,' said Jane practically, 'the second-best will have to do, won't it? And children being resilient, it will do.'

  suppose you're right. I suppose it's just the impact making me see a distortion like this. They'll recover. They'll settle down. Incidentally, in the shock I opened a

  letter that was your—my uncle's. I'm sorry.' He handed the letter over.

  J
ane read it absently, her mind not on Rusty and what he had to say.

  'You were right about Dotsy,' she said tonelessly to William. 'She is. Your uncle says when but not by whom.'

  He nodded, and her heart went out to him because of the wretchedness in his face. She pushed the letter into her pocket.

  `I'll write again and remind him, for you would want to know the sire. It makes a difference even before foaling if you're aware what you are about to handle.' She knew she was talking in the hope of diverting him.

  He nodded dumbly again, William Bower, the self-as-sured studman without words! Gently Jane said : 'Do you want me there when you tell them?'

  'Would you?'

  'Of course.'

  'Not tonight.'

  `No,' she agreed.

  'The morning?'

  'Yes.'

  In the distance there was the sound of returning cars, bikes, vans. In one of those vehicles would be two exhausted children.

  They stood in silence as the revellers completed the run, drew up and tumbled out.

  'It was fab, Father William!' Robert called.

  lane looked the second-best of the ladies. Kate looked the best,' Roberta announced quite as a matter of course.

  Then the pair both saw something together and called together : 'Look, two stars fell!' And watched them.

  'Goodnight, darlings,' Jane said, and went back to the big house.

  She awoke earlier than usual the next day, and put it down to the troubled sleep she had had. Then she heard the noise in the house, saw the glow at the window. She ran

  across and looked out. The glow was to the east, but it was not the glow of sunrise but fire. Jane knew that glow now after the fire at the hotel.

  She pulled on her dressing gown and went down to the canteen. It seemed everyone was there, and giving their theory. It came from the valley, one said, and had been caused by a short in the lights. Someone else said that the night had been just a bit too merry and some camper hadn't properly extinguished his fire.

  One thing, it didn't appear much to date, and once the Urara volunteer brigade got on the scene ...