The Mutual Look

by Dingwell, Joyce

  Jane went back, dressed and returned to swallow a cup of tea. She could not eat anything, she kept on thinking what lay ahead.

  She crossed to the house, but no one answered her soft knock. Probably William was letting the twins sleep as long as they could. Probably he was too wretched still to come to the door.

  Around ten, the glow that had been only just that, nothing more serious, considerably deepened. The news of the tragedy must have reached the staff, for as well as apprehensive about that spreading red-black cloud coming from the valley, the men were visibly shocked and quiet.

  Jane set her shoulders and walked across again to the house. This time her knock was answered by Teresa. Teresa's eyes were red and when she saw Jane she whimpered. William must have heard, for he came down the hall, and if he had looked wretched yesterday, now he looked positively distraught.

  `William '

  `They're gone,' he said flatly.

  `Gone? You mean the twins?'

  `Yes.'

  `Then you told them?'

  `No. They must have heard.'

  `No one here would say.'

  Not intentionally. I'm not blaming Anders.'

  `He told them?'

  `No, but he's come to me and said that when his attention was drawn to the fire ... you know about that, of course?' `Yes.'

  `That he cried out : "Not that on top of the other !" ' `Well?'

  The twins were in earshot. They're not the usual kids, you know that.'

  `Yes.'

  `They must have checked. I can just see Robert doing that. He has his own transistor.'

  `They knew their parents were coming?'

  `They knew they were on that flight. I'd told them.' `Perhaps they didn't check. Perhaps Anders only thought they heard.'

  `I don't know,' William said wearily, 'I only know I've looked everywhere, and they're not here. Jane, what am I to do?'

  How had she ever thought him self-sufficient, not merely self-sufficient but repelling even the smallest gesture of help? He wasn't now, for all his maturity, and Jane knew she had never known a more mature person than William Bower, he was still a little boy crying for help.

  `Help me, Jane,' he said.

  `When did you discover they'd gone?'

  The entire night I'd been thrashing over the thing. I came at last to the conclusion that I must tell them, tell them alone, that it wasn't fair to call on you.'

  `That's not so,' Jane said quietly.

  `After I reached that decision I must have slept at last. Anyway' ... a resigned movement of his hands ... 'I didn't hear the twins get up, go out of the house.'

  `They must have crossed to the stables.'

  `They did. Several of the hands saw them. Then later Anders must have remembered saying what he did. Being the pair they are, they would be consumed with curiosity. Hearing Anders say : "Not that on top of the other !"

  would determine them to know what he meant. They would have come back to the house, listened to the radio, and—' Again that gesture of the big strong hands.

  `But why would they go away?'

  don't know. I was hoping you could tell me that.'

  `William' ... how instinctively William came now ... `how could I know? Ever since Kate has taken over I've barely seen them. They liked Kate, so I didn't intrude.' As she said it Jane remembered Roberta calling : lane looked the second-best. Kate looked the best.' She recalled experiencing a slight pang of resentment, just a very small tinge, but there was no resentment now, only a great hope.

  `Kate,' Jane said to William.

  `Oh, yes,' he replied, thought of that, too. But she's not here.'

  `Then the twins could be with her.'

  No, Jane, Kate never returned last night. It appears she wasn't expected, she's on vacation. I didn't know, but then I wouldn't be expected to know. I leave these things to the bookkeeper.'

  `Maureen could know where she's gone.'

  `She doesn't. I've asked her. Though

  `Yes, William.

  feel she might know something ... just a feeling. However, all I want to know is what's concerning me. The kids.' `Have they taken any ponies?'

  `No. You know how they are in that section.'

  `But if they wanted to get somewhere—'

  `They're also very good on their own two feet.'

  `But not too far,' Jane said. 'They're only young children.'

  `And already they've been gone three hours. It could be more. Jane, can't you think?'

  Jane said wretchedly, 'I'm trying ... trying, but nothing comes.'

  She left William and came back to the canteen and had a meal. She knew it was no use trying to think, to do any-

  thing at all on an empty stomach, and she had not eaten at all this morning. She knew if something did occur to her, and she went off, at least she would go replenished. She could tell by the look on Harry's face that he was glad to have a customer.

  'Terrible food wastage today,' he sighed, 'breakfast hardly touched.'

  'That cloud is getting bigger and darker, Harry. What will happen?'

  'If the volunteer brigade can't handle it, it'll be all hands to the job.'

  'Plateau, too?'

  'Of course.'

  'Has fire happened before?'

  'Oh yes.' Harry seemed surprised at Jane's question.

  The valley looks so green,' Jane explained her remark.

  'Eucalypts thrive on fires, they look dead, then the next spring they branch out bigger and better than ever. The ground section of the fires clear the undergrowth and the sun gets in and stimulates the sap, I expect.'

  `How will Plateau know if help is needed?'

  'There's a siren system been fixed up,' Harry said. 'I'm getting ready anyway, just in case.' He pointed to piles of sandwiches he was preparing. 'Have to keep the fighters well stoked,' he said.

  The rest of the morning went leadenly. Although time was what they all needed, it seemed to Jane that the hand of her watch never moved. She tended Wendy's Pride, looked in on Dotsy, then went and saddled Dandy.

  No one called out a warning to her as she cantered from the stable, they were all wrapped up in their own concerns, everyone was depending on everyone else to use caution and common sense. Jane would have used these, too; when she left the stud she had no intention of doing what she eventually did. But after she saw Maureen in the distance and crossed the eastern paddock to talk to her, caution and com-mon sense did not come into it any more. Only a sudden,

  desperate feeling that the twins could be

  The words that Maureen and Jane had had together were back in the past now. Maureen met Jane with the same anxious look that Jane wore.

  `It's frightful, Jane !'

  `Can you help in any way, Maureen?'

  `You mean as regards Kate, and where she is, and if the twins could be with her? No. I told Mr. Bower so. Definitely Robert and Roberta would not be with Kate.'

  `But you couldn't be absolutely definite, you couldn't know for certain, could you?'

  `Yes. Definite. Certain. You see

  `Yes, Maureen?'

  Maureen looked upset. 'I can't tell you,' she confided. `It's not for me to tell.'

  `Tell what?'

  `About Kate. Anyway, she's on vacation, and she doesn't have to say where.'

  `Do you know where?'

  `Not exactly.'

  `But fairly exactly.' Jane knew that was absurd, but she knew that Maureen would know what she meant.

  `Somewhere on the coast.' Maureen sighed. 'She ... Roger ... well, I think they're being married.'

  `You mean John and Kate.'

  `No, Jane, you must have seen John and Ennie. It's Roger.'

  `Who is Roger?' asked Jane.

  `I don't know. I should, and poor Kate has tried to confide in me, but—well, I've had my own things on my mind.'

  `Of course,' Jane hurried to reassure her. 'Then you would say the children are definitely not with Kate.'

  `No. Not at her marriage. Oh dear, I
wonder if I've said too much. Kate did ask me to keep it to myself. That's why I didn't tell Mr. Bower.'

  `You haven't said too much, Maureen. Anything ... any-

  thing at all in a situation like this could be a help. Though what help this can be ...' Jane bit her lip.

  As she rode away again, she decided to report it all to William. It had no connection, but at least it explained Kate.

  When she got to the house, William was not there. Teresa was still crying, so Jane came away and mounted Dandy again. She rode across the flats, taking several detours to look down to the valley. The pall of smoke had blackened and thickened. A wind was blowing up, and she watched it tear at the solid dark smudge, eventually severing it into two masses. Between and beneath them she saw a charred wilderness, and it horrified her. She had never known that fire could move so cruelly and so quickly.

  In the canteen this morning she had heard men talk of wallabies caught in fire corners, of birds dropping out of the sky from heat when the flames leapt up. Flames were leaping up now. The wind, Jane saw, was changing again. All at once the billows of smoke had turned their direction, and red streaks of fire were whipping through the black. Even up here you can hear the roar. Down there it would be like thunder.

  She watched until her eyes, red even this far away from the smoke, could not focus any more. She thought of all the people who had been down there yesterday. Thank heaven for the creek. Also for past experience, for she had been told, too, that no human loss of life was anticipated, not in a place that had had all this before, that knew explicitly what steps to take.

  She went back to Dandy, a Dandy as usual unconcerned and contentedly cropping. They resumed their way until something that Maureen had said hit Jane. That was the only way she could have described it. It was like a blow at her thoughts.

  Maureen had said : 'No, Jane. You must have seen John with Ennie. It's Roger.'

  Roger? Who was Roger? Then Jane was recalling that as well as seeing John with Ennie, she had seen Kate with a

  man. A man ... and her grasp tightened on the rein ... whom somehow she had felt she had seen before. But how? Where?

  They had come to the section where the small track left the flat to go down to that part of the valley that Jane had explored on Gretel. Just here, Jane saw, you would not have known there was a fire; the wind, and therefore any tattered flames, had missed this section.

  She pulled on Dandy and looked down. You could not see Rodden's retreat from here, but that, of course, had been Rodden's purpose.

  Jane remembered that day when she had discovered it, remembered seeing the humpy between the trees. At the time Rodden had been the last owner of a retreat she could have dreamed up, she half-smiled.

  Then the smile was fading. She was recalling that first figure, that figure that had not been Rodden's. Rodden had laughed at her, had said it was, but it hadn't been. She knew it now. The shack might belong to Rodden, though she doubted that, too, and undoubtedly it had been Rodden who had faced her there, who had taken her up the cliff again, but it had not been Rodden on that first glance. It had been—

  Yes, it had.

  Jane thought of Kate, Kate looking older, maturer, looking a woman at last, as she had walked beside that man yesterday, a man Jane had felt mildly curious about. She had felt she had seen him before, and now she knew where. It had been down there, down in the humpy between the trees. He had been the figure before Rodden.

  Kate had been so different lately, Jane's mind ran on, so—so lit up. Jane knew Kate had liked her role of looking after the children, but had there been another attraction? A glow like Kate had worn had indicated more than the twins, it had indicated Indicated a man?

  She was still asking herself questions as Dandy, obeying her touch, left the flat and began to descend.

  The way seemed quite clear now. Strange how on a second journey you wondered how you had lost yourself the first time. Even when the track petered out, Jane still found a minor but clear path between bent bushes, by the pushed-back branches of trees, things that had not helped her be-fore.

  There was no sign of fire. As she had marked carefully on top, the wind had ignored this section. When eventually Jane did glimpse the humpy between the trees it was just as she first had glimpsed it. A cool retreat.

  She had had to leave Gretel, she recalled, but Dandy just proceeded as though it was any ordinary bridle track. He stepped over fallen logs. He stooped and scraped under impeding trees. He showed none of Gretel's disapproval. The last steep decline he took sidewise, and finally delivered Jane at the bottom of it just as though she had been doing a leisurely round of the stables. She patted him lovingly, noticing, as she had several times this morning, a rather clammy sweat on him. She said : 'Dandy, you're not in such good trim as I thought—you and I will have to look into that.' Then, leaving him untethered, as she always did, since Dandy was no Gretel and would never leave unless told, she went across to the humpy.

  'Is anyone there?' she called. 'Are you there, Rodden? Roger?' As an afterthought, she added : 'Kate?'

  There was movement in the shack. The door opened. The sight she had longed for, yet not dared expect, met her eager eyes—the twins, red-eyed themselves. Robert and Roberta.

  `Oh, darlings !' Jane called, and ran to the pair.

  They stayed in her arms for a long while. No one spoke. They did not cry, Jane could see by their stained cheeks that their tears had been exhausted. She looked round to check if Dandy was all right and saw he was, then pushed the children gently back into the little hut.

  'Why are you here?' she asked.

  They had no answer for that; it wasn't that they didn't

  want to tell her, thought Jane, it was simply that they didn't quite know themselves. And yet they must have had something in mind when they had fled here.

  `They're never coming home.' It was Robert in a low but controlled voice.

  `No, darling,' Jane agreed.

  `Everyone was kind to us,' said Roberta, 'sort of special kind, so then we wondered.'

  `We'd heard about a crash on our transistor.' Robert took up the story. 'We knew Gareth and Dorothy had left, so when people kept on being kind, we checked, and ' His little face crumpled, but he still kept back the tears.

  `You wanted to be away from everybody,' nodded Jane. `But why hide yourself here?' she asked again. She did not expect an answer ... or the answer, anyway, that she got.

  `To tell Roger,' the twins said.

  `Who's Roger?'

  `This is his place. He sculps here.'

  `It should be sculpts,' said the other twin.

  `You remember, Jane,' tacked on Roberta, 'the first time we went to John's and he showed us the stillery.'

  The distillery. Yes.'

  `We got tired of it and came up here instead.'

  `That was to an old man whom John knew, an old man who came down each year.'

  `I told you,' reminded Roberta, 'that this man wasn't so old.'

  `That old one never came this time,' Robert added.

  `But why did you come now? You've worried us, children. We wanted to comfort you.'

  They said, together again : 'We had to tell Roger.' `Why, darlings?'

  But they didn't know.

  Jane didn't persist; they had had enough already. 'More than their share,' William had sighed.

  `There's a bad fire,' she told them, 'and that's why we were especially worried. Everyone is out looking for you.'

  `Not Kate,' said Roberta, brightening a little.

  `She's being married to Roger,' said Robert.

  `We knew Roger wouldn't be here, but we thought he might bring Kate back after the wedding. They call it a honeymoon then.'

  `And you wanted to tell Roger?'

  `And Kate.'

  Roberta said, 'We're a bite hungry, Jane. You haven't any chocolate or anything?'

  `We'll go up at once. Dandy is here and can carry you two. I'll keep close behind.'

  They went immediately,
and Dandy, cropping outside, came across almost as though he had overheard the conversation and had only been waiting for them. He stood docile as Jane lifted first Roberta, then Robert, up. She patted Dandy and they started off.

  Afterwards Jane was to wonder agonizingly whether, if she hadn't put the two of them on Dandy, if But then if she had kept them by her, with her, could any of them have made it?

  They did not reach the path before it came rushing at them, the wall of fire. This time the wind must have done a complete turn around, for previously the flames had licked only at the other side of the valley.

  Jane looked behind her, the fire was spreading there, too. The only escape was up, and she slapped Dandy smartly and called : 'Up, up, take them up, boy !'

  Dandy, now streaming with sweat, his soft brown eyes growing red as he blinked from the acrid smoke, obeyed at once, but Jane could see it would be an effort, the twins were solid children, and the incline almost precipitous. She ran behind Dandy, urging him, encouraging him, pleading with him. The fire still came.

  Only that the tree fell between them, she would still have run with Dandy, though how, her breath coming now in gasps, she did not know, but the great trunk divided them, and in the roar of its descent, its flurry of leaves, Dandy

  could not tell that no longer was he being impelled up, and that was good, Jane knew helplessly, for Dandy would never have left her. He would have come back.

  As it was, she saw him joining the track, racing up the track, the children hanging on.

  `Thank heaven!' Jane said, saw another wall of flame coming towards her, and raced back to the shack.

  She did not know whether it was a wise move or not, but at least the shack stood in a clearing, it was mostly iron, and there was a tank. She searched around for cloths of any sort, and soaked them in water. She splashed water around with her hands, for there was no can, no hose, as far as she could reach. She soaked herself. She did it until smoke overcame her, then she lay down. She remembered reading once that air circulated more freely on the ground.

  She must have passed out, for she did not remember anything else. The first she knew was someone lifting her up. The air was still smoky, but she could see no flames.