Flamingo Flying South

by Joyce Dingwell

  'Gigi…' Justin said. The old name, the old loving name was brought out again.

  'Why are you here?' She pushed in the words before he could go any further. She wasn't ready for anything yet.

  'Up here? You know, don't you?'

  'In Cyprus.'

  'It's come round again, it's my turn, I mean.'

  'For how long, Justin?'

  'The same as before.'

  'Summer—'

  He nodded. 'Maybe a few months over, but summer. I had a free morning, so I came up the hill for a reminder. A reminder of another summer, Gigi.'

  'It's over,' she sighed.

  'If it's remembered it's never over. Look, I have to get back to work. I think you're returning to the house.'

  'I've placed the boys in a school,' she told him.

  'You'll be taking them every day?'

  'It's a long walk.'

  'I wasn't asking that, I was asking—'

  'Yes,' she said.

  'Then tomorrow?'

  'Justin, it's over.'

  'Not while it's remembered. And you have remembered, because you drew up your car here, as I did. You've remem­bered as I have.'

  'There needn't have been remembering,' she said a little bitterly.

  'I was engaged to be married, Gigi—did you want a man who would walk out of a promise?'

  She thought a moment. 'No… no, I suppose not. But, Justin—'

  'Let it rest now. Go up to the house. Bring your children down again tomorrow, collect them… but some time, Gigi, stop, stop and remember. And if I've found the time be­tween my trade calls to come and remember, too, get out of the car and remember with me. Is that asking too much?'

  'Oh, no, Justin.'

  'Go now, little one.'—He had often called her that, called her little one. 'I have an appointment for which I'm late already. But don't forget to remember… and don't forget to look.'

  He waited while she got back into the car and finished the run up the hill. As she turned into the drive she saw his car joining the coastline traffic back into Limassol.

  She went into the house. She could hear the typewriter tapping, by the quick efficient ring she knew it was Kate at work. What was she on, she wondered, current affairs—or a love story? With someone as practised as Kate, the speed would not alter. Kate had no need to take a manuscript in her hands to absorb it, she could type and let it seep in at the same time. She had said so. Was she doing it now?

  A little irritated—though she knew she had no reason to be, the girl was simply better than she was, better in every way—she went down to the coop and sat and talked to the Pink One.

  'Soon… soon…' she crooned to the lovely bird. 'Just a little longer and the sky is yours again.'

  'What's this?' Grip Smith had joined her. 'You put the kids to school because you want the bird free from intrusion for a while, then you promptly intrude yourself.'

  'I wasn't intruding,' she protested, 'I—'

  'Then tell me what sitting beside a coop and talking in that tone of voice comprises if it's not intrusion.' He peered at her closely. 'Also looking like that,' he said.

  'Looking like what?'

  'Pink.'

  'You're always remarking on how I redden,' she reminded him coldly.

  'Not redden, grow rosy. You are now. What's happened, Miss Paul? Did the kids' teacher knock you off your feet, for of all Greeks, I hear, the Greek-Cypriot is the heart-throb fatale.'

  'Likewise the female?'

  'I'll let you know,' he promised.

  'No,' she said, and could not have told why she retorted it sharply, 'let Kate know.'

  'I shall, Miss Paul.' He still stared at her. 'You've grown pinker,' he said then.

  Georgia got up. She knew it had been silly coming down and talking to the bird when that had been the reason that she… no, it had been Kate, Kate who did everything so perfectly… had suggested school for the boys. But that intimate tap of the typewriter had angered her. She had resented Kate taking up what she had not succeeded in doing. She had had a mental picture of them there in the study, Mr. Agrippa Smith, famous writer… Kate, the violet-eyed girl.

  'Do you like violet?' To her horror she had said it aloud.

  'Considering changing from your own colour?' he asked lazily. 'You were extra pink just now and you didn't tell me why.'

  'A goatherd serenaded me on his reeds,' she cried, 'a bell­wether rang a little bell song of love.'

  'How nice for you, and how convenient to be a liar. Some­thing happened. You have a glow.'

  'You mean, I suppose, my nose is shiny. Why aren't you factual like your books?'

  'Not all my books are factual. There is one, you may recall…'

  'You tore it up,' she reminded him.

  'Kate has typed it again.' He paused. 'It was about Kate I wanted to speak.'

  'Violet.' She only semi-murmured it, but he heard, pieced what she meant, and smiled.

  'Yes,' he said, answering her previous question, 'I like violet. What man wouldn't?'

  What man couldn't, Georgia thought… when the girl was a girl like Kate?

  'It's ridiculous Kate paying the rent she does while we have room to spare here,' he began.

  Georgia did not comment.

  'So I'm considering telling her to relinquish her Limassol apartment and move in,' he said next.

  Georgia still did not comment. He waited an impatient moment, then asked a little testily: 'You have no objec­tion?'

  'It's not my place to object.'

  'Agreed, but after all, children come before a typewriter, and you as their watch-girl—'

  'Oh, so you think that?' she pounced.

  'Of course I think you're their guardian—I should do, I pay you for it.'

  'I meant you do consider that children come before a machine.'

  'Yes, Miss Paul,' he said with deliberation, 'I think that, and for that reason I'm doing you the courtesy, as a specialist in this matter, or so I trust, of asking you first.'

  'And if I say no, don't bring her here, what then, Mr. Smith?'

  To Georgia's complete surprise, he answered at once, 'She, doesn't come, of course.'

  It took all the fight out of her. She looked at him in bewilderment. Probably he was laughing at her, but he seemed serious enough.

  'Well,' he asked at length, 'what do you say?'

  'Of course she must come. Anyway, the boys like her.'

  'I've noticed that.'—I bet you have, Georgia thought.

  'Also,' he went on, 'she makes some good suggestions re­garding them. The school, for instance.'

  Georgia nodded. She's smarter than I am, she thought, and—and she has violet eyes. Oh, how stupid can you be? She got up and kicked at a stone.

  'Don't do that,' he said sharply. 'I've been watching you lately, and you're not as sound yet on that foot as you should be.'

  'It's all right,' she assured him.

  'It's not completely recovered. In which case I propose to leave you in the room you're in now, not impose upon you the burden of the stairs again.'

  All this was coming to something, Georgia thought, and in the next minute she learned what it was.

  'Kate can have the room you had upstairs,' he went on.

  'The boys?'

  'I'll leave them downstairs, too. Don't want to make you feel deserted.'

  'No,' she said faintly. She was thinking of her old room, not the size of it, which was inferior to her present room, not the aspect, which was not as good… but the graciously arched hall that led to a string of rooms on the same upper level. The end room. His room. Grip Smith's room.

  All upstairs.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Georgia carried her things down that she had not bothered moving during her convalescence and arranged them round the room that would now be hers until she left Cyprus when Grip Smith left with his sons for Australia. Upstairs, she heard Kate placing her own things. Grip had taken Kate down in the car to collect all her belongings, then he had g
one with her to the agent to return the key. Kate now officially belonged as much as Georgia to the house on the hill.

  While they were away, Georgia had picked up the two boys from school. After their cheerful acceptance this morn­ing, she had not expected them to be exactly tearful, but she had anticipated perhaps a certain note of doubt. There was none. They both were radiant. The called 'Kalispera sas,' which she knew from the remembered summer, and now this one, was 'good evening', but added a deal of childish chatter that she could not follow.

  'What was that?' she asked.

  'Talk.'

  'What did it say?'

  'See you tomorrow… you bring the ball, we'll have Andreas carve out a bat.'

  'And to that little girl,' pimped Seg ruthlessly, 'Bish called out—'

  'I didn't so!'

  'You did!'

  'Fat donkey!'

  'Hairy goat!'

  'Get in, both of you,' directed Georgia, and began the drive up the hill again, glancing instinctively, in spite of herself, at the safety ramp.

  'We must have our hair cut,' Bish said… the two did wear their mops rather long.

  'The other boys have their hair very short, one boy's is shaved. I think I'll be shaved,' said Seg.

  'Another thing,' directed Bish, 'no more lunch from Olympia, we want sesame rolls from the bread man—all the children have sesame rolls.'

  'Very well,' agreed Georgia.

  'How was the Pink One?' they asked.

  'I think he missed you, but the rest would be good for him.' She did not tell them that she had 'intruded', as Grip Smith had put it.

  'There are still lions in the woods,' said Bish. 'Zavallis said so.'

  'Who is Zavallis?' she asked.

  'A boy at school.'

  'Is that his name?'

  'His second name—Georgie, you are childish today.'

  No, you two have grown up a little today, Georgia could have said.

  'Do you call each other by second names?' she asked.

  'Of course. Boys do.'

  She wondered what all the Eleftherious and Pierides and Markous thought of Smith.

  'There are no lions, not for thousands of years,' she in­formed them, dropping a gear.

  'Zavallis saw one. He thinks it had eaten a goat or a donkey.'

  'Or a shepherd,' added Seg.

  'Anyway,' they both said in relish, 'it dripped blood.'

  Monsters! Georgia thought, turning in at the house.

  The boys had raced at once to tell the Pink One all that had taken place, and for want of something to do, oddly restless, unsure of herself, Georgia wandered after them.

  It was ridiculous, but the flamingo seemed to be absorb­ing every word they told him. She knew that they really believed he did. It would have to stop soon. It would have to stop, anyway, before migration time came round again, otherwise the boys could be right back where they had been when she first had taken them over. She could never picture them waving good-bye to their 'friend' without suffering some major emotional amputation.

  On the other hand, would the flamingo ever be capable of leaving? Its health had improved rapidly, but Georgia was unsure of its spirit. Several times she had crept up on it and seen it nervously opening those beautiful wings, lifting the head with the down-curving bill as it looked cautiously at the calling sky. Poor, lovely, earthbound thing, perhaps Grip had been right, and this should have been decided promptly in the beginning. Yet how… how could they not have given the wading bird its chance?

  She was not aware that the boys had run off down the valley, where they had a favourite digging spot, and had left her alone by the coop again, until Grip Smith, pausing an unbidden moment as he always did, and he was angry with himself for it, to gaze at the pink girl beside the pink bird, called: 'You're as obsessed as the boys. Haven't you any­thing better to do?'

  Thinking he was censuring her, Georgia flushed, hating her inevitable warmth as it flooded her cheeks, knowing it must show out on her fair skin like two flags.

  'I'm sorry, Mr. Smith,' she said quietly, 'have you a task for me?'

  'Foolish child!' He was annoyed that he had spoken like that, annoyed that she had taken him seriously. 'I was joking, of course. You're doing a task just being here. I told you so before. I presume the kids are worm-digging.'

  'Yes.'

  'How did they get on today?'

  'Quite remarkably. I should say they'll have two languages very soon.'

  'You're wrong.'

  She looked at him quickly at that, her heart sinking, for he must mean that he was curtailing the Cyprus stay. She did not want it to end yet. Because of the boys she didn't want it. Because of herself. Because of—well, because of Justin. Because of—

  But she brushed that furiously aside, wondering why it had rushed so unerringly into her mind.

  Grip Smith was lighting his pipe. 'They already have three,' he observed laconically, 'so I see no reason for loud hoorahs for a fourth.'

  'I suppose so,' she nodded, vastly relieved that it was not all over yet. 'I forgot they were small jet-setters.'

  'Jet-setters' progeny… well, one side, anyway,' he said caustically.

  A few minutes went by in brooding silence, then Grip proffered, 'When I said what I did about having something better to do, I was referring to your spare time, Miss Paul. For you must have relaxation periods, otherwise the island employment board will be after me.'

  'I'm not Cypriot-employed,' she pointed out.

  'Then the English opposites, and they'll probably be more severe on me still. You've only to blab—'

  'I wouldn't!' indignantly.

  'I know you wouldn't, because you're not getting the chance. You're taking proper, legal, duly recorded days off. I've had Kate type out an official form.'

  When he had begun talking, Georgia had opened her mouth to object. She loved it up here in the hill house, just driving the boys to school, doing a little Limassol shopping on her way back, just wandering round the garden, staring out at the blue and veronica, at the cigar leaf and ochre, was all she asked, but when he had brought Kate into it, she had stiffened. Of course, she thought. He wanted her away. Not indecisively away as she would be if she was still around the house, but the definite absence that presumably went with a prescribed stand-down period.

  'Two full days a week,' he was saying, 'and I mean full.'

  'Yes,' she said tonelessly.

  He waited a while for her to take up the topic, but as the while grew into a long while and she made no comment, he shrugged a little irritably.

  'Well, see to it, will you? Choose your days, either con­secutive to give you time to run round the island, see what you might have missed before'… a little pause… 'or punc­tuated breaks to get the kids out of your hair.'

  'They're never in my hair,' she assured him.

  'I believe you. Anyway, they'd slip right out. What is your hair made of? I've wondered several times. Corn silk?' He put up his hand and touched her head, and the touch reaching through to her scalp did strange things to Geor­gia.

  'I—I'll let you know.' She got up abruptly, stood inde­cisive a moment, not knowing where to go, then turned and ran down the slope to where the boys were digging.

  'Easy on Potts',' he warned after her. There was a note in his voice she could not sort out.

  Georgia did not see Justin for several days. She always looked as she came back up the hill from school, aware that her heart was thudding and her hand ready for the brake. But after the third morning she only glanced to the ramp, and thought that if it kept on like this she could forget that she ever had met him again. Already the meeting was a little dreamlike.

  Then on the next day she turned the corner and the car was there. He was coming… running… to meet her.

  'I've been at the other end of the island… I couldn't let you know… it was hell being as close as an island must make you yet still not be with you, Gigi.' He put his arm around her waist.

  'No, Justin.' She
withdrew.

  'But why? And, Gigi, I don't mean why because up here no one can see us, but why can't I? Why can't we? I have no strings. You haven't. There are no promises behind me. This time it's clear sailing, and I want you with me at that helm, darling. Georgia, I mean this. Marry me.'

  If only he had said that in that remembered summer! She was not aware she had cried that aloud until he reproached her, 'But you wouldn't have had me go back on my word?'

  'No,' she said miserably, 'you did the right thing, Justin, the only honourable thing.'

  'Then?'

  She fidgeted… yet what she wanted to ask him had to be said.

  'Justin, was it Katherine's choice, or yours, that you are now unmarried?'

  'Katherine's,' he said honestly.

  'Then if she'd wanted to go through with it—'

  'I would have—I told you so, Georgia. It was right and honourable.'

  But that was not what she needed to know, she needed to know had he wanted it more than not wanted it… she needed to learn had she and Katherine stood together and he had to make a choice…

  But she couldn't ask. She turned her head, but in her confusion she turned it to him, not away.

  He kissed her. She stood a moment in that kiss, not sure of how she felt. Then, pulling away, she went back to the car and up to the hill house.

  They met several times, but never did Justin kiss her again. He always had been very intuitive, she remembered gratefully, he had never spoiled a moment by a wrong word.

  Grip Smith did not speak again about her stand-downs, but he must have directed Kate on the matter, for the sec­retary came with a roster she had made out.

  'How about Tuesdays and Thursdays, Georgia?' The violet eyes smiled at her.

  'They're schooldays,' Georgia pointed out.

  'I could run the kids down.'

  You could do anything, Georgia thought, but it was not so jealously thought as knowledgeably. Kate was very efficient.

  She often listened to the two of them, Grip and Kate, in the office across the passage from the room that was now permanently hers. She did not mean to listen, but she could not help but hear the low amicable easy conversation, not the actual words but the equable tone of them. They got on very well, she knew.