Flamingo Flying South

by Joyce Dingwell

  They stood at the window with him and watched it, and what more lovely a sight, more comforting a sight, than snow from behind glass and in a firelit room.

  'It's beautiful,' Georgia said impulsively, all her fears gone now.

  'That's better,' Grip smiled.

  He left them a while. 'Perhaps,' said Bish hopefully, 'it's for more chocolate.'

  But it was to be for toasted sandwiches as well, a large honey cake. A bottle of wine for the adults as well as more chocolate for the boys.

  'Sorry,' said Grip Smith, 'that I can't rustle up a more formal meal, but actually the hotel isn't really functioning yet, it hasn't started its seasonal swing, that doesn't come until the late January Mount Olympus falls. This one today, as you heard, was a freak.'

  'But do we have to stop for a meal?' Georgia asked.

  'You just said it was beautiful, isn't that reason enough?'

  'Reason, but not compulsion. Besides, it will be after bed­time for the boys when we get back.'

  'We're not going back,' he said calmly. 'We're all staying here for the night.'

  'But—'

  'Look, you've had quite an afternoon… and so have I.'

  'I'm sorry,' she said again.

  'Not that,' he came in impatiently. 'A tricky part of my MS. It was refreshing to get away from it for a while, but frankly I've had all the refreshment I want, and now I'm plain, ordinary tired. It's not the easiest of drives, as you know yourself, not with all those curves. I've rung up Kate, so there'll be no hue and cry, and mine host is attending our rooms. Now,' he said next with a resigned sigh, 'you're going to murmur "Pyjamas"… "Toothbrushes"…'

  'I wasn't.' She was not aware she said it eagerly until she heard her own voice.

  He grinned at her. Georgia smiled back. They turned together and told the boys, who applauded the idea.

  The hot sandwiches disappeared, and more were brought. By the time more chocolate had been consumed, the wine depleted, Georgia said if their room was ready she would put the boys to bed.

  The proprietor apologized that his good wife was not here yet to do the domestic side of the inn—Madam must under­stand that the skiers did not come until after Christmas, but he had prepared accommodation upstairs himself.

  She prised the boys from the window, telling them they could watch the snow even better up higher, and they fol­lowed her as she followed Mr. Christodoulou up the winding flight to a charming raftered room, where she soon had Bish and Seg in bed, too warm, too comfortable, too sleepy to hanker after more snow. She waited only a few moments for them to slip off, then came downstairs again, to the fire, to the snow beyond the window, to Mr. Christodoulou plying perhaps the island's most popular drink, brandy sour, but made on this occasion more in the form of glüwein, since it was winter, and a man's stomach needed heat. Mr. Chris­todoulou had a comfortable big stomach, which he patted as he said this.

  They sat well into the night, talking of island affairs, of island wisdoms and lore.

  Then mine host rose, apologized for keeping Sir and Madam, and trudged off to bed in an adjoining house. 'For,' he informed them shrewdly, 'when the season is on it is a good thing not to be under the same roof.'

  For some time still Georgia and Grip sat on, sat opposite sides of the fire, staring at the fire. Dreaming their own particular dreams, for fires are like that.

  Then somewhere a clock chimed, and Georgia, too, got up. Grip rose after her. Together they climbed the stairs.

  Then there was a predicament. Although there was a string of rooms, only one room, beside the boys', had been prepared. Grip opened door after door, cancelled darkness only to reveal bare beds.

  'He must have thought we—' he said.

  'Didn't you tell him?' she asked.

  'I said Madam and two boys. I naturally thought—'

  'He naturally didn't think,' she snapped.

  Grip said: 'Or he naturally thought…'

  It looked as though a mild quarrel was going to emerge, and after what she had gone through, that was just too silly.

  'You could rouse him, rouse Mr. Christodoulou,' Georgia suggested.

  'Go next door. Go out of this warm inn, bring him back again, send him home once more.'

  'It does seem unfair,' she agreed.

  'It's totally unfair.' She nodded. 'But what else?'

  He did not answer… and into that non-answering crept something so close, so warm—so sweet, that Georgia had to turn away.

  Going into her room… their room, the proprietor had thought… she gathered up a pile of blankets, for there were many more than she could possibly need. Coming back to him, she said a little indistinctly: 'Here you are.'

  Grip just stood there.

  Now she said hurriedly: 'Would you like me to make up one of the beds?'

  He still stood.

  Again, somewhere, a clock chimed. It broke something, not a spell, but—something. He took the blankets. He said: 'No, no need. I'll doss downstairs. Keep the fire going.' He looked at her another long minute, then he went.

  But Georgia stood on for longer again. She stood on so long in fact that a quarter hour chimed. Then she turned and went to bed.

  She was awakened the next morning by the sound of laughter under her window. She ran to look out of the window to see the boys throwing snowballs at each other.

  Because they were only barely on the snow line here, the snow had already melted, and the leftovers they were pelt­ing were more ice than snow.

  'You'll catch cold!' Georgia called down.

  She dressed hurriedly, brought the boys in for a hot breakfast mine host had cooked, then still worrying about their wet clothes, for the snow fight had been a thorough one, they all bundled into the car, Grip telling her not to be concerned about her own car, he would have Georgiou see to that, then made their way home to Amathus.

  As she had feared, before they got there the first sneezes set in. They were certainly marked, Georgia could see, for 'flu.

  Upon arrival she had Grip ring for the doctor.

  'For a sniff!' he demeaned.

  'They were soaked,' she protested.

  'Of all the fusspots!'

  'Please, Mr. Smith,' she appealed, 'otherwise I will feel responsible.'

  Doctor Papademetriou came and said yes, certainly chills, but only common chills, not even calling for any mild medicine. Just put the boys to bed and allow them citron and meli.

  'Hurrah, honey!' they called. They loved honey.

  They were to stay in bed for several days, since there was a slight… slight only… temperature, the doctor said.

  Georgia got out Pirates' Den, then, on an inspiration, she started them on their Christmas gifts and tree decorations. They loved this so much it seemed in the end they would have to be prised from their beds and their preoccupations, that only the Pink One would ever achieve results.

  'Those children are too angelic,' Grip said once.

  'They're busy,' Georgia nodded.

  'Good for you. What is it? Pirates' Den?'

  'No, Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men.'

  'Is that a game?'

  'It's life. It's Christmas.' Because she loved Christmas, because she and John had been a Christmas kind of family, Georgia said: 'Christmas is miracles-made and dreams-come-true, didn't you know?'

  'Yes, I knew,' he said slowly, looking at her, 'but—'

  Something in that 'but' told her that this was not going to be the usual objection that you could argue back against, possibly break down, and she waited.

  'But the children will be home for Christmas,' he said.

  'Of course.'

  'I said home, Miss Paul.' He let the emphasis sink in. 'Of course,' she said again, but this time a little uncer­tainly, faintly sensing doom.

  'Home,' he told her a third time.

  '—is where the heart is.' She spoke unthinkingly, and the next time he came in it was quite harshly with:

  'No, home is where you are obliged to go, that is when y
ou are aged six and seven. Home in this instance is… let me see, where will this Christmas be held? Ah, here we are.' He had opened a small notebook. 'Salzburg. Sigrid is having Christmas at Salzburg.'

  'With—' Georgia said, bitterly disappointed.

  'With her sons.' His lips were thinned. She noticed that even in her disappointment. She also noted that he would not put himself in the picture and say 'our sons'.

  Now there was a long pause.

  'So they're going up to Salzburg for Christmas,' Georgia murmured, deflated.

  'Yes.'

  'I see.' She went to the window to stare out up at the Troodos, at the white tablecloth a little lower on the moun­tain table. She felt very empty.

  She thought of Christmas here without the children and didn't like the thought. Christmas needed children… or at least it needed something more than Grip Smith had to offer—to offer her, anyway. With Kate it would be different. 'Dear, dear Kate,' she recalled.

  'How long will they be away?' she asked.

  'Only for the accepted festive period, that will be enough for Sigrid.'

  'Then I'll go away, too—I mean, there's no need to pay me while there's nothing for me to do.'

  'You're going away, anyway,' he said coolly, 'for which you will be duly paid. You are to accompany the children to Salzburg.'

  'There's no need, air hostesses are very sympathetic, most reliable.'

  'You're not attending, Miss Paul—you are taking the boys to spend Christmas with their maternal parent.'

  'Not their paternal one?' she asked.

  A hard look came over his face. 'No,' he said shortly, 'not the paternal one. Not now. Not ever.'

  'I don't know the boys' mother.' She did not say 'your wife' because he never did, because for all she knew it was ex-wife, estranged wife.

  'Nor will you, probably. Anyway'… a long look at her, at the pinkness of her… 'you would be one of the last that Sigrid would care to know.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Oh, skip it,' he said irritably. 'I'm just telling you that Sigrid wants her offspring around her at Christmas and I want you to fly up with them, deliver them. Easy enough, surely.'

  'Yes, but where—'

  'Where will you be? I thought of Munich with your own folk. There'… a little laugh… 'that at least raises a smile.'

  'Oh, yes,' said Georgia, for it did. To be with John for Christmas! With Leone! The imps! The happiness of family. It made the loss of the tree nothing, it made—

  'Well, I've made you contented, anyhow,' Grip Smith said abruptly, so abruptly she looked quickly at him. He did not seem happy, she thought. She wondered if Kate had said that she, too, would be away.

  'If you'd sooner—' she fumbled.

  'Sooner what?'

  'Nothing, I mean—'

  'I have the tickets ready,' he said matter-of-factly, 'I'll leave it to you to tell the boys.'

  The boys had painted two boxes of cones, made stencils of reindeer, strung silver bottle tops together for bells, moulded plasticine Christmas trees and tinted them.

  They were not pleased.

  'Our mother,' they said bleakly in unison.

  'Boys!' Georgia reproved.

  'Christmas up there,' they moaned.

  'I'm going up, too,' she told them.

  They brightened a little. 'Will you be with us?'

  'No, with my own family. But I'll come back with you.'

  Bad. At least Georgia saw they had that to hold on to. And hold on they did.

  'When we come back—' they said.

  'After we're back—'

  'I think we'll bring back with us—'

  Back, back, back.

  Kate was going to England for the season. Justin would have been in Rhodes, anyway, on business.

  'What about you, Mr. Smith?' Georgia asked.

  'I'll enjoy some peace and quiet,' he said, 'for a change—'

  She looked at him, but could not have said whether or not he meant that.

  On Christmas Eve, muffled up in sweaters and scarves, in gloves and warm boots, feeling over-clad in the less-than-cold of Nicosia's mild December—mild, anyway, compared to Europe's Christmas—Grip drove them to the airport and saw them off. Kate had already gone. Justin had left last week.

  The great plane came in and they were driven by bus across the field. Georgia took out Pirates' Den to amuse the boys during the flight, but they were not inclined for it. Something seemed to have settled on them. They were bored, listless, they were blasé again.

  'The service isn't good,' complained Bish.

  'I've been in better lines than this,' demeaned Seg.

  It was bitterly cold when they landed at Salzburg. Inside the plane they had been warm, insulated, now the chill fairly cut at them. Georgia had forgotten in Cyprus how very cold cold can be.

  She went through Customs, then emerged with the boys.

  'That will be us,' said Bish gloomily of a uniformed chauffeur waiting in the reception hall.

  'How do you know?' asked Georgia.

  'It's always us when it's like that.'

  She gathered he meant looking like that, and asked no more.

  The man came up, showed his credentials, and Georgia followed the boys to a large, expensive car that awaited.

  'Good-bye, Georgie,' they called, 'see you in a week.'

  'Just a week, darlings,' she assured them, and had the satisfaction of seeing them actually smile.

  'Just a week,' they clung.

  Georgia took a train for her final lap to Munich.

  She certainly enjoyed herself on her Christmas break. It was some years since she had had a family festival, and Leone had done all the things Georgia had wanted to do for Bish and Seg. There was everything to make Christmas, most of all the human ingredients. The only times that Geor­gia felt an inadequacy was when she thought of Bish and Seg, who had patiently painted all those cones for nothing. Everything for nothing, they must be thinking. She did not let herself think of Grip Smith spending a Christmas alone. Anyway, he had his peace and quiet.

  Munich was so convenient to snowfields that all the snow pleasures that Troodos had to wait for nature to bestow thickly were satisfactorily and sufficiently here for the taking without any waiting. The days were full of tobog­ganing, skiing, snowballs, snowmen; at night there was sing­ing, playing charades, toasting marshmallows by a crackling fire.

  'One day more, old girl,' John said one morning.

  'Yes.'

  'Don't go, Aunt Georgia, stay with us,' the imps begged.

  'I have work to do,' she told them, 'duty calls.'

  'Does anything else call?' asked Leone pertly. 'Anyone?'

  'Don't answer that,' advised John. 'My wife is an incor­rigible snooper.'

  'Two little boys call,' Georgia informed her sister-in-law. 'Will that do you?'

  'If you say so,' regretted Leone, disappointed.

  The family drove Georgia to the Salzburg terminal, making a day of it, then, having deposited her there warm and secure, decided, since the weather was unpleasant, even threatening, to make for Munich and home again. She stood at a long glass window waving to them while they waved back from behind the glass of the car.

  She bought a coffee and a magazine and waited for the boys' arrival. When the clock hands moved round to a time she considered as cutting things rather fine, she got up and went to the window again. The sky was very lowering, she hoped the car with the boys in it would arrive without mishap, and arrive soon. That black cloud had an ominous look about it. She knew with flying that such clouds can be detoured, but a car, when there was so little time left for checking in, could adopt no such detour.

  The first large drops were falling just as the first summons for the southern departure began to be announced through the loudspeaker. At the same time Georgia recog­nized the expensive chauffeur-driven limousine pulling up. She peered out through the rain spatters and saw that this time a woman shared the back seat with the boys. When the limousine
drew into the base of the steps she sat on until a porter with an umbrella came down to shelter her for the few yards to the canopy. She left the children to fend for themselves. Absurdly angry—it must be absurd to be angry over a six- and a seven-year-old surely able to look after themselves—Georgia hurried down to the lobby, and, seeing the boys enter behind the woman, she ran to them and started mopping them eagerly with her handkerchief.

  'Georgie!' they greeted her, and it really was a greet­ing.

  The woman turned, and Georgia recognized her as the woman in that leather-framed photograph that Grip Smith left so uncaringly around. Mrs. Agrippa Smith, though Grip never said so, never said 'my wife', only said 'the boys' mother'.

  The boys also said mother. They said it now.

  'This is our mother, Georgie,' they introduced.

  'Georgia Paul,' acknowledged Georgia. She looked at the woman, still puzzled by a strange familiarity somewhere, not that of the likeness in her sons, but a feeling, for Geor­gia, that she had seen her before.

  She was a very pretty woman; also, and this was much more arresting than her prettiness, exceptionally chic, out­standingly smart and richly groomed. She smiled at Geor­gia, a smile full of charm, but a turned-on smile. Georgia doubted if she really saw her.

  'Sickening weather,' she said. 'Has your flight been called yet?'

  'Yes, but it appears there's some delay.'

  'Oh, heavens, I couldn't stand that, I loathe delays in airports.'

  'It mightn't be for long.'

  'I couldn't stand any length of time,' the boys' mother said. 'Bish, go and buy me some cigarettes, pet, you know what sort.'

  'I'll go,' offered Georgia. She didn't want Bish sent for cigarettes. She didn't like a seven-year-old going up to a counter, possibly being questioned, possibly being—

  'Thank you, dear, I've found some after all.' Delicate, beautifully-ringed fingers were deep in an expensive gold mesh bag.

  There was another preparatory crackle on the loud­speaker, then an announcement in several languages. The plane, the English version said, was to be delayed a further period.

  'Oh, no! I simply can't wait. But it won't matter, will it, you'll be here.'

  Not giving Georgia any chance to protest, though she had no intention of protesting, the woman kissed both her sons' cheeks hurriedly, stuffed a note in each of their pockets, shook Georgia's hand, and left.