The reaction astounded her. Punishment over, they stood looking amazed at Grip, amazed… and something else.
'Orfanides at school often gets a whack from his dad,' said Seg.
'No one has even done that to us,' said Bish.
'They have now,' Grip nodded. 'I have.'
'Yes, you have.'
They still looked at him in surprise. Then they went off to lick their wounds… but rather pridefully so. Georgia could hear them saying at school: 'We were whacked. Our father whacked us.'—Except, she recalled, they never said father, in fact they didn't address Grip as anything at all.
'My God, those kids have a lesson coming to them,' Grip swore after them.
'You gave it,' she said ruefully.
'I'd do it again, and right now—an Australian playing with fire!'
'It was Mathos, really, he has a vivid imagination.'
'After what I'm going to report to his father, young Mathos is going to be vivid elsewhere,' he snapped. 'Well, I expect it could be worse. It could be more than just Kate affected. How is she, do you think?'
'Her hair caught it, her skin is scorched, apart from that she seemed all right, but there's always shock.'
'Yes,' he agreed soberly, 'shock.' He was silent a moment, then he called shortly: 'All right, you kids, get in the car, we're going home.'
'I don't want to,' wailed Mathos.
'I wouldn't, either, in your shoes,' said Grip grimly.
Georgia heard Seg say to Mathos: 'How hard does your father whack, Zavallis? He'… he nodded his head… 'came down pretty bang-on on us.'
They left the boys to the administrations of Olympia… not too kindly administrations, Grip sternly ordered the soft Cypriot woman… then left the apprehensive Mathos at the cottage at the bottom of the hill.
They drove to Limassol hospital, where they found Justin, white-faced, drained, a different man from the man of a few hours ago.
'It's not as simple as I thought it was,' Justin said, distressed.
'Shock?'
'Also lungs filled with ash… also her hands…' Justin clenched his own hands, then winced. They were raw themselves.
'We'll wait with you, old man,' said Grip.
'No… no, I want to be by myself,' Justin said dully, and looked at them apologetically, willing them to understand.
'We understand,' said Grip.
'You can't really.' Justin gulped painfully. 'But I'm still hoping you'll try. Perhaps if Gigi could just wait a while…'
'I'll be in the car,' said Grip, and he left them together.
For a long time Justin did not speak, then he turned to Georgia, nervously moistening his lips. 'If anything happens—'
'It won't.'
'If Katherine—'
'Nothing is going to happen. Kate will be all right. She'll lose some of that lovely hair, but it will grow again. Her face, too, is burned, but it will heal. The lungs will clear, the shock diminish. Justin, she'll be all right.'
Justin said simply: 'I love her, you know.'
'Yes, I know.'
'Do you really, though, Gigi, or are you being kind?'
'It's you who have been kind—too kind. You never did love me, Justin, but you were too nice to say.'
'Not exactly, Gigi, I was very crushed on you, who wouldn't be on a lovely eighteen-year-old who—'
'Who threw herself at you?'
'You didn't, honey, you were just attracted by an older man, and the older man was flattered, terribly flattered, even to the extent of being a fair way in love himself. I mean it does happen, Gigi, when a man is away from his heart, it does happen.'
'And what did happen afterwards, Justin?'
'I went back, and Katherine, right out of the blue, refused to marry me.'
'Why?'
'She didn't say—she didn't have to, I knew. Knew she could sense that I wasn't quite the same as I had been when I left her. The thing was she didn't know how deep it had gone, and in the fool way lovers arrange their lives, she wouldn't ask, so I wouldn't tell.
'I was terribly hurt when she said it was over, so hurt I wouldn't fight for her, try to tell her the facts, the facts of a lovely island, a lovely girl, a lovely summer, but that was all.'
Reminder of summer, Georgia thought.
'We simply parted. I took up my next rep assignment in Athens, other places after that. From the time I left Katherine that day I didn't see her again until I saw her this go. It rocked me, Gigi. When I first returned here, I got to remembering our summer together, your summer and mine, building it up to something it really never was… for it wasn't, you know.'
'I know. I know it, anyway, now.'
'I think I fell in love with you really then. Fell in love—but never loved. There's a difference.'
Again Georgia murmured, 'I know.'
'I wanted to go on from that moment, and I would have, only—'
'Only you saw Kate.'
'I saw Katherine, and I knew it was only Katherine for me. Oh, Gigi, I'm sorry, I've certainly messed up your life.'
'No,' she smiled, 'you only supplied a first greening to a very young girl. Spring never lasts long, so you didn't either, Justin. The woman I am now can hardly remember to then.'
'Yet you were as glad to see me as I was you,' he told her.
'Reminder of summer.' She said it aloud this time. 'Yes, I was glad,' she admitted, 'but you must have seen that I wasn't… that I didn't…'
'Yes, I saw.'
There seemed one thing, however, he had not seen, and Georgia suppressed a little shiver. After all the heat of the day it seemed absurd, but she could not help feeling cold, cold because of a memory. A memory of a man in a mask looking at a girl also in a mask, and whispering: 'Dear, dear Kate.'
Surely Justin must sense that Grip felt the same as he did.
Then what about Kate? Which one did Kate hold to her heart?
Georgia was not to know then, nor for days after, for Kate was detained for some time. Then finally she emerged from the forest nightmare, emerged with a rather trembling smile, a flattering short haircut, dressings on her face and hands. And arms outstretched to Justin.
So it was Justin. Poor Grip, Georgia thought.
She broke it to Grip on the night following the afternoon that Kate told it all to her.
Kate had said: 'When Justin came home that time, I had the feeling he wasn't mine any more. I was younger then, you know how possessive youth is. After he went, after he walked out following my refusal, I grew wiser, but then I had this wretched pride. If I hadn't met Justin this time, it could have gone on and on.'
'Or you could have married Agrippa Smith,' said Georgia.
'Grip?' Kate looked at her in amazement. 'Oh, you funny thing, fancy you saying that!'
'All those hours in the office,' protested Georgia.
'Typing current affairs.'
'And a book.'
'Yes,' said Kate, dreamily now, 'a very beautiful book. A very simple book, actually. A love story.'
'I read some of it.'
'I know—Grip told me once. He told me you had it on your lap reading it, something a good copy-typist doesn't do. But you sat and read and read, read with all of you as well as just your eyes.' She smiled at Georgia.
'He was angry? Grip was?'
'No, he was—' Kate looked at Georgia. 'Have you seen the book?' she asked.
'Seen it?'
'It's published. The author's copies have arrived.'
'They can't have, not that quickly.'
'He's an important writer, remember, important writers have pride of place on publishers' lists—beside, with a book like—'
'Kate told me your book is called Pink Bird, Go South,' Georgia said to Grip that night.
'True,' he nodded sparsely.
'She loved it.'
'I think so.' Still sparsely.
'But'… well, he had to know some time, and the only way, the only decent way, to tell a direct man like Agrippa Smith was to tell him…
'Kate herself loves Justin.'
'I know,' he said calmly, 'I always knew.'
She looked at him angrily, angry at his easy dismissal of something that must have meant a lot to him, but, because his pride came first, he found he could successfully put aside.
'You didn't know,' she said accusingly, 'I know you didn't know, because, you see, you made a mistake that night.' She wondered why she was persisting like this.
'What night?' he asked.
'The masquerade—the Karnivali.'
'What mistake did I make?'
'You thought I was Kate. You said, "Dear, dear Kate." I was amused at the time because I thought you were Justin.'
'Amused?' He came in sharply with that.
'Yes, I was amused.' She looked frankly back at him. 'But you… well, you were—'
'Yes,' he agreed.
'And you said that,' she persisted again. 'I heard you.'
'I said it, and I meant it, because she was dear, dear Kate to me—she had just told me something that I wanted to hear more than anything else in the world.' He stared expectantly at her, expecting her question, Georgia looked back at him… but she did not ask.
Anyway, she thought drearily, how could anyone ask questions of—that sort to a married man, an estranged marriage perhaps, a separate marriage, an ex-marriage, but still somewhere in it—marriage. There were no questions that could be asked.
The next morning when Georgia was driving the boys to school, they called out suddenly and urgently for her to stop, then they pointed tremblingly to the sky. Georgia braked and looked up with them.
There, wheeling and weaving in an incredibly beautiful pattern, the pink birds were unrolling a satin ribbon across the wide vast blue.
'They're getting ready to go,' Bish said with a tremor.
Seg said nothing, the tears were rolling down his cheeks.
Georgia turned the car in silence and went back up the hill. There would be no school today, she knew.
She called out to Grip, and he emerged at once from the office, and only that she was strained herself, she would have seen the strain on his face, seen a letter in his hand.
'The flamingoes are leaving,' she said.
The four of them went down to the coop and let the Pink One out.
'Can we take him to Akrotiri to give him his chance?' Georgia whispered to Grip.
'Just let things happen,' Grip said, and he sat down on the coop edge.
The Pink One went foraging. He did not look up at the rosy cloud that passed over, that crossed into the distance, then in several minutes passed over again. The birds were preparing to set a course into wind.
It was all very emotionally upsetting, Georgia found it so, so, she knew how the boys must feel. And did feel.
Suddenly and fiercely, Bish called accusingly, 'Do something!' at Grip.
Grip turned angrily and called back, 'Watch your tongue, and address me properly, please.'
The boys were crying openly now, they were following the flamingo to a new scratching patch halfway down the slope. Over his shoulder a shamed Bish called, 'I'm sorry, Uncle Grip.'
As if from a long way off Georgia heard it, then heard it in echo again.
I'm sorry, Uncle Grip.
Uncle Grip. Uncle Grip. She sat down on the coop edge, too.
Grip Smith was looking at her, reading her, reading the way she had thought all along.
'Oh, good heavens,' he said.
'I thought she was… I thought the boys' mother was…'
'She was… is… my twin.'—So that was why she had found a familiarity apart from Bish and Seg.
'Sigrid was the most spoiled brat a family ever raised,' he said wearily. 'We were a strictly male bunch before Sig, strings of boys for centuries or so. When Sigrid arrived an hour after I did, heaven opened. The Smiths had a girl!
'She was adulated. She was absolutely bowed to. To some it would make no difference, or only a little difference, or a forgivable difference, but not Sigrid. Every family has a mistake, and Sigrid was the Smith mistake.' He looked around to see if the boys were still out of earshot.
'You're very bitter over her,' Georgia said.
'She married my best friend. Paul was not just my best friend, he was—well, best.' There was pain on Grip's face.
'He is the boys' father?'
'Was. He died—died of heartache. You can laugh if you like, but it's true.'
'I'm not laughing,' said Georgia.
'He was a pilot, a test pilot. The letter came.' For a moment he looked down at the letter he held. 'Soon afterwards he went up and…' He spread his hands.
'She, Sigrid, married soon after. And soon after that again. This is now Number Three marriage, but I feel it will stop at three. Because on this occasion there's more than just a lot of money, there's a nice position in a jetsetters' set-up, all the fascinating sidekicks.'
'And the boys?
'That's dealt with in another letter. Oh, my sister is a dab hand at letters.' He crushed the one he held.
'What does it say?' she asked.
'She doesn't want them. She doesn't want the kids.'
'But you were taking them to Australia.'
'For a period only. Now—'
'Why doesn't she want them?'
'No specific reason, nothing direct, Sigrid is too clever to be direct.
'She uses her doctor… he says she must rest. Her psychiatrist… he says she's emotionally drained… Her neurologist, her masseur, her—her husband.' A short bitter laugh.
' "Anyway, Grip dear" … he made his voice insincere… ' "you always wanted them brought up Australians. I, of course, will defray the cost." '
'Then,' broke in Georgia spontaneously, 'why not?'
'Why not?' He looked scornfully at her. 'Because I'm a man. I can't bring up two youngsters.'
A minute went by in absolute silence, then Georgia said: 'I can.'
She stopped short in amazement at herself. She looked at him. He looked narrowly back.
'You can't have them,' he told her carefully. 'I want them to lead a normal life. Male and female parents.'
'I understand that.' Again she stopped in surprise at herself. But she also stopped to wait for him to say something. Didn't he, couldn't he see she was waiting?
He put his hand in his pocket and withdrew a book, only a small volume—a slim one. He gave it to her.
'Pink Bird Go South,' she read. She opened it, then looked up at him. 'For Georgia,' it was inscribed.
'For me?'
'You're the only one I know with that name.' His voice was gruff.
'But why? Why?'
'Because,' he said barely, 'you're the only one.'
'But you said to Kate—'
'I said dear, dear Kate, thank you for ever for telling me from a woman that that other woman feels as I do.'
'You didn't say that,' she recalled.
'I said it in my mind.'
'Kate hadn't said that to you about me.'
'Oh, yes, she had.'
'But she couldn't have known how I felt—'
'She knew.'—He stopped short. 'What is this?' he asked almost violently. 'You're admitting it's the truth?'
'No. Yes. No. I mean…'
'Uncle Grip!' Bish's voice came sharply, agonizingly, and yet somewhere in the agony a triumph and a gladness. 'Uncle Grip, Georgie!' he called again.
They both stood up.
The pink contingent was returning. In the strange way that birds know such things, they must have known that the one they had left behind last time was ready to go now. They knew where to find him.
Over the hill house they swooped in a rosy ribbon, and hesitating only a moment, flexing and unflexing only a moment, the Pink One rose, too. Rose up, and joined them. Joined the pink necklace.
'I can't tell which is him,' sobbed Seg, but there was pride in his wet face.
'Wait till I tell that Zavallis,' said Bish… and started to sob.
Yet there was somethin
g manly in their grief, something deeply satisfied. And accepted.
'We're going that way, too, aren't we, Uncle Grip? Going south.'
'Yes.'
'And Georgie?'
Grip looked at Georgia, asked, 'You, too, Pink Bird?' in a voice only she could hear, and she looked back and nodded.
Grip answered: 'And Georgie.'
'All four of us.'
'All four.' Grip had his own Pink One's hand now in his.
Then a wonderful thing happened. Though the necklace had done its last weaving, or so, from the distance this time, they had thought, the squadron flew back again, and out of it swooped one bird.
The wader circled them once only, just once, then rejoined his flight. They saw the contingent merging into the distance again one flier a little separate, or so it seemed.
Soon it would become part of them, entirely part, and that was what they wanted, but for a few pink moments it was their dear one, their wading bird.
Their flamingo flying south.
Flamingo Flying South Page 17