Welcome to Paradise

by Jill Tahourdin

  He drove, as Lady Merrick had said, like the wind. Forests and mountains and glimpses of blue sea flashed by. Vague blurs of bright colour told Alix that the verges were in full spring panoply. As the sun sank lower, and dusk began to fall, these colours took on an added brilliance. The air was sweet, the landscape seemed to be bathed in honey-gold light. How lovely this country was—how ugly, compared with it, the one she had left behind!

  In no time, it seemed, they came to the turning with the signpost, “Welcome to Paradise.” A wave of uncertainty swept over Alix as Gore swung the car on to the causeway. What was she going to do here? How find the means to keep herself? She couldn’t stay for ever as Aunt Drusilla’s guest. She had her living to earn. Would there be any scope for her here? The one job that would have suited her perfectly—the one Herrold Senior had offered her—she couldn’t, obviously, take. Would anything else offer? If not, where should she turn next?

  They were climbing, now, up the little rise that would bring them in sight of the lagoon. Alix took a pull on herself. No good letting herself get panicky. Something would happen. She would make something happen. She turned to her aunt and said, “How lovely the lagoon looks.”

  “But for how long now?” her aunt replied sepulchrally. But Alix saw she wasn’t really cast down. She was like, rather, an old war horse scenting the battle...

  They were pulling up in front of the house. Eric Gore switched off and sprang out, in his lithe way, to help them out.

  “You’ll stay and have dinner with us, won’t you, Eric?” Lady Merrick asked.

  To Alix’s annoyance he accepted with alacrity. She could only hope he would go, quickly, when dinner was over.

  He busied himself mixing, while they changed, the very dry Martinis for which, he assured them, he was famous. When they came down, he offered the ice-cold drinks, each with a little curl of lemon peel clinging to the rim of the glass, with a flourish.

  He lifted his own and looked at Alix.

  “Welcome back,” he said again.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking into her glass, not meeting his eyes.

  During dinner he and her aunt, between them, regaled her with a vivacious account of the meeting at Northolme. She didn’t tell them she already knew about it. She would tell Aunt Drusilla about Richard having travelled up to Rhodesia with her later on, when they were alone. Her aunt would be displeased, she knew, but she was a fair-minded woman. She would realise that Alix had not been to blame.

  It was with a sense of shock, then, that she heard Eric Gore say smoothly—her aunt having gone out of the room for a moment to attend to some detail of the dinner—

  “I assume you don’t want Lady Merrick to know, do you, that Herrold travelled down with you in the plane?”

  Affronted, Alix stared at him. This really is going just a little too far, she thought angrily. With an effort she steadied her voice.

  “I hope you’re not suggesting that I’m going to deceive my aunt, Mr. Gore,” she parried.

  He smiled. There was an unpleasant gleam in the ice-blue eyes as he retorted, “Of course not. I merely happened to notice that you—shall we say—got rid of Herrold rather neatly when you saw Lady Merrick and myself waiting to meet you.”

  Alix was so angry she could hardly speak.

  “What right have you ...?” she began.

  “No right, of course,” he broke in. In the same smooth stilted way he went on, “But I hope very much that one day soon, you will give me the right.”

  Alix was silent. Fortunately Lady Merrick now joined them, and they moved on to the veranda for coffee. In a little while Eric Gore rose to leave.

  “Such a dear, isn’t he?” Lady Merrick said as the lights of his car vanished into the night. She gave her niece a kindly, rather complacent look. She was very pleased with her.

  “Now, dear, I want to know all about it. You’re broken off your engagement, of course. Tell me what happened.”

  Briefly, Alix told her.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” her aunt said at the end. “But I do feel it’s all for the best. And I’m so glad to have you back. Now you must hear all that’s been happening while you’ve been away. The battle with Herrold is on, my dear. Now you shall listen to what I’m planning to do—”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was one of those perfect spring nights. The air was warm and soft. The lagoon lay dark and quiet, breathing gently, under the stars. There was a soft glimmer from the beach, but the hills were ebony dark against the spangled sky.

  After Eric Gore had left them Alix and Lady Merrick sat out on the veranda till nearly midnight. There was so much to talk about.

  “My dear child, you couldn’t have come back at a more convenient time as it happens,” Lady Merrick had exclaimed when she was quite satisfied that her niece, though jilted, was neither angry nor sad.

  “I’m glad about that,” Alix said. “But why?”

  “You’ll see. I’ve got a job for you—but more of that later. The point is, next week Herrold starts on the construction of his caravan park. It’ll be turmoil, of course. Lorries to-and-fro-ing all day; a cement mixer; a bulldozer—a real one, I don’t mean the man himself,” chuckled Lady Merrick. “And of course hundreds of Africans making their usual infernal din. And if it rains heaven help us, because think of the mud...”

  She had to pause for breath there. Did she know what exactly Herrold was going to build? Alix put in.

  “That’s what we must wait to see. Bathrooms and latrines just opposite my front gate, I wouldn’t wonder! Whatever it is, it’ll be designed to produce the maximum of annoyance for me and reduce the value of ‘Laguna’ at the same time, you can be sure. The creature has sworn to get me out, you know. So nobody can blame me, can they, if I go into action too?”

  “I suppose they can’t,” Alix agreed soothingly, though she didn’t see that anything her aunt could do was going to stop Herrold. He seemed to hold too many of the cards.

  “We’re going to twist his tail—Eric and I,” pursued Lady Merrick with unholy glee. “Eric has had a splendid idea. He will put up ‘No landing’ notices along both river banks—all the good picnic spots are on his property, you see—and I shall close the road.”

  “You mean—the coast road?”

  Her aunt nodded. She was busy lighting another cigarette.

  “But can you?”

  “Certainly I can. My boundary, you see, goes to the end of the point.”

  “So part of the road crosses your land?”

  “Exactly. Nowadays, the road from the causeway to the gates of ‘Laguna’—and to the Chambers’ gate on the other verge—is kept up by the local council and is public property. But beyond there, when it forks to right and left and runs along the edge of the beach, it’s kept up by the residents. Each of us looks after the stretch that passes our own property. Now here’s the point. All the houses beyond the Braines’ have roads leading from their rear to join the main track. But at the back of ‘Laguna’ and the Braines’ there’s a big old gum stand.”

  She paused, gazing at her niece triumphantly. Alix didn’t see. She shook her head.

  “My dear, the Braines’ only entrance is through my land. I bet Herrold didn’t think of that when he snapped up the property. Your uncle gave them a courtesy right of way—not a legal one—as they were friends of ours. But legally I can close the road at any time. And as it’s now going to be a question of giving passage to Herrold and his caravanners, I jolly well will!”

  She sounded so much like the Roedean schoolgirl she had once been that Alix burst out laughing.

  “Think I’m batty, don’t you?” her aunt demanded good-humouredly. “But don’t you see? If Herrold is to carry out his threat to build his caravan park all round me—which is what he told the meeting he would do—he’s got to get through to the Braines’ property.”

  Alix said, “So he’ll have to build another road, round the back of ‘Laguna?’ ”

  “Yes. And to do that he
’ll first have to buy the stand of gums, then clear them. And old gum stumps, my dear, are the very dickens to get out. I foresee a lot of fun over that.”

  Lady Merrick’s eyes, as she spoke, fairly snapped with enjoyment. She looked lively, mischievous, full of zest. She also looked years younger. She seemed full of the joy of battle, rather than its bitterness.

  “Of course I know it’s only a pinprick,” she admitted cheerfully. “But it’ll smart.”

  Alix laughed.

  “And where do I come in?” she wanted to know. “I’m proposing to employ you, my dear—at your usual professional rates, of course—to enclose the point, and the stretch of road in question, and turn it into garden.”

  “It’ll mean moving your lovely hibiscus hedge.” Lady Merrick pooh-poohed that.

  “Child’s play to you, my dear, to transplant it. And then you can have a free hand. Make a real feature of it, so that I can talk of my new rockery, or shrubbery or whatever. I’ve a perfect right to put all my land under cultivation, after all.”

  Alix laughed again. It was a good scheme and she couldn’t blame her aunt. Herrold’s methods certainly invited retaliation.

  “All right, Aunt Drusilla. I’ll think out a scheme,” she agreed.

  “You can have Francis to do all the pully-hauly.”

  “Francis? The dagga-smoker?”

  “Yes. But he only smokes on Friday night and over the weekend, after he’s been paid,” Lady Merrick said reassuringly. “They all do—or get drunk. It’s their emotional outlet, you know. He’s quite all right during the week, you’ll find.”

  “Is he?” Alix sounded doubtful. She had found something particularly repellent about Francis. However, Aunt Drusilla said he had green fingers. So long as he worked well, his personal habits oughtn’t to matter to her.

  “I’ll turn him over to you tomorrow morning. You can start him off moving the hedge. And we’ll get Lempere, the carrier, to bring black soil or rock or whatever you need.”

  “All right. I still don’t understand about closing the river banks.”

  Lady Merrick waved a hand, scattering ash lavishly.

  “My dear, all the visitors will want to do river picnics. Well, they can’t. Eric won’t let ’em, ha ha.”

  Privately Alix thought that wasn’t such a good idea. It was rather too vindictive. It meant the visitors would suffer—not Herrold. But she didn’t voice her thoughts. She yawned and asked what about bed. It had been a very long day. Her aunt, all compunction, rose at once.

  “You must be half dead, dearest. Go along now, and sleep well.”

  “Goodnight, Aunt Drusilla. It’s lovely to be back,” said Alix’s warm voice.

  “It’s lovely that you’ve come. Goodnight.”

  Alix was thinking about the new piece of garden as she and Nelson crossed the coast road on their way to the beach next morning.

  The shape of the land to be enclosed was a blunt-pointed triangle and the transposed hedge would cross the road in two places, and run along two sides of this triangle to the point.

  It looked as if a rock garden, with a path winding out to the point and connecting by way of shallow steps to the beach, would be the answer. As she studied the lie of the land Alix grew interested—then enthusiastic.

  She decided to make a really good job of this. Then, if her aunt thought there was any future in starting up a garden consultant business in the area, perhaps she would allow her to use it as her show piece.

  The question of earning her living was very much on her mind now. Lady Merrick wanted her to stay on at ‘Laguna’ indefinitely. And she felt already such a strong affection for Paradise and the lagoon that she wanted to do so, if it proved feasible. But feasible it must be;

  she had no intention of living on her aunt’s charity. The five hundred pounds which her mother had made over to her as a wedding present when she left England wouldn’t last for ever.

  Lady Merrick had been amused at her seriousness.

  “My dear child, for heaven’s sake don’t turn into one of these grim career women,” she begged. “Of course you’ll marry. It’s what you are obviously cut out for.”

  “I don’t mean to marry for years and years, Aunt Drusilla.”

  “Nonsense, dear. You say that because of this business of Bernard. But you must forget about that. Though I do hope you’ll choose someone a little more mature, more established, next time. Someone of position.”

  I know. Eric Gore, thought Alix with a sardonic little grin. No, thank you. But all she said was, “They don’t grow on trees for the picking, do they?”

  “Any girl as pretty and intelligent as you should have no difficulty at all, my dear.”

  But I’m not even going to think about marriage for a long, long time, Alix asserted to herself now.

  Nelson’s cold nose, pushed insistently into her hand, reminded her that he had not brought her out on this fine bright morning to have her stand still, lost in thought, on the point. She pulled his ear and laughed.

  “All right. Come on, then,” she said, and followed his waving stem out to the deep water. There was no dinghy this morning. No Richard sat baiting his hooks, or watching his line. Alix looked across the water to the jetty where he kept his boat. No sign of movement there.

  Perhaps he was too busy after his absence—she wasn’t the only one with work to do and a career to pursue.

  Perhaps—she hoped not—she had offended him so much that he wouldn’t come any more.

  That thought, oddly, seemed to take the sparkle out of the day. She was very thoughtful as she walked back, after a short swim, to the house...

  Richard wasn’t there next morning, either. Or the morning after. But Herrold Senior came. Not to fish, but to inspect his property, along with the master builder he was employing, for a last time before starting work on the Chambers’ side of the road.

  Alix had already put Francis to work. When Herrold’s car took the left-hand turn beyond the gates of K ‘Laguna,’ he found the road blocked by a deep trench with a mound of earth beyond it.

  With a grunt of annoyance he pulled up and got out.

  “I’ll just see what all this is about,” he told the builder, and made for the house. He found Alix, gloved and busy with small saw and secateurs, trimming and pruning the hedge trees in readiness for moving them.

  “H’m. So you’re back, are you?” he commented. “Didn’t stay long, did you? Wedding off—eh?”

  “If it’s of any interest to you, Mr. Herrold, yes, it is,” Alix replied with some heat.

  “No need to snap my head off. I told you things didn’t always work out the way people thought they would—didn’t I? Perhaps you’ll consider accepting that job I offered you now—heh?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Herrold. For the present I have a job.”

  He looked at the tools in her hands.

  “H’m. Anything to do with this mess-up on the road?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it all about?”

  “I’m constructing a new rock garden for my aunt.”

  “But you’re blocking the road, my good girl.”

  “I know. The road runs through my aunt’s land. She’s closed it,” Alix said gently.

  Mr. Herrold opened his mouth to say something violent, thought better of it, muttered, “Hah, so that’s her game, is it? We’ll see about that,” turned on his heel, and strode back to his car.

  Alix chuckled. That vexed him, she thought, and ran indoors to tell her aunt. She would have been surprised to know that as he walked away from her, Herrold Senior’s shoulders were shaking. The laugh’s on me there all right, he was thinking appreciatively. He was a man who could always see a joke against himself.

  A few days later, his bulldozer, his cement mixer, his labour gangs of tree-fellers and bricklayers and their mates started work on the Chambers’ side of the road. The noise they made penetrated into every comer of ‘Laguna.’ Clouds of dust drifted across it, carried on a wind that had
perversely turned westerly. The earth road was scarred and corrugated by the heavily-laden vehicles that travelled back and forth all day long. Lady Merrick had predicted turmoil; and turmoil there was.

  Meantime the rock garden took shape. The trenches across the road were filled in by Francis with compost and soil, the hibiscus hedge was watered into position.

  Lempere the carrier delivered loads of black earth and the handsome local rock from a hillside quarry, further blocking the coast road.

  Alix, wearing shirt and slacks, her gardening gloves and a big straw hat, was busy all day long. And after nearly ten days, when she was considering whether or not she should write him a little note of apology and contrition, Richard came out early one morning to fish. Catching sight of the quiet figure in the dinghy as she walked down to the water with Nelson, Alix felt a curious sensation—as if her heart had stopped for a moment, then hurried on to catch up with its own rhythm.

  She didn’t hesitate about swimming out to him. She put up a hand and caught at the gunwale.

  “Hullo, stranger,” she said.

  Richard had just finished baiting his hooks. He made a careful cast and then turned to give her a hand over the stern. His eyes travelled over her face and hair and figure. He said pleasantly, “Good morning. Want to fish?”

  “I wondered what had happened to you. I was afraid I’d ... well, offended you. At the airport, I mean. I’m afraid you thought me very silly to panic as I did.”

  “No. It was very natural.”