by Amanda Doyle
KOOKABURRA DAWN
Amanda Doyle
Rennie loved little orphaned Magda, and was quite prepared to take her into her care for good—but the child's uncle, who lived in the Australian Outback, had a prior claim and intended to stick to it. He also had the lowest opinion of Rennie as a prospective foster-mother.
If giving in to all his demands meant that at least Rennie could still have the child, could she bear to give in?
CHAPTER ONE
As Renata Bentmore came down the hospital steps and made her way hurriedly towards the bus stop, she instinctively pulled the collar of her military-style raincoat closer about her neck with fingers which were chilled in spite of the black gloves that fitted like a second skin.
That was the way in which most of Rennie’s apparel fitted.
She had the sort of slender, sinuous grace that could show figure-hugging fashions to their best advantage, which, coupled with her high cheekbones, smooth olive skin, and remarkably fine sherry brown eyes, probably accounted for her unmitigated success as one of London’s most sought-after models.
Possibly her long blonde hair had something to do with her popularity, too. One glance at it had been enough for the photographers to label her as a ‘natural’ for the beachwear advertisements which she was already commissioned to do, shortly, for the third year in succession. As her slimly proportioned body became progressively browner in the sun, her abundant, straight fair tresses got fairer also, bleached to pale silken splendour without the slightest aid from bottle or hairdresser. When that happened, Rennie’s sherry-coloured eyes seemed lighter, too. The gold of her skin was reflected in their dancing depths, capturing splinters of sunlight and mischief that could intrigue and entice without her even being aware of the fact.
Just now there was no sunlight—only a steady drizzle, sometimes whipped into stinging activity by the occasional gust of wind that swept along the street. When Rennie left the shelter of the houses to cross to the bus stop, that late summer wind slapped the thin rain against her cheeks and soaked the sheer nylons which she had thus far succeeded in keeping dry.
Damp and depressed as the weather itself, she stood in the queue and reflected that a day such as this, in August, could be colder and drearier than winter itself. In December, there were at least warm street lamps, winking neon signs, bustling crowds of Christmas shoppers, floodlit shop windows to cheer one, and, appropriately booted, cosily muffled, one could even enjoy it.
Tonight, the light had faded to a misty pall that shrouded the spires of the city and wreathed the topmost branches of the black-trunked trees in the parks. Slated roofs were wet and dark, gutters dripped, drains gurgled, and tyres swished along the streets, throwing up a fine, dirty spray as the cars sped by.
Oh, no! It only needed that!
Rennie cursed softly beneath her breath, eyed her mud-spattered legs with a misgiving that was half tinged with amusement. In her bedraggled state, no one would ever suspect her professional status—not this evening.
She had received a number of curious glances since joining the queue. Rennie was accustomed to them by now, because her strongly boned features and faintly aquiline profile were bound to attract interest. Her face, she often thought half-regretfully, was almost too defined to be merely girlish. It matched her inclination to impulsive actions and snap decisions, her headstrong will, her love of open-air sports, her tendency to lead her fellows into well-intentioned causes that sometimes ended quite disastrously. She was a positive personality, that was the trouble. Very positive. Whatever Rennie chose to do, she did it with her entire heart and soul and mind and body, once the decision had been taken. Her sympathy for the underdog, the eagerness with which she supported lost causes, fought over principles, and fanned the dying sparks of fast-disappearing moral traditions against the current of modern opinion, had been something of a joke between herself and her father. Perhaps some of Professor Bentmore’s idealism and unworldliness had, after all, rubbed off upon his high-spirited daughter, but whereas he had been able to sit apart and view the world from the remoteness of his tower of learning, to judge his fellow mortals with a sagacious impartiality and tolerance that were at times almost tender, Rennie preferred to involve herself actively in impassioned outbursts and sometimes physical rebellion.
Her mouth curved tenderly now as she recalled her gentle, scholarly parent.
There had been a bond of closeness and understanding between them that even his unsuccessful second marriage had failed to destroy. Right up to the end, he had remained a devoted and affectionate father, fond even in those moments when he criticized her, an anchor of stability in Rennie’s young, sometimes tempestuous world. He had been her confidante, her friend, until the final brief illness which had taken him from her. He had had a capacity for loving and giving which Rennie sometimes almost envied, until she saw that it could be a drawback as well as a benefit. For it was that same capacity which had involved him with Enid, which had blinded him to the woman’s selfishness and blatantly mercenary designs, and which had made his last years such miserable ones, although he had been too loyal ever to admit the fact.
The loving-and-giving bit of her father’s nature had been responsible for Rennie’s present preoccupation with little Magda, too, she thought gloomily, as she was borne along on the small, jostling knot of people that surged towards the platform of the bus which had just arrived.
‘Upstairs only. All upstairs now, please.’
Rennie gripped the rail as the vehicle lurched forward once more, and sank thankfully into the nearest vacant seat. From there she stared out on to the shiny wet tops of the cars which crawled along in the traffic beneath like so many coloured beetles, but she wasn’t really seeing those cars at all just then—only Magda’s small face, pale in the exposed places between the bandages.
Rennie turned away from the window.
It hurt her to think of Magda, sitting up in the children’s ward, fondling the panda with its mended arm and single eye. It was one which Rennie herself had given her at the time of her first operation, and after all this time Magda still kept it by her side, caressing it with fingers that were still patient, and by now heartrendingly resigned.
Three years had passed since the beginning of Magda’s skin-grafting treatment, and this was her fifth spell in hospital—her fifth and final spell, Rennie had been assured by the plastic surgeon who had undertaken Magda’s case—and she could only pray that it would be so, because each time that her little orphaned relative entered the hospital for another of those sessions, Rennie was there, too, if only in spirit. She endured the pain, the enforced stillness that followed, the long wait until the bandages were removed, the uncertainties and doubts just as surely as if she had been Magda herself.
The worry, the pity, the anxiety, took their toll, and Rennie’s own health, at those times, suffered in consequence. She became thin and tense and snappy, and the photographers complained. Little did they guess how Rennie despised them for their lack of sympathy! Little did they guess that she would willingly have borne the pain and waiting herself, suffered those fine-seamed scars on her own smooth olive skin, if only she could have changed places with Magda.
Instead, she posed automatically, aloof and disdainful, imperious and aristocratic, her eyes darkening defiantly as she swept them with a challenging glare, so that they called out admiringly, ‘That’s it, Renata—mag-nificent! Just hold it!’ and Rennie, withdrawn into her own private world of agonizing, held it effortlessly, because she scarcely heard them.
She had been personally responsible for Magda for two years now, although it was actually three since her father had taken his little great-niece into his home after the accident which had been fatal to the child’s parents, leaving her
entirely alone except for two unfamiliar relations—himself and Rennie. It was typical of his generosity and moral fibre that he had acted as he did, forfeiting the peace and privacy which, as an elderly intellectual, he cherished, and imperilling his relationship with Enid, which was even then none too harmonious.
It came as no surprise to Rennie that Enid had spoken in the manner in which she had, after the Professor’s death.
‘We can put the child into a home, Renata. It will be the best place for her, after all. It’s impossible to support both myself and her on my annuity.’ Enid had sighed. ‘So typical of your father, that. He lost an enormous amount of capital on those investments of his, simply because he neglected to keep an eye on them.’
‘He didn’t neglect, Enid. He just forgot,’ Rennie had corrected her quietly, still raw with grief, and unable to hear such a criticism and remain silent.
‘Forgot?’ Enid snorted. ‘That’s no excuse. One can’t afford to forget, where money is concerned! In a way, I’m to blame, though, I suppose. I should have recognized him for the impossible dreamer that he was, and kept my eye on them myself.’ A sigh. ‘Anyway, it’s too late now to have regrets. Inquests are useless, and it’s the present that concerns me, not the past. I shall arrange for Magda to go to one of those places for homeless children. I certainly can’t afford to keep her.’
‘But I can,’ returned Rennie firmly.
‘You?’ Enid had regarded her curiously. ‘Where, might I ask?’
‘At—at the flat.’
‘Won’t your flat-mate—what’s her name? Vivien?—won’t she have something to say about that?’
‘Oh, Viv won’t mind,’ avowed Rennie warmly. ‘We—I can’t just turn her out into the cold, as you suggest.’
‘Implying that I can?’ Enid’s shoulders lifted. ‘It’s a question of economics, pure and simple, Renata. I can’t have her, but if you feel up to trying, you’re more than welcome. You’re obviously well remunerated in that glamorous job of yours.’
‘And started contributing something for Magda’s maintenance as soon as I was able,’ Rennie felt bound to point out.
‘Oh, I’m not saying that you haven’t been a suitably dutiful daughter, my dear. The famous Bentmore conscience. Your father had it too.’ Enid smiled mirthlessly. ‘Well, I’m no Bentmore. I missed out on it, thank God. I always think an overdeveloped sense of obligation is apt to cloud the real issues and cause untold complications, so I’m fortunate not to have been blessed with one! The child isn’t my concern, Renata. She isn’t now, and never was. But if you choose to make her yours, by all means do.’
‘Yes, I’ll take her. I’ll come for her things at the weekend.’
‘I’ll have them packed and ready.’ Enid smiled coolly, although this time with genuine pleasure, it seemed. ‘Well, well, Renata. You’re quite full of surprises, aren’t you? Who’d have guessed at a maternal streak under that gilded exterior! Of course, it may not last for long.’
‘For as long as Magda needs me,’ returned Rennie tightly, and found her fingers digging painfully into her palms in an all-out effort at self-restraint. It was hardly worth arguing with Enid over this particular problem, although she was already beginning to ask herself if she hadn’t been unwisely impulsive.
‘What will you do with her in the daytime, while you are at work?’ asked Enid now, as though sensing the other’s sudden uncertainty.
‘There are nursery schools, and things like that. I’ll work something out. And Magda will soon be five, and able to attend a proper school full-time.’
But of course, in the end, Magda hadn’t been able to do that at all—or at least, far from full-time.
She had instead spent months on end in hospital wards, undergoing a series of plastic operations to repair the damage caused by that shattered windscreen, and she had also had to pass several brief periods in the very establishments which Rennie had intended to avoid—those homes for the homeless.
Rennie felt the familiar blanket of guilt settling over her. She regarded it as an admission of partial failure on her part that she had found it necessary to put Magda into a children’s home each time she went abroad on a modelling assignment, and yet what else could she have done? Vivien was working, too, and had her own life to lead, and even if Rennie had not already completely lost touch with her stepmother, she was sure Enid would have refused to take the little girl back, even for a month at a time.
During the first year of her guardianship of Magda, Rennie had been sent to Jamaica, and last time it had been to the Algarve, where she had perched upon hot dry rocks—tanned and agile, lissom as a young animal in a series of bikinis and catsuits—yet unable to enjoy the perfumed air and warmth and sun because of that gnawing anxiety for Magda.
This year—in just three months’ time, in fact—she was to go to the ancient city of Fez to do a stint on spring fashions.
Rennie would have found the idea of escaping from the first cool finger-touch of a London winter undeniably attractive, had it not been for the memory of little Magda’s widening blue eyes appealing to her through the windows of the institution where she had left her the last time.
As the other inmates roughed and tumbled in the background, ignoring the frail figure of the latest newcomer as she pressed her nose against the glass and made a final, mute entreaty, Rennie had departed swiftly, willing herself not to turn and wave, because she knew that if she did that, there was a distinct possibility that she wouldn’t be able to leave Magda there at all.
Now, Morocco beckoned, and so did Magda—but in different directions.
Rennie could feel the spell of the medina already—the perfume of the spice-scented souks, the mystery of veiled figures and sandalled feet, the fascination of mosque and dome and minaret, all lured her tantalizingly. The ancient ramparts, the linking gardens of those twin historic, sun-drenched towns urged her to go—and Magda’s pleading blue eyes begged her to stay.
Rennie uncrossed her legs from their cramped position in the crowded bus, and surveyed her spattered tights fretfully.
It was only for three weeks this time, wasn’t it? So why should she torture herself in this way? She worked hard, she deserved a change of scene for that work, and by and large she had succeeded in looking after Magda fairly well. It hadn’t been too easy to maintain the two of them on what had initially seemed an adequate enough income for one, and there had certainly been difficulties about leaving and collecting the child at school, but on the whole Rennie hadn’t made too bad a job of being a proxy parent, had she?
She was only feeling like this, now, because she had just left Magda sitting up forlornly with that ridiculous panda in the children’s ward, a place that inevitably had a curiously depressing effect upon Rennie—although any certified nursing sister could have told her that it was a far from depressing place to be! It was just the small, pale face, the bandages, the evenings, the rain, which were causing Rennie her present pangs and doubts.
Or was it?
Surely she wasn’t going to let that unexpected message from Australia go on chipping away at her peace of mind, as it had threatened to do ever since she had received it?
No, she wasn’t! After all, hadn’t she already decided to ignore it, to put it right out of her thoughts? And yet—
Supposing that she was actually depriving Magda in some way by her decision?
Rennie pressed the bell at her approaching stop, helped an elderly woman to descend to the lower platform and followed her off the bus, her mind still preoccupied.
She knew every word of that peremptory cable which had arrived out of the blue six weeks ago. It had been a lengthy, reply-paid one, as if the sender grudged the time to write a proper letter, and the teletyped wording had imprinted itself upon Rennie’s mind with an indelibility that persisted and annoyed.
The address was presumably a telegraphic one, for it simply said ‘Kattelko, Sydney.’
After that, it went on:
‘Upon investigati
on disturbed discover niece Magda Sandasen in neglected circumstances stop Why was I not informed stop Propose take child stop Prepared arrange legal adoption if necessary stop Request you send her out to Sydney earliest opportunity at my expense stop Chalford Sandasen.’
Rennie could still recollect quite vividly her own blank astonishment as she had perused this missive for the first time.
‘Read that,’ she had finally managed to mutter weakly, as she handed it over to Viv. ‘It’s incredible!’
‘Who’s Chalford Sandasen?’ her flat-mate had asked, after she, too, had read the cable.
‘He must be Neil’s brother, or he wouldn’t call Magda his niece, I suppose.’ She shrugged. ‘We knew Neil had a family, of course. He mentioned an elder brother occasionally, but he always said they’d disowned him. He was the “black sheep”, and proud of it—and yet sometimes I had a feeling that there was a sort of wistfulness hidden away somewhere amongst all that defiance of Neil’s. He spoke of them only seldom, though, even to Betty. I gathered that they had more or less cut him off without the proverbial penny. He seemed to enjoy thumbing his nose at them after that.’
‘Was he really as wild as your father said, Rennie? I mean, Magda’s such a quiet little thing, it’s hard to believe.’
‘He was brash, more than wild. Unstable, but tremendously likeable. He was younger than Betty, you know, but they were terribly happy together, even though he was never much of a success.’ Her throat tightened. ‘He was young, and very human, and he just loved life, Viv. It seems terrible to think it was cut short so tragically for both of them.’ She sighed. ‘He’d gone from job to job without ever settling. He tried his hand at all sorts of peculiar things, and he dragged Betty and the baby around from place to place, and sometimes they didn’t even know where the next meal was coming from. The insecurity couldn’t have been good for them, but love can make up for an awful lot of other shortcomings. He was a wonderfully generous and loving person, quite unlike this brother, it seems.’