The Tender Winds of Spring

by Joyce Dingwell

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘Any trouble concerning my father is likely to centre on money.’

  Jo was trapped in the room. Abel Passant stood between her and the door. She decided she might as well listen, because it appeared he had no intention of letting her leave until she had heard. Anyway, she was curious.

  ‘Does a westerner ever leave the west?’ she doubted.

  ‘This one did. I did. But then I was not born into the life, I only inherited it.’

  Jo’s face plainly spoke her bewilderment How, she wondered, could he inherit when his father was still alive?

  ‘No, I did not inherit from my father. My father is still making a general nuisance of himself. From my uncle.’

  ‘And you didn’t care for your inheritance?’

  ‘No, you’re quite wrong there. I did. I like anything not enclosed in four walls and away from cities. Abel meaning Breath, remember. The breath of the open, I like to think. Oh, yes, I liked it. But I have to admit I like this part better. I expect you could say I’m not a flat-lands bloke but more the undulating type.’

  ‘More a banana boss?’

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t come here because of that. I simply sold out and left for anywhere to escape a net. A matrimonial net.’

  ‘Isn’t that a little dramatic?’

  ‘It wasn’t when my respected’ ... Abel laughed sourly ... ‘parent kept tightening that net.’

  ‘But why? Did he fancy you and Erica together?’

  ‘More likely he fancied yet another handy exit from yet another gambling debt.’

  ‘Owed to—?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘Erica’s father?’

  ‘Yes. The same type, incidentally, as Dad. A good fellow, too, I suppose, but—’ Abel spread his big hands.

  ‘Did the Trents live near you?’ Jo was recalling Erica’s ‘... like Abel, I’m “country”.’ She had smiled at Gavin.

  ‘Next property. Fate couldn’t have been more unkind to me, bringing those two old rogues together. Anyway, the last wager between them was my final straw. It appeared I was the only thing left my father had to speculate.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ asked Jo.

  ‘Why am I here, then?’

  ‘But those sort of things just don’t happen.’

  ‘Well, this time that sort of thing just did.’

  ‘But Erica ... I can’t believe ... she looks so nice.’

  ‘Probably is nice, but probably is not averse, like all women, to a plain gold ring. Probably tired of living at home, anyhow.’

  ‘But a girl with looks like Erica’s would have no trouble getting a plain gold ring anywhere.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Abel shrugged. ‘You’re not doing so well yourself.’

  ‘Gavin and I are engaged.’

  ‘But it’s still not a plain gold ring, is it?’

  Jo ignored that. ‘The story is too ridiculous,’ she dismissed. ‘I refuse to believe that that nice girl would follow you up here for such a reason.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you this, she hasn’t come to converse about the weather. Use your common sense, Josephine, why otherwise would she appear suddenly like this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Jo. ‘I also don’t know why you let it get to that stage. You said once that money is needed to buy people off. Why didn’t you do just that?’

  ‘Because I’d been doing it for too many years for my father, to no avail.’ Abel looked at Jo rather closely. ‘You really do listen to me, don’t you? Do you remember what else I said?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you would, though. I said one needs more for extra mouths.’

  ‘But you haven’t any.’

  ‘Put it this way,’ he drawled, ‘I believe I had a prescience, even then, that I might have need. So instead of extricating my father by money, I escaped, came up the coast and bought in here.’

  ‘And now they’ve found you.’

  ‘Clever girl, you’re catching on. Erica has followed me. Behind Erica will be her father.’

  ‘And you will escape again?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Because you can see it would only be a matter of time and they’d follow you again?’

  ‘No, Josephine, because I’ve eaten of the banana,’ Abel said steadily. He was looking straight at Jo.

  ‘Musa sapientum.’ For some reason Jo could not meet his eyes. ‘Thank you for telling me, anyhow. It doesn’t sound quite so ridiculous now.’

  A moment went past in silence. Abel Passant broke it. ‘We’ll leave all that now, because I have something to put to you.’ He waited briefly. ‘Josephine, I’m going to take action. You won’t agree, but I still feel strongly it should be done.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Like most westerners I flew my own plane. As a matter of fact it’s here right now in the plateau hangar. I am going to take you and the kids up.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ gasped Jo.

  ‘You see? I said you wouldn’t agree.’

  ‘How could I?’ Jo was staring at him with wide, unbelieving, horrified eyes. ‘I just don’t know how you could even think of such a thing, let alone propose it!’

  ‘You’re saying this now, and I’m not going to fight you.

  But I want you to think it over, give it a lot of thought, then I believe you will agree it makes good sense.’

  ‘It’s—it’s unspeakable.’

  ‘It isn’t, though, it’s the oldest salve in the world—the hair of the dog. Oh, I’m sorry, I know that’s putting it crudely, but it’s right, Josephine, and you must do it.’

  ‘Go up with you in these mountains where Gee ... where she...’

  ‘I’m a good pilot,’ he assured her.

  ‘So was Mark.’

  ‘Yes, I believe so, and what happened to him could happen again, but it still has to be done. You must see that.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘This is the twentieth century,’ Abel insisted. ‘Getting towards the latter part of it. You can’t possibly restrict these modern children from something as natural to them as a billycart once was to me.’

  ‘I can and I will. The very thought of it’s repugnant. You’re repugnant!’

  ‘All right, Josephine, but still think about it. You have out there,’ he nodded to the garden, ‘a trio of misfits. Yes, you have. You’ve told me so yourself. This may be no help at all. It may be no more diverting or stimulating to them than a school picnic. But it has to be tried.’ A pause. ‘More important still, you have to be tried.’

  ‘Me? Oh, no, Mr. Passant, I’ll never go.’

  ‘You’ll let me take the kids up without you?’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘Then you’ll come?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, what then?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing. You have no jurisdiction over the children. I’ll just refuse to let them go.’

  ‘Having jurisdiction yourself?’ he insinuated. He waited. ‘Or, given time, jurisdiction over one. How are you progressing with that one, Josephine? Have you and Gavin come to an agreement yet?’

  ‘I’m not being diverted, Mr. Passant. The children and I will not be going up with you.’

  He did not argue about it. He simply shrugged.

  ‘Think about it, anyway,’ he said.

  Without another word he left.

  Jo did not think about it. To her the idea was utterly preposterous. These children had lost their father while he was doing what Abel Passant proposed to do now. How could the man not realise that nothing but harm and terror could come from what he had asked of her? Then, though she could not remember Abel including her specifically in the therapy, so called, only as someone, who, too, came along, what of a girl who had lost her sister, her twin? Perhaps he had meant it in all sincerity, but it was out of the question, it was not even to be considered. So Jo deliberately did not think about it, and would not have thought ... had it not been for the school report. />
  Then she had to think.

  The school report was folded in Dicky’s pants pocket, school pants that Jo had taken from his bag to launder.

  She had been caught with Dicky’s pockets before. She had washed one with a screw, a pencil stub and a box of matches in it, another with a dead frog. So now she was forewarned and searched first.

  She withdrew the paper and saw that it was a term report to be handed to a parent. For a moment she was unable to see ‘Mallison School for Boys—Richard Grant.’ There was no father now to receive it. Then she steadied herself and read.

  It was not private, so she had no qualms in scanning it. If there was something promising in the report, she would praise him. It could help. If there was nothing she would say nothing.

  Richard Grant. Fifth Grade.

  His English was indifferent, so were History, Geography and Social Studies. Then she saw quite outstanding marks for Mathematics and all the things that go with Mathematics. His teacher’s notes in the Remarks column beside the Maths subjects observed: ‘Richard has a distinct flair for the tangible, might even make an aero designer one day.’ ‘Not bad,’ said Jo proudly, ‘at his age.’

  She folded up the report and put it in her own pocket.

  At lunch she said outright—no longer did she use strategy with these children, it was useless: ‘I read your report, Dicky. It was in the pocket of your school pants. Do you mind?’

  Dicky shrugged.

  ‘I was very impressed. Your marks for Maths and Maths Drawing and all that were extremely good.’

  ‘I bet the rest wasn’t any good,’ sniffed Amanda.

  Dicky ignored both his sister and Jo, but his face went pink and he looked definitely pleased. Jo decided to go on. ‘Have you always been interested in subjects like that?’

  ‘I hate poetry and stuff,’ he muttered.

  ‘But you do like graphs, and engines, and mechanisms, and—’ A pause. ‘And planes?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Been up in a plane, Dicky?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘None of us has been up.’ It was from Amanda.

  ‘Then—’ Jo had been about to ask them how they had travelled to school from wherever it was they had lived, for certainly mines weren’t found in the suburbs, that is if Abel had been right about a mine, when Amanda broke in.

  ‘Then why didn’t we come up here with them?’ she finished for Jo.

  ‘With Mark and Geraldine, you mean. No, I know that already, dear. They were coming from quite a different direction and it would have been a bit extravagant to go around and pick you up. I’m sure otherwise they’d have been glad to fit you in.’

  ‘But we didn’t want to go because they didn’t want us.’ It was Amanda now, and coldly.

  ‘Mark and Geraldine? Not they. Of course they wanted you, only... Well, one day you’ll understand. So’... before there could be any more post-mortems ... ‘you haven’t flown, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you like to?’

  No answer.

  Reluctantly but inevitably Jo looked searchingly at the three faces. There was definite interest in Amanda’s and Sukey’s ... but in Dicky’s there was longing.

  Jo could not bear that longing. She got up and went to the door. ‘I thought I heard a car,’ she said, but it was untrue. She had heard no car, but she was hearing a crash. She was hearing it all again, all that had resounded that day. The deep reverberating thud that she had put down to one of the big mahoganies, and all the time ... all the time ...

  Oh, no, she could not re-live that memory. She stood at the door much longer than she needed." She could not bring herself to turn round to look at Dicky. Then at last she did.

  He was not there. He had left. The girls still sat on, but they said nothing. Jo said nothing more on the subject, either. Not then.

  But it was on her mind, and she could not turn away from it. It was the first eagerness she had found in three un-eager children, for the shopping had only been a flash in a pan. The first interest in children she wanted desperately to be eager and interested, for without enthusiasm what hope did you have?

  During the day she kept herself busy, but even then Abel’s proposal kept intruding in spite of herself. Dicky’s first-ever show of interest. Amanda’s and Sukey’s, too, in a lesser way.

  It was all unthinkable, of course. She was able to tell herself this as she fussed around. She was able to push other thoughts to the fore. But when night came she could not squirm away, she had to face up to it. The fact that she faced was the first real chink in Dicky’s armour, Amanda’s, Sukey’s. If she did not follow that chink of light that showed through she might never reach them.

  Distastefully she came next to herself. The very idea of flying over these mountains where Gee and Mark had perished sent her into a sick panic. She thought of looking down and over, and thinking. Thinking what Gee must have thought at that final moment. Or had it all been quick, too fast for thoughts? She had never brought herself to ask that.

  Fear did not come into it, only such a deep hollowness every time she tried to sort it out that there seemed no bottom to it. What would Gee have done? That was easy to answer. Gee, the old electric Gee, would have agreed in a flash, probably even have proposed it first, for that had been Gee. But then Gee would not have experienced this bottomless pit. She always had been better adjusted, Jo supposed. She remembered that one of Gee’s sayings had been: ‘Let’s turn another page.’

  ‘I should turn a page,’ Jo said to the darkness. ‘Turn it for the children. Gee would have expected me to do that. But how can I? How can I?

  She toyed with the idea of asking Abel to take the children up and leave her, but that, she knew at once, would be wrong. If it was good enough to turn a page for them, it was good enough to turn a page for herself. They wouldn’t consider it in terms of pages turned, chapters closed, but they would sense, if she didn’t go with them, that she was backing down.

  ‘I’ll have to do it,’ Jo told the darkness. ‘I’ll tell Abel tomorrow.’

  Abel came in after breakfast and at once Jo told him. He gave her a long hard look, but he made no comment.

  ‘All right, we’ll go now,’ he said.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Good lord, woman, it isn’t a distance marathon, it isn’t an effort like a six-day bike race, it’s a five-minute flip.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘No preparations. No nothing. No hamper. No helmet. No goggles. Just a safety belt which is in the plane. Only up and you’re down again.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ It seemed impossible to Jo that all her horrors and dreads and torments and traumas were going to be dealt with in five minutes.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ Abel corrected, and she realised she must have been talking aloud. ‘It will take us five minutes to drive up to the plateau strip where I have my craft in the hangar. Hi, kids!’

  They came reluctantly as they always came, then he told them, and their reluctance fell away from them like three discarded coats. They did not say anything, but the girls danced in to get their cardigans at Jo’s bidding. As for Dicky, Jo did not bid him, for he would not have heard a word.

  They all piled into the jeep and Abel began the steep drive to the plateau strip, a hazard on its own. The correct way was to go to town and to proceed from there on a surfaced road, but ten minutes, Abel had said, and he evidently had meant that, for he went through the bush.

  They reached the plateau, which was no more than a grassy summit stopped by cliff edges on four sides, but adequate for the landing or take-off of a light aircraft like the Cessna.

  As the children piled into the craft, Jo glanced at the field dotted with white thistle and dandelion pushing up through the sun-bleached grass. The field that Mark and Gee had never reached. It was dry and burnt up here, so different from the banana hills beneath the cliffs.

  ‘Up, Josephine,’ directed Abel, and Jo climbed in as well.

  The Cessna moved forward a
long the rough little runway. It gained speed, trembled, then it broke away from the ground. Jo heard little noises, and turned and looked at the children. Apprehensive? Nervous? Scared?

  No, she saw that they were rapturous. Except Dicky. He wasn’t just rapturous, he had wings of his own.

  She looked with pleasure at them for quite a while, then Abel said: ‘Look down, Josephine.’

  Jo did.

  They had left the small field with its hangar that seemed no bigger than a matchbox, its attendant who must be an ant, and were sailing through a world of cottonwool clouds.

  ‘We’re sliding through a rainbow,’ called Amanda.

  ‘Through a rainbow,’ echoed Sukey.

  Dicky looked patronisingly at his sister, then his eyes went back to the controls.

  Then without warning the clouds were scattering, the plateau strip was left behind, the deep green banana country had taken over, the small sharp mountains were looking skyward at them, looking up from jutting pinnacles and precipices. Then the mountains dropped to valleys, gullies, gorges and gulches, and trees rode every inch of the scene, the mahoganies where man had not yet cleared, the banana palms where the plantations had taken over. It was sheer beauty, green, green beauty, and Jo wanted it to last for ever. But again Abel was keeping to what he had said. They were coming down. Thirty yards short of the cliff edge the Cessna stopped. They all got out.

  No one said anything. Not a word.

  They waited until the hangar man and Abel got the Cessna under cover again, then they all walked back to the jeep.

  Jo kept saying to herself: I must make a suitable speech of appreciation to Abel. I must tell the children to thank him. But she was tongue-tied as well.

  When they reached Tender Winds, the children disappeared, still with no word said. Yet who was she to criticise? She hadn’t thanked him herself.

  ‘Abel!’ she called.

  He turned round.

  She looked at him but still could not tell him how different, how wonderful it had been. There had been no fear. No deep hollowness reaching down to a bottomless pit. There had only been a bowl of blue sky. Clouds. A rainbow to slide through.

  ‘Yes, Josephine?’ he asked.