‘I—I—’
‘I know,’ he smiled.
‘Thank you, Abel.’
He had crossed to her and he looked down on her very gently, almost tenderly.
‘I told you, didn’t I?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
For a moment he still stood there, then deliberately he made a movement closer. Jo could feel an instinctive small movement in herself, she knew she wanted to step forward as well.
So she stepped back.
‘I forgot,’ she said a little wildly, ‘I forgot to ring Erica, tell her you were here again. I promised, so I must.’
She went to the phone, surprised at the trembling in her. It had not been the flight, she had never felt so calm over anything as over that.
She dialled the hotel where she anticipated Gavin would install Erica. She asked for Miss Trent.
Glancing round to enquire from Abel if he wanted to speak to Erica, she saw that the room was empty.
A second afterwards she heard him leaving in his jeep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was too late to put the phone down now—the other end was answering. Jo felt silly having to say that she had rung because Mr. Passant was back from the plantations again when he was already gone, but there was no help for it.
‘Yes?’ said the voice, and—impatiently—a second time. It was a man’s voice. Why, it was Gavin’s!
Any surprise that Jo might have felt was pushed aside with relief. Gavin was an expert at situations. He would deal with this as he dealt with everything—efficiently.
‘It’s Jo, Gavin.’
‘Ah, Josie, my dear. Rather amazed to hear me answer from this end, eh?’ A small chuckle. ‘Well, I settled Erica in and I thought I’d call round to see how she was faring. There’s nothing more depressing, as I recall from my own rep days, than being ensconced in a country hotel.’
‘I’m sure that’s very kind of you, Gavin. What I wanted to say was—’
‘Erica was very pleased to see me. As I just told you, a stranger in a country town can feel very strange.’
‘That in a way is what I’m ringing about, Gavin. Erica is going to feel that she is still among strangers because—’
‘But already I think she’s more at home. This morning I found time to run her up to the cliff look-out. She was delighted with the view. I thought of taking her to dinner tonight at the Tudor. As you and I know’—a softer tone and a reminiscent pause—‘it’s very nice there by candlelight.’
‘Yes, Gavin, you’re really doing a great job.’
‘So you don’t object, Josie?’
‘Object!’ Jo said blankly. What on earth was he talking about? Then she realised, and laughed.
‘Oh, no, Gavin, it’s really taken a load off my mind. You see, I rang Erica to tell her that Abel Passant is back from the plantations again, but just as you answered, he simply took off.’
‘Tch, tch,’ Gavin said from the other end.
‘I felt awful, but with you to deal with the situation ... you will deal with it, won’t you, Gavin?’
‘Of course, dear.’
‘Then no need to bring Erica to the phone. I knew I could rely on you.’
‘Be sure of that. Anything else to report, dear?’
‘If you mean one out of three—’ Jo said instinctively.
‘Yes, dear?’ Gavin’s voice was strained.
‘I meant nothing to report. Oh, except that Abel Passant took us all up for a flip.’
‘A what?’
‘A flight. The children and me. In his Cessna.’
‘Was that wise?’ asked Gavin repressingly.
‘I had my doubts before we went, but no doubts at all while we were up.’
‘I see. And now?’
‘And now,’ said Jo, looking out of the window at a sad huddle of three children again, ‘I’m not sure.’
But she was sure. The magic had gone. They were a little bunch of misfits once more. Was there any way, any lasting way, out of this tangle?
‘Well, it’s done and you can’t undo it.’ Gavin’s voice sounded a little shocked, as he had sounded when Jo had told him about the memorial service.
‘You will tell Erica, please, Gavin?’ She spoke a little hurriedly. She wanted to finish the conversation. The oddity of a fiancée wishing to finish a conversation with her fiancé did not dismay her, for she simply did not think about it like that. She only wanted to put down the phone and go out and join that lukewarm little group, infuse them with—well, with something.
‘Certainly, dear,’ Gavin assured her. ‘Didn’t I say so?’
‘Then I’ll ring when Abel Passant seems more settled in his plans,’ Jo promised.
‘Do that, Josie. And now goodbye, dear.’ Gavin put down his receiver and Jo followed suit.
She felt annoyed with Abel for running out on her like that. After all, he was a clear-thinking man; he had been a tower of common sense to her during her trouble. He was also, or so she had judged, a very mature man, but would a mature man have backed away in such an immature fashion? He must know he had to meet Erica some time, so why had he acted like a callow boy? In her exasperation Jo refused to consider what had happened before she had crossed to the phone. She did not allow for Abel’s deliberate step closer to her, and she certainly wanted to forget her own instinctive movement towards him. She did not put his abrupt departure down to any feeling of anticlimax on Abel Passant’s part. Why, the man was quite unconscious of her except that she was occupying his property, and he would like, in a polite way, to get her and the children out. That was the sole reason he was concerning himself with Jo Millet and three minors.
She looked at those three now, and decided to join them, try her luck once more. She would make some Banana Bliss. Banana Bliss must win them.
Banana Bliss was what she and Gee had named the banana shakes that Aunt Mitchell had served. There had been no electric blenders in Aunt Mitchell’s day, but a cake whisk used on fresh bananas, top milk and honey had made a drink fit for the gods. Jo followed the old recipe now, put the creamy froth into four cold glasses and went out to where they sat.
They accepted the offering politely but without enthusiasm, but, as it had always been with Banana Bliss, the food for gods won them over.
Three creamy moustaches looked back at Jo.
‘Jo has a mo,’ discovered Dicky.
‘You have yourself.’
They all looked at each other and giggled. Jo mentally ticked up a success.
‘It was good in the Cessna, wasn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ they agreed.
‘The country looked lovely. I thought we could have a picnic tomorrow—go early, see from the ground some of what we saw up in the air.’
‘If you like.’ Their enthusiasm was less pronounced now.
‘We could take Banana Bliss in flasks. Flasks keep things cold as well as hot.’
Now a faint interest glimmered in Amanda, and Jo snatched at it.
‘Perhaps you could make it if I showed you how, Amanda. It’s mashed bananas, top milk and honey.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Amanda, slightly more interested again.
‘You could help me with the hamper, too, maybe.’
‘I can help,’ offered Sukey. ‘I can make samwitches and I can cook toast.’
‘The sandwiches would be lovely. Ham, I think, and potted spread, and egg. We could do them now and put them in the fridge to keep fresh for tomorrow.’
‘Girls’ talk,’ said Dicky rudely, and he got up and left them.
To her delight the girls did not even notice him go. ‘Now?’ they asked Jo instead.
‘Why not?’ They went back to the house.
Jo cut the bread and put it in twin slices ready to be buttered. Sukey proved quite adept at buttering. Meanwhile Amanda had taken over the eggs, one for each of them, and Jo was just congratulating herself on another success when she saw what a short time Amanda was giving the eggs.
‘I don’t think, d
ear, they’ll be hard enough.’
‘I’m doing coddled eggs. Coddled eggs are very digestible. You give them to sick people. I got First in the Invalid Cookery Class at school.’
‘Yes, Amanda, but we’re not sick people, we’re people going for a picnic, and eggs cooked only that length of time would run. They’d be an eggy mess.’
‘Coddled eggs are good for you.’ There was a tremble in Amanda’s voice, and Jo fairly yearned to say:
‘You’re quite right, Amanda, of course you’re right. Go ahead.’ But how could she? And how could she spread a coddled egg on bread?
‘I’m sorry, Amanda, but—Amanda!’ For the girl had thrown down the cloth she had been given and run from the kitchen.
Jo put the saucepan with the eggs over the flame again, wishing she had kept to ham and potted paste.
‘Why is Amanda so keen on coddled eggs?’ she said unhappily aloud, miserable that what had started out so favourably had ended like this.
‘I’m not,’ said Sukey, still buttering, ‘I don’t like cuddies, and Amanda and Dicky said not to, either, on account.’
‘On account of what?’
‘Danger,’ said Sukey. ‘Amanda and Dicky said people really don’t like you and cuddles don’t count. But Amanda likes cuddled eggs because she’s going to be a nurse.’
‘Coddled, not cuddled, and what are you going to be?’
‘A cook. I can cook toast.’
Jo finished the hamper, pre-made the Banana Bliss, then set about tea.
When she called the children, they came in, but the excitement had left Amanda, Dicky had not been excited at all, and Sukey, taking her cue as always from the others, was silent and lukewarm as well.
All the same, determined Jo, they were going on that picnic.
They left the next morning after breakfast, a stick apiece against snakes, a lunch box apiece against hunger, and the instruction that if they got lost, though they mustn’t, to wait at the old banana storehouse that Uncle Mitchell had built years ago and that was not in use any more. It was a good landmark, though, looking as it did like a leaning Noah’s Ark done in peeling paint. Once the bananas had ripened there in slow old-fashioned ovens. Things were done differently now, Jo explained.
It was lovely in the bush. The morning and the trees embraced. Gum tips lit red torches before them. Occasional ‘escaped’ bananas held up slim candles of pale gold. The clematis was out, there was a soft blur of light everywhere.
Even the children could not resist the beauty, and when Amanda bit into an egg sandwich at morning snack she actually looked up at Jo and grinned sheepishly.
They did the things one did in forests. Amanda found interesting bark for future bark pictures. Dicky climbed a tree and examined a bird’s nest. Sukey tried to dam up the little creek at the bottom of the valley with stones. They put the Banana Bliss flasks under a small waterfall to keep cool, and it was such a success they decided to put their lunch by the waterfall as well.
Amanda offered to bring the provisions they had deposited in the old banana storehouse down to the chosen spot, and, pleased with the way things were going, Jo watched her run up the hill to the leaning, peeling Noah’s Ark that Uncle Mitchell had built.
Within minutes Amanda was back again and Jo was on her feet and running towards her.
‘Amanda, what’s wrong? A snake?’
‘I saw him!’ Amanda exclaimed.
‘Saw who, darling?’
‘Our father.’
‘You saw a man, Amanda?’
‘I saw our father.’
Jo put her arms gently around her, but the little girl pulled away.
‘Our father, Dicky,’ she said. ‘Him.’
‘Him?’ Dicky’s face was pale.
‘Him.’ Sukey began to cry.
‘There’s no one,’ said Jo. ‘Look, I’m going up to prove it to you.’ She was trembling herself, but it was not through fear, it was because there was something here she did not understand, and she had to understand, she had to.
‘No, don’t, don’t,’ implored Amanda.
‘But, darling, I’ll be all right.’
‘Don’t go. Don’t leave us. Don’t. Don’t!’
‘I’ll leave you for just one minute, up and then down again, it will make us all feel better. Knowing, I mean. Wait right here. I’ll be there and back. Sukey can count up to sixty. That’s a minute.’
Without waiting for Sukey’s refusal, Jo ran. She ran up the hill as she had never run before, not even at seven and running from a bunyip, or so she and Gee had feared in the days when they’d believed in that fabulous monster. She reached the Noah’s Ark and looked in ... and yes, there was a man. It was Abel.
‘Abel!’ she exclaimed.
‘Good heavens, girl, what’s wrong? You came up that hill like a streaker.’
‘Was he gone when you came?’ she demanded.
‘Was who gone?’
‘A man.’
‘A man in this house as well as me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can absolutely assure you there was no one else.’
‘One man,’ Jo repeated. ‘Their father.’
‘Mark?’
‘Yes. Amanda said “our father”. She said “him”.’
‘There was no one.’ Abel spoke very slowly, very thoughtfully. ‘She must have mistaken me for him.’
‘Yet she’s not a mistaking child.’
‘Perhaps down in the forest where it all happened she is,’ he suggested.
‘Yet she wasn’t upset when you flew over it.’
‘No, but being in it could have a different effect. Poor little mutt, I’ll go down and have a word with her. When I went into the house and you were all gone I guessed you Were out on something like this. I’m sorry it hasn’t gone well.’
‘It went wonderfully until—’
‘Until Amanda’s nerves got her. Is she very upset?’
‘No,’ said Jo, puzzled. ‘Not exactly upset.’
‘Then?’ He had stopped walking and he stopped her with him. He looked at Jo keenly. ‘Then?’
No, not upset, Jo was thinking, not tearful, not emotional, but scared. Yes, scared. But how was she scared, and scared of what? She had said ‘our father’... ‘him’... but who would be scared of Mark? Gee’s Mark? She did not realise she had said that aloud until Abel corrected: ‘There was no Mark, no man, just me and Amanda’s imagination. Well’ ... they had started off again by now ... ‘they look all right, all three of them, now.’
They did look all right, agreed Jo ... so long as you didn’t look too hard.
‘It was Abel,’ she called too brightly. ‘Who will share their lunch with Abel?’
They all offered, but not for Abel’s sake, Jo suspected, but because they didn’t want to eat any more.
Sukey for the first time in her uncommunicative stay here helped out a bad moment.
‘Amanda cooked the cuddled eggs,’ she told Abel. ‘I can cook. I can cook toast.’
They had already gathered bark, bird-nested and dammed the creek, so after lunch they all went back to Tender Winds.
The children disappeared at once into the garden and into a tight, forbidding huddle. Abel Passant took something from a flask, put it in a glass and handed it to Jo. ‘Drink,’ he ordered.
‘But—’
‘Drink, girl, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost, too, though it was only me. Drink. Then we’ll talk.’
Jo drank, for she did feel drained-out, then she allowed Abel to push her into a chair and she watched him as he drew one up for himself.
When he spoke he did it very matter-of-factly.
‘Imagine a page in a ledger headed Amanda,’ he started off. ‘A debit side. A credit side. Got the idea?’
‘Yes, except Amanda’s a person, not a page in a bookkeeping journal.’
He ignored that.
‘On the debit side against Amanda there is the fact that there was no one there in the banana house.’
‘No, not when you were.’
‘I was at the old Ark a few seconds later, a few seconds before you came.’
‘It could go into minutes. I had to run up a hill.’
‘All right then, but for “him”, a so-called “him”, to have disappeared in that short time makes him a very slippery Sam indeed.’
‘Only he’s Mark, not Sam, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t know. Did Amanda say so?’
‘She said “our father” ... “him”,’ Jo persisted.
‘But she didn’t say Mark?’
‘Abel, what are you talking about?’
‘A ledger. A page headed Amanda. Well, now we have our debit side entered, and it’s Amanda’s lie, intentional or unintentional, so we’ll leave that for the present, and come to the credit side. Amanda, I have rather gathered, is not a fanciful girl.’
‘Not in the least.’
‘A practical girl. A girl dealing in actualities.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yet I did not see or hear anyone, so what sum total do we get out of that?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think, save that these children have been through a very great strain and they could have suffered a trauma, even practical, actual, unfanciful Amanda.’
‘Yet only Amanda has reacted.’
‘She was the only one to see the—the—’
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘The man. Also, Abel, hers was not the only reaction. The other two, when she told them, were visibly shocked.’
‘Shocked, you say? Not excited? Not eager for a reunion? Not sentimental? Emotional? But shocked. The shock of finding someone alive whom they believed was dead?’
‘No—not that kind of shock.’
‘Then? Tell me. Tell me, Josephine.’
‘It’s silly,’ she said sheepishly.
‘Tell me, anyhow. Tell me anything at all.’
‘They—they were terrified.’
“Terrified?’
‘Yes, frightened. Terrified. Only not ghost-terrified but kind of physically-terrified. Oh, I know it sounds crazy, but you did tell me to tell you.’
‘Yes, I told you, little one,’ he said quietly, and it was an odd quiet. What was Abel thinking?
‘I suppose,’ sighed Jo, ‘this cancels out the good you accomplished with the flip in the Cessna. I suppose next time you make an offer they’ll be right back at the beginning again, their old ungracious selves. Probably they’ll refuse.’
The Tender Winds of Spring Page 10