by Daphne Clair
'My fault,' Fergus said. 'David was another who was out every weekend, of course. She hasn't been on a tramp-since he died.'
Alex frowned, and after a moment he too got up, and followed Stacey.
He found her shrugging into a jacket, and watched as she lifted her hair out of the collar and flipped it, with a shake of her head, on to her shoulders.
'Going out?' he asked.
'Just for a short walk. I have a slight headache, and a walk in the fresh air might clear it.'
'Mind if I come, too?'
Her hesitation was momentary. 'If you like,' she shrugged.
'I can do with some practice for this expedition your brother has talked me into,' he explained, and she smiled faintly as he opened the door for her.
The sun was dying, casting shadows along the pavement as they walked, in silence for some time.
Stacey broke it, with a soft exclamation of admiration for a garden that had an abundance of spectacular colour. A brilliant orange azalea was in full bloom against the dark brick wall of the house, and a deepest pink flowering almond took pride of place in the centre of the lawn. A red-flowered manuka graced the fence-line and mingled its branches with another native plant, a graceful golden kowhai in full bloom, its trumpet-shaped flowers drooping on slender stems. Smaller shrubs, some late daffodils and a bed of golden-throated white freesias added to the picture.
'Very nice,' Alex commented. 'Someone loves that garden.'
They stood admiring it in silence for several minutes before walking on.
'You're a keen gardener, aren't you?' Stacey asked.
'Fairly. When I get a place of my own, I'd like to have a bit of ground to potter in. I find it's very relaxing after a day trying to plant ideas in young minds.'
'Is that what you do?'
'It's what I try to do. What do you do, apart from painting? As a change from work, I mean?'
Stacey shrugged. 'I read. And sew, sometimes. But painting is my main interest, now.'
'All solitary pursuits,' Alex commented. 'Don't you feel the need to socialise occasionally, to do something that involves you with other people?'
'I'm not a hermit!' Stacey protested. 'I went to a party last week, remember?'
'So you did. And enjoyed it, what's more. Do you often go to parties?'
'Not terribly often. Does anyone?'
'Some do.'
'I'm not a particularly party-minded person. Anyway, I don't get invited to a party terribly often.'
'Do you belong to any club?' he asked.
'No. Why?'
He shrugged. 'Fergus belongs to a couple, I know. Even your mother has her women's club, doesn't she? I wondered what outside interest you had.'
'I don't need one.' Her tone was short, and she was relieved when he seemed to realise that she was annoyed by his persistence, and lapsed into silence again.
But when they stopped to admire a view from the brow of a hill, he returned to the attack from another angle.
'Do you do a lot of walking?'
'Some,' Stacey replied. 'When I feel like it.'
'Alone?'
'Mostly.' She moved restlessly, and began to retrace their steps. 'Are you ready to go back?'
'O.K.' He fell into step beside her. 'If you like walking, I'm surprised that you've given up-tramping.'
'Tramping is much more strenuous than a walk round suburban streets,' she said.
'I see. You mean you couldn't take the pace.'
For an instant she was angry. 'No, it wasn't that!' she flashed. And then realised that she should have let him think it was that, because now he was going to probe for the real reason.
Sure enough, he said, 'So—what was it?'
She took time to cool down, then said evenly, 'That's my own business, don't you think? I'd like to talk about something else, if you don't mind.'
'I do mind. It's because of David, isn't it?'
'It's none of your business!' she snapped.
'Strictly speaking, no, it isn't,' he agreed. 'But I rather thought we'd been friends, lately.'
'You presume a lot on friendship, don't you?' she asked coldly.
'I don't like to see my friends unhappy.'
'I'm not unhappy.'
'Your mother thinks you are.'
'She had no right to discuss me with you!'
'Perhaps not. She did have a need, to discuss her worries with someone, however. She hasn't many people she can confide in, has she?'
'She has no need to be worried about me. I'm quite contented.'
She was wondering how much her mother had confided in Alex. It was true she did not have many close friends, for Helen Coleman had always been shy. Her parents had died within a year of each other soon after her youthful marriage, and she had no real contact with her other relatives, who lived in the South Island.
Alex said, 'She's concerned for you, Stacey. I like your mother very much, you know. She hasn't had it easy, bringing up two children on her own.'
'I know that. Do you think we're not grateful for what she's done?'
'I didn't say that. I'm sure you are. But she would like to see you show signs of having got over your grieving for David;'
'How?' Stacey cried, before she could stop herself.
Alex put out a hand, but she shied away, facing him.
'I'm not wearing widow's weeds, you know,' she said. 'You seem to imagine I'm some sort of neurotic, like that woman in Great Expectations, who sat around in her wedding dress for the rest of her life, waiting for her bridegroom. Look, I don't know what impression you've gained from my mother—but if you think I see myself as some sort of Dickens character like that, you're dead wrong. I do go out. I live a full life. I've even had boy-friends since David died. Graeme isn't the first, you know, but he may be the last. I'm thinking seriously of marrying him.'
'No! Not Graeme.'
The light was fading, but as she stared in astonishment she could still see that he looked faintly startled himself, as though he had not really intended to say that.
'I beg your pardon?' she said disbelievingly.
'I know I should be begging yours,' Alex said with a ghost of a smile. 'But having opened my mouth so far, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Graeme isn't the one for you, Stacey.'
'The one for me is dead,' she said bleakly.
'Then let him die, Stacey,' Alex said gently. 'There could be someone else.'
'There is no one else like David,' she said. 'Oh, you don't understand! You think I can forget him, and love someone else the same way—well, I can't! I've tried, and it doesn't work.'
'So why are you thinking of marrying Graeme?' he demanded.
'Because—he loves me. And I—I think I love him too, after a fashion.'
'After a fashion!' Alex echoed. 'But not after a marrying fashion. If you settle for that, Stacey, you'll be cheating him and cheating yourself.'
'I won't be cheating him. He knows how I feel, and he's willing to "settle for that", as you put it.'
'Then more fool he.'
Stacey turned and began walking, very fast.
He let her go on alone for a few yards before he came striding along beside her.
'I'm sorry,' he said quietly. 'I didn't mean to hurt you.'
'I know,' she said wearily. 'You were trying to help, I suppose. It's a habit of yours, isn't it?'
'A bad one, perhaps.'
'Are you a compulsive do-gooder?' she asked. 'Do you help old ladies across the road, and lame dogs over stiles?'
'Ouch!' he exclaimed. 'Actually I don't recall seeing a lame dog—or a stile lately. And old ladies these days seem to be quite efficient at crossing roads. I think Women's Lib has got to them.'
He always seemed able to make her laugh, even when she was seething with anger. She slowed her furious pace a little and turned to look at him with a wry smile. He was gauging her reaction with one raised brow and a tiny smile on his own mouth. Helplessly, she gave a little laugh, and he put an arm around
her shoulder and they walked on companionably.
It' was really quite extraordinary, Stacey thought. Ten minutes earlier she had been simply infuriated with him, and now the touch of his hand oh her shoulder was enough to engender a curious contentment and warmth in her. She had a strong desire to drop her head into the hollow of his arm, and feel the texture of his jacket on her cheek.
It was fully dark by the time they turned into the driveway. In the shadow of a tamarisk that grew beside the drive, he stopped and slipped his arm' down her back to her waist, turning her to face him.
'Stacey,' he said, 'I want to ask you something. Will you come with us on the tramp next Saturday?'
He must have, felt her stiffening, and his hold tightened very slightly.
'Did Fergus put you up to this?' she asked.
'No.'
'What are you trying to do, Alex? Lay my ghosts for me? Fergus told you—or you guessed—that I haven't been out with the club since David died. Believe me, it doesn't mean a thing, except that I'm. no longer interested.'
She pulled away, and he let her move out of his encircling arm, but caught her wrist and held it when she would have moved further from him.
'Do you mean you only went along because David enjoyed it?'
'No. I enjoyed it too, for its own sake. But it just wouldn't be the same without him.'
He made a small, exasperated sound. 'Of course it won't be the same. Don't you realise that it could still be as good—or better. Perhaps that's what you're afraid of,' he added, half under his breath.
'If that's some sort of half-baked psychology,' she retorted, 'I'm not impressed. I've told you I'm just not interested—it has nothing to do with being afraid of anything.'
She jerked at his hold on her wrist, but it had no effect.
'Prove it,' he said quietly. 'Come out with us on Saturday, and maybe I'll believe you. You just don't feel like tramping any more. It has nothing to do with David's dying. You're not frantically trying to preserve his memory like a butterfly enclosed in amber. You haven't locked up your emotions in a glass coffin with your dead lover. You don't wear that locket because it has his picture in it, so that whenever a man comes close to you, he's literally coming between you. You're not afraid that some other man could make you forget David. You're not using your grief as a shield against the world, a guarantee against the pain of loving again. Prove it, Stacey.'
She was shaking now, staring at his face, barely visible in the shadows. 'How dare you? You know nothing about love—or grief,' she whispered. 'How dare you?'
She twisted her wrist from his grasp and made blindly for the front door. But before she could open it, he was in front of her. She blundered into his hard chest, and his hands grasped her arms.
'No!' she cried. But her throat was tight with tears and it came out as a gasp, not a cry.
'Stacey, Stacey!' His arms came round her and one hand cradled her head into the crook of his arm, her cheek against his jacket, as she had wanted, before. The tears slipped on to the suede lapels, and she thought vaguely that it would stain. His voice was murmuring softly into her hair. 'Darling, please stop -shaking like that. I'm a clumsy brute. I didn't mean to hurt you. Stacey? Stacey, don't!'
She took a deep breath and stirred against him, and with an effort of will she stopped crying and stopped trembling. She moved more decisively, and his hand slipped from behind her head and he held her a little away from him. He saw the gleam of tears on her cheeks, and gently tipped her face with his hands, and wiped them with his thumbs.
'All right, now?' he asked softly.
'All right,' she whispered. She felt suddenly very tired.
'Forgive me.' It was the first time she had heard him even remotely humble.
She couldn't begin to understand why he had said what he did, just now. She gave a tiny nod, and a slightly shaky smile, and turned to go into the house. Her hand on the latch, she half-turned and asked, 'Are you coming in?' For he was still standing at the foot of the steps.
'Later. Stacey?'
'Yes.'
'I want you to come on Saturday. Not as an exercise in ghost-laying, or a therapeutic measure, but because I would like you to. Will you?'
'Just because you want me to?'
'Yes.'
Stacey ran her tongue over her top lip, thinking. 'Very well,' she said finally, 'I'll come.'
The next morning she wondered why on earth she had capitulated, after all. In spite of the fact that when she let herself into the house, her head was aching in earnest, she had slept well. In the morning light, the scene with Alex seemed like a highly unlikely dream, except that she knew it wasn't.
Fergus and her mother, apparently told by Alex that she had decided to join the tramp, said little about it, but were obviously both surprised and pleased. Alex wore a slight air of complacency, and that, combined with the faint smell of conspiracy that hung about the whole affair, was a considerable irritant to Stacey. It cost her some effort to conceal her resentment from her mother, and Fergus, receiving a snappish answer to a remark of his, raised his eyebrows and remarked mildly that she was touchy these days.
Shamefaced, Stacey apologised. Fergus was the most easy-going of men, and if he was in some sort of plot with Alex, she knew it was only because he was genuinely fond of her.
She had found her old tramping boots, and was busily engaged in softening them after six years of neglect, when Graeme called on Friday night. She had told him she was going out with Fergus's tramping club on Saturday, and had turned down a date for that evening, saying she would probably be in no state for it.
'You're mad,' he said, looking down at her now, with the boots on her knee as she inserted the laces. 'Why don't you take up some civilised sport, like fencing?'
'Pretending to kill someone?' she asked lightly. 'Call that civilised?'
'Go on, Stacey. You know very well it's the skill of it that counts.'
'Well, it's better than boxing, I'll give you that,' she laughed, putting down the boots. 'Are we going out?'
'Where would you like to go?'
'I don't want to be late. I'll have to be fresh tomorrow.'
'Well, just a short drive, then? Out into the country?'
'I'd like that.'
They were just going out the door when Alex drove into the drive. He parked his car, and as they reached Graeme's he got out and called across to them. 'Going out? Don't be late, Stacey. We have an early start tomorrow.'
Stacey waved and got into Graeme's car. As he sat beside her and started the engine, he said, 'I thought you were going with Fergus.'
'I am going with Fergus. And the tramping club. Fergus happens to have invited Alex, too.'
He drove in silence for a while, frowning. Then he commented, 'I've never known you to go tramping before.'
'I used to do a lot of it, once.'
'Yes, but not since --'
'Since David died. Well, I thought it was time I tried it again.'
'Why now?'
'Why not now?' she countered.
He shot her a frowning glance. 'You like Alex, don't you?'
'Actually, I'm not sure that I do,' she said coolly. 'At first, I didn't like him at all. But he's my mother's guest, and my brother's friend. We can hardly live in the same house if we're forever at each other's throats, can we?'
Startled, Graeme asked, 'Did you really dislike him as much as that?'
'That's a slight exaggeration. But we certainly didn't hit it off at first.'
'And now?'
'Mostly we manage to rub along. And you are being slightly ridiculous, Graeme.'
He flushed slightly. 'I'm sorry. But you know how I feel about you. I can't help feeling jealous of your enjoying another man's company.'
'Well, if it's going to stop you enjoying mine,' she said rather sharply, 'perhaps you'd better take me home again.'
He pulled the car over to the kerb and turned to her. 'Is that what you want?' he asked.
'If you're going to p
ick a quarrel over a man who means nothing to me, yes! I thought we were going for a nice, peaceful drive.'
Suddenly he grinned. 'So he means nothing to you? That's all I want to know. I promise I won't mention him again.'
He drove to the motorway that carried southbound traffic out of the city, and turned off into a road that wound up into rolling farmland. In a quiet spot he parked and they watched the city lights, far away in the distance, come winking out as the daylight faded and the setting sun washed the hillsides with pink. Somewhere a bird was calling as Graeme turned and pulled her close to kiss her.
Stacey, nestled in his arms, wondered why she felt, illogically, like a liar and a cheat.
CHAPTER SIX
Saturday was an ideal day for tramping. High cloud prevented the sun from blazing too hotly, and the faintest whisper of a breeze stirred the air as they arrived at the starting point. Alex had driven them in his car, and picked up another member of the club on the way.
The first part of the walk was along a beach for about a mile. The sand was dark, containing iron, and the breakers which pounded on to the beach were high-piled and turbulent.
They left the beach, the marks of thirty-odd pairs of boots now marring its smooth surface, and clambered over smooth rocks to negotiate a hair-raising path up the cliffs and enter the bush. The vegetation here was fairly sparse, the manuka dry-looking and scraggy, and leaning inland with the influence of constant sea-breezes.
The narrow path which they traversed in single file dipped into a marshy valley where their boots squelched into patches of mud among raupo reeds with their cylindrical, furry brown heads. They carefully skirted clumps of toi-toi, about six feet tall with softly waving white banners of plumes, but guarded by their leaves which were narrow and gracefully curved, but with edges as sharp as razor blades, and capable of making a nasty stinging cut if one passed too close.
Then they were climbing again, into thicker bush, where the manuka mingled with tree-ferns and nikau palms, and a variety of native trees. The path was well-defined, but on either side the forest floor was covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves and a carpet of creeping vegetation and small leafy plants.
The laughter and talk with which the party had greeted the early part of the expedition began to fade into only occasional remarks or jokes, the muffled sound of their boots accompanied only by heavy breathing as the going became steeper.