by Daphne Clair
Stacey, walking steadily between her brother ahead, and Alex a few feet to her rear, had forgotten the special pleasures of tramping in the bush. The damp smell of naturally decaying vegetation, the feel of slim manuka trunks as she grasped at them to help her up a steep part of the path, the distant sound of native birds calling each other through the laciness of the trees, the deep softness of the moss that clung to fallen forest giants that they passed or clambered over on their way, the texture of the fungus that grew in layers in the fork of an old tawa tree, the peculiar charm of the new shoots of the ponga fern, tightly curled black snails that would burgeon forth into delicately fronded branches.
The path widened at the brow of a hill, and Fergus dropped back to walk by. her side. 'O.K.?' he asked.
'Fine,' said Stacey, although slightly breathless. She hitched her canvas pack higher on her back and grinned at him. 'I'm a bit out of condition, I guess, but I'll stand it all right.'
'Sure you will. You could be a bit stiff tomorrow.'
'Mmm, I'll be full of regrets tomorrow,' she agreed. 'But right now it seems worth it.'
He grinned and turned to Alex, who had caught up. 'What about you, Alex? Think you'll make it?'
'No problems so far,' Alex told him. 'What about you, Stacey?'
'I'm fine,' she reiterated for his benefit.
They were going into another valley, and soon Fergus forged ahead. Downhill was easy, but when they climbed again, Stacey soon lost sight of Fergus, and several people who had been in the rear slipped past her as she began to flag.
She was very glad when she emerged into a clearing at the top of the next hill to find that the leader had called a halt for a short rest.
As she eased off her pack and sank thankfully to the ground, resting her back against a convenient tree-trunk, Alex came to sit beside her, lounging on one elbow as he stretched on the grass.
'O.K.?' he smiled at her.
'O.K.'
She had wondered if he too was finding it a little strenuous, but he showed no signs of it. He took a can of lemonade out of his pack and flipped the top off, offering it to her.
'It's yours,' she protested. 'I have some of my own.'
'So, if I run out I'll cadge some from you,' he said. 'Go on, have some.'
She did, grateful for its coolness. Fergus came over and chatted for a while, bringing with him a girl Stacey didn't recall having seen before. It seemed she was a keen tramper and had been with the leading group. When the leader began to show signs of moving off, she strolled away to pick up her pack, and Fergus looked thoughtfully after her.
'If you want to forge ahead, I'll keep an eye on Stacey,' Alex told him, 'We're both a bit out of practice for this sort of thing.'
'I don't need anyone to keep an eye on me,' Stacey said, but Fergus ignored that, and thanked Alex before going over to speak to the girl, who turned to him with a pleased smile.
'I don't need to be watched,' Stacey repeated to Alex. 'I may be out of practice, but I'm an experienced tramper. Probably more so than you are.'
'I know,' said Alex. 'But Fergus is feeling responsible for you. I was just putting his mind at rest.'
The short rest had renewed her vitality, and she was able to keep up quite well until they stopped again for lunch, on a high ridge from which they could see a Vista of bush rolling down to the distant sea, where the breakers looked deceptively lazy and gentle as they foamed on to the beach.
Having eaten, most of the party stretched out on the grass, but a few energetic souls dragged some dish-shaped nikau branches out of the bush and found a convenient tree-free piece of hillside down which to slide on them. Attracted by shrieks, shouts and laughter punctuated by derisive cheers, most of the others eventually wandered over to join in the fun or add to it as spectators.
Alex took Stacey's hand and drew her with him into the group. Fergus, his arm casually around the shoulders of the girl he had been speaking to before, made room for her beside them. As they watched and laughed at the varying expertise of the members of the party brave enough to try tobogganing down a steep slope on a piece of hard bark hardly larger than a dinner plate, the air of camaraderie among the club members began to reach out and encompass them all. Fergus's companion leaned over to address a smiling remark to Stacey, and Stacey replied with one of her own. Someone else capped that, Alex turned to him and drew a general laugh with a lazy observation of his own.
When the leader called a halt to the fun and suggested they move on, a young man turned to Stacey with a slightly puzzled air, and said, 'I remember you now. You used to be a regular tramper some years ago, didn't you?'
Stacey felt the slight tightening of Alex's fingers on hers as she answered tranquilly, 'Yes, I've been lazy for a while, I'm afraid.'
'Well, I hope we'll see you again,' he said, passing on with a smile.
She was glad that Alex didn't comment as he picked up her pack and helped her pull it on to her shoulders.
He stayed by her for the rest of the day, which ended with a barbecue back on the beach, round a huge fire which they stoked after eating and sat round for a while, singing songs. Some of the stronger swimmers went into the surf for a dip, and Stacey was not surprised when Alex joined them. She watched him walk back into the circle of firelight, gleaming with water which sheened his bronzed body. He bent to pick up his clothes and as he straightened caught her eye. He lifted a hand to brush back his wet hair out of his eyes, and a tiny shower of droplets sparkled on to his shoulders, caught by the firelight, and one trickled slowly down his chest. Watching it, Stacey felt the stirring of unexpected physical sensation, and hastily averted her gaze as Alex walked away into the darkness to dress.
When he returned and dropped down on the sand nearby she made no move to make room for him by her side. He glanced at her sitting between Fergus and the man who had remembered her from earlier tramping days, and saw she was laughing and apparently quite content. She had quickly fitted into the group, and was enjoying it.
'Think you'll come again, you two?' Fergus asked them both later, as they arrived home.
'Sure,' Alex assured him. 'It was a great day.'
'Maybe,' said Stacey, more cautious. 'I'll consult my aching muscles tomorrow.'
'She'll come,' Alex said confidently. 'She enjoyed it, really.'
Stacey made a face at him and walked into the house, determined to have a long hot bath before Fergus could race her to the bathroom.
Before climbing into the water she removed the locket on its chain, and flicking it open, smiled down at David's photograph. It had been a good day, and somehow he had been there with her, but the memories had been happy ones, for they had always loved the bush and enjoyed it together. She had, she decided, been too long away from it.
She was slightly sore the next day, but not as much as she had half expected. Her mother was obviously delighted that she had enjoyed the day, and positively beamed when Stacey admitted that she would probably rejoin the tramping club. Alex was carefully noncommittal, for which Stacey was grateful.
But Graeme made no secret of his disapproval. He complained that he would be unable to see her at weekends if she was going to be off tramping.
'But it won't be every weekend,' she assured him. 'And what about all the other days of the week? There's no reason why we shouldn't go out together then.'
'Friday, for instance? With you wanting to come home early so that you can be fresh for tramping on Saturday?'
'There are other nights --'
'Yes, when we both have to work the following day.'
It was no use, he refused to be placated, and Stacey, beginning to feel that Graeme was becoming uncomfortably possessive, would not change her mind. He went off obviously disgruntled, and she, irritated and in spite of herself feeling slightly guilty, gave a sharp sigh as she went to the kitchen to make herself a soothing cup of tea.
Her mother and Alex were there, sitting at the small kitchen table over steaming cups of their own.
> As they both turned to her, she had an odd feeling of intrusion. There had been almost an air of intimacy about them as they sat, elbows on the table, leaning slightly towards each other as though the conversation was rather private.
Then they both smiled at her, and her mother offered her a cup of tea, and as she accepted the feeling dispersed and she told herself she had imagined it.
'How is the flat-hunting going?' she asked Alex.
'Not terribly well,' he told her. 'I seem to be rather too fussy in my requirements.'
It was not a word she would have associated with him. On the other hand, he might well be something of a perfectionist in some directions, she supposed, bearing in mind his very meticulous care of garden plants.
'Of course,' he added, 'your mother has made me so comfortable here, my standards tend to be rather high.'
Her mother gave a little laugh, and he smiled across at her. 'Perhaps I'll end up like the man who came to dinner,' he said.
'And stay for ever?' her mother queried. 'We wouldn't mind, would we, Stacey?'
He didn't give Stacey a chance to answer that, saying with a swift smile, 'Don't worry, Stacey. I'm joking, of course. I'll find something eventually.' Changing the subject, he added casually, 'Will you be tramping next weekend?'
'No.' She would really have liked to, but she felt obliged to forgo the pleasure for Graeme's sake. She had told him she would not be going out every Saturday with the club, and she supposed he would expect to be able to take her out next week, although he had gone off without making any arrangement. 'I'll ease myself in gradually,' she told Alex.
'Then you will be coming again?'
'Oh, yes.' She was definite about that. 'What about you? Are you going to take it up regularly?'
'I plan to be going out fairly often, anyway,' he said. 'I enjoyed last week's trip tremendously.'
Graeme rang on Friday night, to find Stacey a trifle cool, But he persuaded her to go to a new film with him, and exerted himself all evening to be particularly nice and charming, even managing an apology for his behaviour of the week before, when he took her home.
He was very good company in this mood, and this, after all, was his usual manner. Stacey was relieved to see him revert to it, and readily accepted his apology.
'By the way,' he said, 'I've been invited to a wedding in a couple of weeks' time. There's to be dancing afterwards, and I'm supposed to bring a partner. Will you come?'
She accepted the invitation without demur, and Graeme went off in high spirits.
The house was in darkness as she let herself in. She wondered how the day's tramping had gone for Alex and her brother. This time as she crept quietly along to her room there was no cat to trip her and wake up Alex or anyone else. She smiled as she remembered that little episode. She supposed she would miss Alex when he had gone.
She slept in the next morning, but refreshed herself with a brief shower, and emerged into the kitchen dressed in neat jeans and a cotton knit shirt, to find her mother and Alex just coming in the back door together.
Seeing her stare, her mother smiled and said, 'We've been to church. Alex was up early this morning, and when I told him where I was going, he decided to come too.'
'Good heavens!' exclaimed Stacey. 'After tramping all day yesterday, he gets up at the crack of dawn?'
'Hardly the crack of dawn—eight o'clock,' Alex rejoined. 'Do you mean to say,' he added, glancing at the clock, 'that you've only just got up?'
'I have been up for some time,' she answered.
'How come you're just making breakfast, then?' he asked, his eyes teasing her. 'A bit of a waste, of :time, isn't it? Seeing it's almost lunch time now.'
'You're exaggerating,' she said loftily. 'Have you two eaten?'
'No. We had a quick cup of tea before we left,' Alex said. Watching her take an egg from the refrigerator, he added meaningly, 'I'm ravenous.'
Stacey cast him a resigned look and took out two more eggs. 'Would you like bacon with yours?' she asked.
He grinned down at her. 'Yes, please. Have I time to go and change out of this suit?'
He looked rather nice in it, she thought. It was the same one he had been wearing the first time she saw him.
'It will be just about ready when you are,' she told him, a trifle drily, turning to drop some butter into the frying pan on the stove. Her hair was parted by his fingers as she bent her head, leaving her neck bare. Before she could react to the unexpected touch, he dropped a quick kiss on the exposed skin.
'Thanks, Stacey,' he said, and was gone out of the door before she had collected her wits and turned around.
Her mother had already gone, apparently before Alex, and Stacey was alone. She rubbed at the tingling place on her neck, and gave a soft exclamation of mingled surprise, annoyance and laughter, and turned back to the eggs.
When Alex came back, he met her slightly indignant look with a perfectly bland face, complimented her on her cooking, and proceeded , to demolish the eggs and bacon with gusto.
Stacey, having decided that the most dignified thing would be to ignore the small incident, asked him a trifle frostily how the tramp had gone the day before, and was given a detailed description. In the middle of it, Fergus wandered in and added his contribution. 'You must come next Saturday, Stace,' he urged her. 'We're doing a new track, and I believe there's a quite spectacular waterfall on it. You were always a sucker for falls. And bring your swim things, because there's supposed to be quite a good pool for swimming.'
Stacey hardly hesitated. It did sound interesting, and she would have hated to miss it.
'Why don't you ask Graeme to come too?' Fergus suggested. 'He might get to like it and decide to join the club.'
'No, he isn't interested.' She had already suggested that he should try it out, but he was emphatic that it didn't appeal. 'You'll just have to leave him out of your recruiting campaign, Fergus.'
'He'll be a bit peeved, won't he, if you're going to be going off every weekend without him?'
'It won't be every weekend,' she said calmly. 'I'm going to a wedding with him the Saturday after next. And anyway, Graeme doesn't own me, you know.'
Fergus shrugged. 'O.K., if you say so.'
Alex, having finished what was on his plate, pushed it away. She glanced up at his face and saw that his expression was oddly cynical, his eyes fixed on' her throat.
She put a hand up in an instinctive gesture, her fingers finding the chain that held the gold locket. Alex raised his eyes to hers. His eyes looked very dark, and the expression in them was unreadable.
The new track proved to be everything Fergus had promised. Stacey found herself able to keep up much better with the main body of the trampers, and with more time to look round her on the way, and appreciate the beauty of the surrounding bush. And time to converse with the others.
They picnicked near the waterfall, which flung itself from a densely bush-covered hillside into a deep pool thirty feet below, which in turn flowed into a much larger but less deep pool via a miniature waterfall that formed a natural shower, with a rock shelf to stand on which several members of the party immediately took advantage of. Some then dived straight into the lower pool, while less adventurous spirits clambered down natural steps in the surrounding smooth-worn rocks to enter the water more decorously.
'Going to go in?' Alex asked, coming to stand beside Stacey. He had already changed into his brief swim shorts.
'Yes. It looks good.'
'I'll wait for you.'
Stacey changed into a silky wisp of a one-piece suit that had a halter neck and a low back. When she emerged from the shelter of the large rock which had been designated as the women's changing area, Alex turned and flickered a glance over her and held out his hand.
'Shall we go up there first?' He indicated the ledge with its waterfall.
Stacey agreed, and they climbed up to it.
The first shock of the cold water made her gasp and shudder, and she bent her head as it beat on her fac
e. Her hair was quickly soaked, and her skin tingled with the gentle beating of the water.
She felt Alex tug at her hand, and stepped back. They were in a narrow Concave space between the water and damp, moss-covered rock behind it. Gasping and laughing, she tried to toss back her hair, but it wound itself wetly round her throat. She saw Alex laughing, and his lips moved, but the roar of the water overhead from the main fall drowned his voice. She shook her head and spread her hands to show she had not heard.
He lifted his hand and pushed back her hair, leaning close to her ear.
'You look like a mermaid,' he said. His head moved back, but he still held one hand in his, and his other hand was under her wet hair, against her skin. It slipped across her shoulder blades, and she shivered, looking into his suddenly intent eyes—and then they were sprayed with water, and before blurred eyes she saw two shapes and realised that they were not alone.
The two shapes disappeared with identical Indian yells, and then Alex pulled her forward and dived neatly into the pool. After a moment's hesitation she followed. When she surfaced, she had difficulty finding his dark head among all those which peopled the pool now.
Someone had inflated a large beach ball and instigated a sort of water-polo game into which everyone was soon drawn. Afterwards they collapsed in exhausted heaps on the grass, and allowed the warm sun to dry them, until they wandered off one by one to get dressed.
Alex did not touch her again, and they were never alone but stayed with the rest of the group all day.
Stacey noticed that the girl Fergus had shown interest in two weeks ago was not with them today, and she fancied that her brother was a trifle down. Perhaps that was why. He stayed around with her and Alex this time, and after they reached home the three of them ate a hearty dinner, relaxed over coffee, and retired to bed quite early.
CHAPTER SEVEN