The Wind and the Spray

by Joyce Dingwell

  “Now,” she remarked several times, “I know he’ll be all right.”

  Laurel did not ask her what she meant. Let her rest in her contentedness, she thought, she’s very old and tired.

  The children, too, although placable, needed occasional guidance as all children do, so that was another job Laurel found for herself, another niche to fill. Nor Larsen, she thought, should be pleased she had taken his advice.

  The sisters did not actually quarrel, but often bickered. Jill, as elder, loved to correct. One morning she corrected Meredith when Meredith announced dramatically that her doll-baby had Lumps.

  “Mumps.”

  “Lumps.”

  “Mumps, isn’t it, Laurel?”

  Laurel concurred, much to Meredith’s fury, for she was more quicker-tempered than Jill. She would explode, then calm down. “Like a fizzy drink,” Jill described.

  Meredith looked at Laurel after the correction with baby hate. Laurel had sided with Jill against her. She could kick at Jill, bite her, but not a grown-up lady. She tried desperately to think of something really devastating to say. At last she thought of it and burst out triumphantly, “You’ve got a dirty face.”

  However, apart from little upsets like this, like Meredith emptying Laurel’s only phial of perfume on the floor so she could use it as a feeding-bottle for her mumpy, or lumpy as she still persisted, doll-baby, and so for many days banishing the tang and brine and introducing an alien scent of Muguet, they got on extremely well.

  “We’re lucky, we have two Mummys, a thin one and a thick one, the thick one is Mummy Reed,” said Jill.

  “Soon we’ll only have our thin one, Daddy said so,” put in Meredith. “We’re going to Sydney where the thin Mummy is, going for ever and ever, and you know what, Laurel, we’re going to clap her, Daddy, Jill and me, and sing Sandra and Gloria too.”

  Laurel pricked her ears at that “for ever” but decided not to probe. She simply asked about Sandra and Gloria.

  “Send her Victoria, Sandra and Gloria. Didn’t you know you sang that at the end of things?” scorned Jill.

  Any correction as to the right words of the National Anthem was stopped by Meredith’s excited announcement that a boat was coming in.

  Laurel jumped up and looked over the little girl s shoulder, and in that moment she knew she was as excited herself.

  It was merely because she was now an islander, she tried to reason; all islanders observed with deep interest all comings and goings to and from their midst.

  It was the Leeward. There was no mistaking the three poky decks, the solid rails around the deck amidships, the clumsy lumbering look.

  “Daddy’s there,” shouted Meredith, her lumpy doll-baby thrown down in a manner no sick-room would approve.

  “Of course, darling,” said Laurel.

  “We didn’t think he might be,” observed Jill. “He said the only time he’d set foot on here again would be to fetch us off.”

  “Now I guess we’ll all be going off together,” gloated Meredith.

  “And there’ll be cars with cushions on the seats in Sydney,” rejoiced Jill, “and no dirty old jeeps.”

  She added in final bliss: “And we’ll sing Sandra and Gloria, too.”

  They went scampering out of the room, out of the house, joining the other welcoming islanders on the jetty.

  All at once, not caring about the portent of cars with cushions, the significance of future National Anthems, Laurel was running, her red hair flying, down to the jetty as well.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AS she stood there in the little crowd she felt as animated as the islanders were. She clapped her hands with them when it looked like Nor making the jetty in the first attempt, she said “Ah—” in disappointment with them when he had to circle after all and make a second run.

  That second run took away her exhilaration. She had had a fleeting glimpse of Nor’s face as he had edged past the pier and turned seaward again, and it had no amusement in it, it was set and grim. He’s angry, she thought, and justifiably or unjustifiably, he’s going to take it out on me. She wished she had never been so stupid as to intervene on Peter’s behalf.

  Peter, when the Leeward moored successfully on the second run, appeared chastened, but not unhappily chastened. He looked, thought Laurel secretly, like someone who had something up his sleeve.

  He jumped on to the pier and hoisted one little girl on each shoulder.

  “I love you for ever, Laurel,” he grinned.

  She got into step beside him. “I don’t love you, then.”

  “Oh, come,” he grinned again, “you didn’t really think I was going over just for the trip.”

  “I did think you would keep your word.”

  “My dear, haven’t you learned yet that there’s no honour in love? Anyway, why the long face? I’m the culprit, not you.”

  “Nor won’t see it entirely that way,” said Laurel gloomily.

  “He’ll get over it,” shrugged Peter, in such high spirits that nothing could daunt him. “He’ll get over it all eventually.”

  “Peter, what do you mean?”

  “My doll-baby had Lumps,” cried Meredith.

  “Mumps,” corrected Jill.

  “Daddy, did you see Mummy?” asked the doll-baby’s mother. “Are we all going to—”

  “Daddy, when will it be?”

  “Look, kids, there is a time and a place.” Peter said it quite sharply. He glanced over his shoulder. Nor Larsen was striding up the track. “Sorry and all that, young Laurel, but short of strangling these menaces I can’t shut them up. I’ll go ahead and leave you to his tender mercies. After all, it only has to be got over once.”

  Laurel had reached the gate of the picket fence by the time the big man caught up with her.

  He stepped adeptly between her and the latch, just, she recalled, as once, the first time she had met him, he had stepped adeptly between her and the cage of a lift.

  “One moment, Miss Teal,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?” She remembered on that occasion she had said that, too.

  He must have recalled, as she did, for he drawled back. “Not pardoned this time. I want a few pertinent words with you. We’ll walk up the hill.”

  It was futile to try to say to this man that there was nothing to discuss, that she was busy, that she did not want to speak to him. He simply put his fingertips under her arm and led her away from the house. Though the touch was light she still had the impression of steel. She had the certain knowledge that had she resisted she would have had to go just the same.

  A garden climbed the hill. It must be as old as the house, as old as the high level water storage, a century and a half old, Laurel thought.

  It was rambling and overgrown rather than trim, it was flanked by trees both indigenous and planted, it had a sweep of uninhibited grass with field flowers flourishing at their will.

  There was a rough bench. He had edged her down that last time in the lobby, but this time he gave her a little push. He stood above her, taking out the makings and beginning to roll a cigarette.

  “You’re a smart girl,” he said.

  Angry at him, at his approach, she flashed back, “Of course. Mr. Kittey only accepts smart applicants.”

  “But not applicants too smart for their boots. That’s you, Miss Teal. You sucked up to me—”

  “I did nothing of the sort.”

  “Until I gave in and agreed to take Peter on the understanding that it was only to be a quick trip. You undertook to make him realize that.” The cigarette was lit, the man inhaled.

  “Words, just words,” he said.

  “They were not just words. I impressed upon Peter—”

  “You impressed so impressively that within half an hour, half an hour, mark you, of our arrival at Anna, Peter had chartered a plane and hopped north.”

  “That was not my fault.”

  “Neither is it your fault that for one week the station has been idle, that we’re seven day
s behind schedule, that our quota will have to be doubled to catch up, that a season, like time and tide, waits for no man—all that’s not your fault either?”

  “No, it isn’t,” she retorted, as angrily as he had. She searched her brain for something really cutting to say. Now she felt she understood the pent-up fury that had inspired little Meredith to shout, “You’ve got a dirty face.”

  “I’ve no doubt,” she said icily at length, “that your devoted employees will work doubly hard, even to night work to catch up.”

  “You little fool,” he said. “Doesn’t your common sense tell you a chaser can only chase by day? How otherwise, unless we illumine the ocean, can the look-out man in the crow’s nest hope to see? The station works on eight-hour shifts, but only if the supply is there. Now, through you, the supply is not.”

  He was being unfair beyond all proportion.

  “You could have left Peter there,” she snapped, “and returned alone.”

  “Is that what you planned?”

  “I planned nothing. Didn’t Mr. Blake tell you that?”

  “Mr. Blake is unreliable.”

  “A man unreliable?”

  “A man under the influence of a woman, yes.”

  He was losing some of his temper now. Meredith must have inherited hers from her Uncle Nor. Laurel hoped he would be like the fizzy drink Jill had explained, that after the bubble he would calm down.

  “Did you get your parts?” she ventured.

  “Do you think I would have returned without them?”

  “Were they waiting?”

  “Yes. We could have got back late that night.”

  “Then why did you wait for Peter?”

  Again the temper bubbled up. “Because I was not going to be passed over, Miss Teal.”

  “You would put your schedule back a week because of your pride.”

  “It wasn’t pride, it was the lesser of two issues. Keeping up a schedule is a present issue, keeping a Larsen family where a Larsen family belongs is a future one, it’s posterity, can’t you see that?”

  “Nathalie is a Blake,” said Laurel softly but firmly.

  “She is a Larsen. She was born a Larsen.”

  “She is a Blake, just as I would be Teal no longer if—” Laurel stopped, a little embarrassed, feeling treacherous pink climbing into her cheeks. Though she turned her head away and could not see him she knew he was staring hard at her, slitting, in that odd way of his, those bright sailor blue eyes.

  When he spoke again she was relieved that the “fizzy drink” was aerated no more.

  “What did you do while I was away?”

  “Found myself jobs, a niche to fill.”

  “Like?”

  “Helping Mrs. Reed; refereeing for the children; talking to the women here and suggesting a few things.”

  “Like?” His eyes were sharper now, interested.

  “Like bringing back their children from the mainland and agitating for a local school, trying to establish a social centre, getting keen on community activities ... coming to take a pride in the place.”

  “You said all that?”

  “In a kind of way.”

  He looked down at his cigarette and then back at her again.

  “Why, Miss Teal?” he asked directly. “We don’t pay bonuses for extra service here.”

  She flushed. “I think I said it because I meant it.”

  “You don’t have to mean anything, you still get paid.”

  She turned suddenly flashing eyes on him. “Money is everything to you, isn’t it? It’s the real reason you won’t agree to your sister’s going, so that you won’t have to pass across her share of the estate.”

  He was not as affected as she thought he would be. He calmly gave his attention to another cigarette.

  “Money is a lot to you, too,” he pointed out. “Otherwise you would not have gone to Kittey as you did.”

  “There could be another reason.” She was thinking of David.

  “That reason was scotched right in the beginning, remember?”

  She remembered. How could she not remember? How could she forget that caustic “one available male—with other ideas?”

  For all his sarcasm, however, she had the feeling that he was unwillingly pleased with her, with her contact with the island women. Anything to better the House of Larsen would please him, she thought.

  He took her arm and pulled her to her feet. “It must be time to eat,” he said, and they started down to the house.

  As they descended she asked him about some of the trees, and he told her.

  “These are Norfolk pines ... Norfolk Island is in that direction ...” he pointed. “There’s a modern whaling station at Norfolk. Quite a large company.”

  “Not a dynasty,” she said.

  He gave her a quick look.

  “Here is your namesake.” He touched a generous, wide-branching, glossy-leafed tree. “A laurel.”

  “It’s not like our laurels.”

  “It’s a camphor laurel. An Australian species.”

  His fingertips went under her arm again. “There’s something else I want to show you.” He led her down a side path. Thy came to an old rainwater tank.

  “It’s filled with sea water,” he explained, “and a quantity of menthol.”

  “Menthol?”

  “To seed my oysters.”

  “Why do you want seeded oysters?”

  “For pearls.”

  “Pearls?”

  “It’s a hobby. I dip the oysters until they relax and open enough to enable me to work in mother-of-pearl nuclei. After that I suspend them in cages over the end of the jetty. Given the right conditions I have a pearl in a year.”

  “Have you done this long?”

  He nodded, and began unwrapping a bundle which he had taken from his pocket. “I took these over to an expert in Anna,” he told Laurel, “and he said they’re saleable.” She looked down with pleasure on the handful he held out for her inspection ... a handful of pale pink teardrops, she thought. She touched one gently and felt a glowing warmth.

  “They’re lovely.”

  “Not bad, taking into consideration that we’re too far south to hope to raise anything really spectacular.”

  “Yet you do hope?” she hazarded.

  He ran his fingers through his salt-bleached hair, a curiously boyish gesture she had not seen him use before. A little boyishly he said, “One feels there can always be the exception.” She could see that it was more than just a hobby with him.

  “Then,” she suggested, “your financial worries would be over.”

  “What do you know of my financial worries?”

  “I know that both your house and water storage need renewing.”

  He shrugged his great shoulders. “I see you’ve been getting around. Luke drive you up to Dum?”

  “There—and to the northern end as well.”

  He was tying up the pearls again. He did not appear at all annoyed that she had seen his new boat.

  “So you think I should effect some repairs?” he drawled.

  “It can never be expansion if you don’t maintain.” There, she had said it. She waited for the raised eyebrows, the cool, quizzing eyes as he answered, “Oh, yes, Miss Teal, and what business is this, pray, of yours?”

  But he did not say it.

  He said instead, “I can’t do both. I can’t spend money on things that are already there.”

  “The pearl,” she suggested. “The pearl that will be the exception to the rule.”

  First I have to grow it. Then when—if—I did—”

  “Yes?”

  But he did not answer her. The silence between them grew ... and grew. Her head was not turned away this time, and all at once she found herself looking directly into the sailor blue eyes. They were not slitted now, they were staring—no, probing almost, probing into hers.

  She looked back, looked back curiously, oddly aware of something somewhere between them, something waiting,
waiting to be discovered ... to be opened like the opening up for a pearl.

  The meal bell rang. He put the bundle into his pocket, still not speaking. Had he known that odd sensation, too?

  She could not tell when he did speak at last, neither by his voice nor by the topic.

  “I promised to show you the station,” he said. “I’ll do more than that, I’ll take you on a chase.”

  “On a chase?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “On—on the Clytie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will—will it be ready?”

  “It was only a matter of replacing the parts. It’s out working now. We’re making up for lost time.”

  “Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait until there’s more time?”

  “What’s wrong? Scared?”

  “Yes.” She said it quite honestly. She was scared.

  He laughed. “You’ll be all right, child. Remember how you were looked after on the Leeward.” As though she could ever forget. “Besides—”

  “Yes?”

  “The Clytie is much bigger, so she rides better.” His eyes flickered authoritatively at her. “We’ll take off at five a.m.”

  Without any more argument on the matter he turned her round and impelled her down to the house.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DURING the meal Laurel babbled about her trip tomorrow. She spoke lightly, hoping her voice did not falter as she felt sure her courage already had.

  Peter told her eagerly ... almost anxiously ... that it was going to be good weather, perfect chasing weather.