Flamingo Flying South

by Joyce Dingwell

  'I see.' Georgia was glad that Mr. Smith had had the sense to restrict their wherewithal. She also could under­stand how the taxi man had agreed to the boys' instruction, for one look at those small, obviously expensive, immaculate children was sufficient assurance that he would be paid.

  'Did you see the flamingo when we stopped here today?' she asked.

  'No. But you said they came here.'

  'But only in winter. Then they migrate to Kenya.'—Fla­mingoes flying south… she saw that rose-pink ribbon making flowing patterns across a soft blue sky.

  But one flamingo had remained.

  'I'm calling him Flamey.' Bish was touching the down-curved bill again, the wading bird calmly permitting him.

  'I'm calling him Rose Red Morning Cloud,' said Seg.—A future writer like his father? Georgia wondered.

  She returned from the future to the present again. Calling him? Surely they didn't think…

  But they did.

  'He's ours—we found him. He likes us. He wants us.' They must have seen the look on Georgia's face.

  'But, darlings, he's a wild bird… not wild in nature, I can see that, but wild as regards Mother Nature. I mean, he's not used to captivity, and he would be unhappy if you kept him. In the end it would be more unkind than kind.'

  'How could it be unkind not to be dead, because if we leave him he'll be dead?' asked Bish in a complex way, though Georgia followed him.

  'That's right,' said Seg. 'I saw a man with a gun, and in the distance Rose Red Morning Cloud could look like some­thing to shoot.'

  'He's going to be Flamey,' insisted Bish.

  'He's going to be—'

  'Hush,' directed Georgia, 'the pink one is becoming alarmed.'

  He wasn't. It occurred to Georgia that this remarkable bird never would be. But the boys were looking at her with one look, one agreeing look. Unmistakably they were agreed.

  'The Pink One,' they said in unison. 'We're calling him the Pink One!'

  'Thank you, boys, but we still can't keep him, you know.'

  'Why?'

  'In the hotel?' she scoffed.

  'We're moving,' they pointed out.

  'In an apartment?' she scoffed again.

  'A villa,' they said. 'We looked at villas.'

  'I looked. You two never got out of the car.'

  'We didn't have the Pink One.'

  'We haven't now. Oh, boys, can't you see that it wouldn't be allowed? There are protection boards, and wildlife has to remain like that.'

  'And get dead?' they asked.

  They made sense. The flamingo had been lucky, very lucky. Georgia doubted if its luck could hold. It was so beautiful, it stood out, and to stand out in nature was to invite disaster. Especially now in Cypriot summer, that ochre and cigar leaf summer, when its colour comprised almost a rose-pink shout.

  'A villa with a garden, a lot of garden,' said Seg.

  'A view of the water—being a wading bird the Pink One would want that,' said Bish.

  'What about his food?' asked Georgia.

  'We'll dig, won't we, Bish? Also, you can drive us down for sea things.'

  'Boys, I don't know,' Georgia sighed.

  But she did know, really. She knew she was going to move from the hotel as early as tomorrow. She was going to select the villa now, any villa so long as it was large, had a garden, had a view of the sea, and nearly all of them had had that, would do. Meanwhile, she was going to put the boys—and the Pink One—in the back seat of the car—she had no doubt the flamingo would accept this quite amiably as he seemed to accept everything else—go to the agent, make a decision, receive a key, settle the Pink One for the night, settle the boys back in the hotel (she smiled as she anticipated a little trouble there) and—

  And that was what she was going to do.

  They had seen the smile. They were getting to their feet, they were carrying the Pink One carefully between them to the car.

  'Do you remember any particular villa?' she called, get­ting behind the wheel.

  'No.'

  'Well, it doesn't matter,' she supposed aloud.

  The agent seemed a little surprised when she said any villa would do. Being an astute agent, he chose the most expensive, but Georgia did not argue, she accepted the key and they drove off.

  The house was on a hill between Limassol and Amathus; it was large, two-storeyed, white with blue shutters. It had an immense garden and it looked on to the Mediterranean. There was also a half-dry ditch in the fold of two small slopes behind it which Bish and Seg leapt at eagerly.

  'The very thing for wading, for mucking about,' they claimed.

  'It will have to be by itself tonight, you do understand that?'

  They did, if unwillingly. They found an old chicken coop in a barn to enclose the Pink One, and promised him a hundred times that they would be there first thing in the morning.

  'For ever and ever after that,' they added lovingly.

  'We'll bring worms,' called Bish.

  'And sea things,' said Seg. Georgia did not think he was quite sure what sea things comprised, but he could handle that better than molluscs.

  She did not go through the house—probably she had already; she had seen so many today she could not recall any in detail, but anyway, it could wait until tomorrow. She knew it would be like all Cypriot houses, part marbled, part polished timber, to serve both the hot and cold weather. It would be gracious with many arched corridors, with many large rooms… and with Agrippa Smith she needed many large rooms. Rooms to go to when she wished to avoid him, for he was a man she knew she would want to avoid.

  Coming out to the car, she stood a moment before she called to the boys to make their final good nights. She was looking down the hill to the translucent sea, the leaves of the olives that grew almost to the shores turning silver as a gentle wind combed through them, the regimented carobs Indian-filing their way across numerous fields with goats with silky-eared kids threading their way between the rows of gourds, a donkey so still he must be stone, a tinkling bell­wether leading a flock home. It was all lovely, yet it was not just the loveliness that caught wonderingly at Georgia. She thought: I've been up here before.

  It would soon be dark. She turned and called the boys to the car.

  No need to waken Bish and Seg the next morning; at first light they were banging on Georgia's door.

  'Hush, you'll rouse all the hotel!' she scolded.

  'The Pink One will be wondering where he is,' said Bish.

  'He'll be needing to look around for worms and sea things,' said Seg, 'and he can't, he's in that coop.'

  'The sea things have to be fetched up to him, stupid,' said his brother.

  'Well, molly-cules, then.'

  'Moll-uses, and they are the sea things. Hurry up, Geor­gia!'

  Georgia could scarcely believe her ears. She had told them they could call her Miss Paul or Georgia, whichever they wished, but she had not dared hope for that easy, com­panionable, unencumbered 'Georgia'.

  It was far too early for breakfast, but she could not im­prison these two here waiting for it. She decided to drive them to Amathus and leave them there. They would be quite safe—children, as well as women, were very safe on this island, and anyway, she could not see them moving far away from the Pink One. As for their breakfast, she had no doubt they would meet a bread pedlar on their way out, his hot koullouri steaming fragrantly in his outfit's little heated glass container.

  'Right,' she said, 'but I can't stop with you, there'll be packing to do, quite a few things to see to.'

  They hardly heard her, they urged again, 'Hurry up, Georgie!'

  As she had anticipated, the sesame bread seller was cycl­ing along 28th October Street. She stopped and bought a bag of koullouri and some meli keik, or honey cake. They were not interested now, they were only anxious to get there, but in time the pangs would make themselves known and they would seize on the paper bag.

  Barely had she stopped the car than they were out and racing to the co
op. She found herself racing after them, her heart thumping. For suddenly she knew that this was very important, important to two small boys and a larger girl. If the Pink One had escaped, if the Pink One had met with a disaster, she might as well pack her bags.

  Then: 'Hullo, hullo,' she heard Bish calling joyously.

  'How are you, my friend?' called Seg.

  Georgia did not know she had been crying until a drop ran into her mouth. Then she laughed.

  'There's a bag of sesame rolls when you feel like eating them,' she called.

  'Mm,' they nodded.

  'I'll go back now. I'll be as quick as I can.'

  'Buy a spade,' directed Bish. 'I think this ground is harder than the Pink One had before, so we'll have to dig for him.'

  'Bring some sea things with you,' said Seg.

  'That will be your job,' she tossed back. 'When we get things fixed we'll go down to the shore and find some mol­luscs.'

  They did not reply. They were squatted down again, re­peating last night's adoration. It was as good a time as any to slip away, so Georgia did.

  Back at the hotel things still were not stirring, so Georgia spent a busy half hour packing up for the boys, and for herself. Though she hesitated doing it, she supposed that since Mr. Smith would be moving, too, she had better pack for him. Feeling guilty… yet why should she?… she went into his part of the apartment and began taking suit coats off hangers, trousers off clips. She could not do the lot, not knowing what he intended to change into, but this lot at least would help with their evacuation. She bundled out socks, very large in the feet, she noticed, pullovers both sleek and rough, a jacket with leather patches where he would wear a sleeve out writing. She held that jacket an odd moment, aware sharply of a male tang she had not smelt for years. Not since Justin. A kind of tobacco, after-shave, pencil, pepperminty smell.

  'Is it in need of dry-cleaning, or are you just holding it to your heart?' His edges-filed-off Strine voice came across the room to her. He must have entered the suite and she had not heard him. He looked at the evidence of evacuation, and said: 'What in tarnation is all this?'

  Georgia flushed… she seemed always to be either flushing or reddening before this man, a fact, she was to learn later, that also had struck him… and said defensively, 'You did instruct me to find somewhere to move.'

  'I did, but good lord, you couldn't have achieved it in this short a time.'

  'Yes,' she said.

  'Even to the extent of actually beginning the change of address?'

  'Yes,' again.

  'But only yesterday you told me that you had merely reached a stage of taking notes.' He made his tone delib­erately awed, and it irritated her.

  When she did not answer, he said: 'Something jumped out at you, Miss Paul? Bells rang? A domicile opened up in-beckoning arms?'

  'You are ridiculous!' she retorted.

  'An old association captured you again and you signed on the spot?'

  This time she did not speak, for she was remembering instead, thinking… and now it came fully back to her… of standing with Justin during one of their carefree jaunts quite near to that hill house, looking out as she had looked yester­day over translucent sea, silver leaves of olive, Indian-files of carobs, gourds lying golden in ochre fields. Just looking… and knowing she loved the man who looked with her.

  'Aha,' Agrippa Smith pounced, 'so an association has won us a home much quicker than I thought.'

  'No,' she refuted, 'it was—' She stopped. She must go carefully about the Pink One. If she burst it out, he might refuse point-blank, and what she had gained with Bish and Seg would be gone for ever.

  He did not seem to notice her anxiety. 'Well,' he said, 'out was what I wanted and I'm not grumbling because you were quicker at it than I anticipated. But why the mad rush?' He indicated the bags. 'It's not even breakfast time yet.'

  'I was up, so I thought I'd attend to it.'

  'Couldn't sleep, eh? Bad conscience?'

  'My conscience is clear.'—Well, fairly clear, she thought; there is still the matter of your two small sons some miles out at Amathus, while I, their paid companion, or guardian, or whatever I am, am here.

  'Again I have no cause to grumble,' he admitted. 'You've obviously packed for yourself, the boys, and now you are attending to me.'

  'I was only doing some of your things, I wouldn't have touched anything personal.' Her glance went to a photo­graph on his desk… an oddly familiar photograph, some­how, yet she did not know why, for she had never seen the woman in the leather oval before. In the quick glance she gave it, though, she saw something of Bish, something of Seg, and knew why she recognized the likeness. It was their mother—Agrippa Smith's wife.

  'Nothing personal,' he shrugged, and the careless way the photograph was deposited… never placed, never arranged… agreed with that. He would be a hard man, she thought, this Agrippa Smith.

  'You never answered me,' he reminded her. 'Does my writing jacket need the cleaner's attention?'

  'No.'

  'Then you were holding it to your heart?'

  To her dismay she heard herself answering, 'It's a long time since I handled men's clothes… I'd forgotten that different smell…' Again she was flushing.

  He gave a low little laugh that made her flush even deeper. She turned to leave the room.

  'No, Miss Paul, please finish. If we're to move, I'll cer­tainly need to remove my things. Tell me about this place, please.'

  He was taking armfuls of clothes from the wardrobe, dumping them on the bed, waiting for her to answer him as she folded and filled a suitcase he also had taken out.

  'It's at Amathus, which is old Limassol—Richard Coeur de Lion's port. It's high on a hill… quite nice… a large garden… plenty of rooms.'

  'That's important,' he inserted drily, 'plenty of space so we don't get in each other's hair.'

  Another flush on her part, a flush that spelt guilt, told him that she had thought in the same strain. Oh, heavens, why couldn't she control her rushing colour?

  Again the little amused… hateful… laugh.

  'Was your meeting a success?' she asked politely, folding his ties now.

  'Very much so. Whatever you've promised to pay for your in-beckoning house we can well afford it.' He began enclos­ing his typewriter in its case, gathering up his books. 'The young fry are quiet even for them,' he observed. 'Have they fed yet?'

  'Yes.' The zoo again, she thought angrily. But she felt entitled to answer Yes, since the boys would have eaten by now; the sight of the Pink One gorging on worms would have given them worms, they would sniff the cooling sesame bread and follow the smell to the large paper bag. She did not tell him what they would be breakfasting on, or where, and would not have later if it had not been asked of her, had not Katarina run in at that moment and staged the same scene as she had yesterday.

  'Oh, madam, oh, sir, they are gone again!—the little ones. I bring up their boiled eggs and cocoa and what do I find? No children, none at all.'

  'They're all right, Katarina,' Georgia said definitely, so definitely that the girl accepted it, and bustled out again.

  But Agrippa Smith did not accept it. 'How did she mean,' he asked, 'gone again?

  'They—they went off yesterday,' she faltered.

  'After I left?'

  'Yes.'

  'Presumably they returned, to go missing now a second time. Though this time you say you know where.'

  'Yes. It's the house.'

  'At this time of morning?'

  'They're keen on the house,' she explained.

  'Well, I suppose that at least is something, that they're not entirely without interest'

  'Oh, no,' came in Georgia quickly, enthusiastically, 'not at all.'

  'You intrigue me,' he drawled. 'I can't wait. But first of all, who's with them out there?'

  She stood very inadequate. In bare words it must sound bad when she said 'No one', but it still had to be said.

  'You mean to tell me you've
left two small boys alone in the house?'

  'I don't think for a minute they'd be in the house.'

  'If you're trying to be funny, Miss Paul—'

  'I wasn't. They wouldn't be in the house, they would be in the garden—a large garden.'

  'Yes, you said so.'

  'And they would be safe. Cyprus is very safe for children and women.'

  'If they stayed there. But can you see boys staying in a garden? No, they'll be down on the motorway watching the cars, crossing the motorway to the beach. At least'… furi­ously… 'I hope they manage to cross without being run over.'

  'They won't leave the garden,' she assured him.

  Have you tied them up? Because I don't believe the love of flowers will keep them there.'

  He will, though. The Pink One.'

  There was a silence—a long silence. Then Agrippa Smith said practically: 'Are you ill, Miss Paul?'

  'No. The Pink One is a flamingo. It—it's my break­through.'

  'Please go on.'

  'They found it. It was to be FIamey, or Rose Red Morn­ing Cloud.'

  'Miss Paul, you are ill.'

  'But I said Hush, that the pink one was becoming alarmed, so the Pink One he became.'

  'I see.' Agrippa Smith's tone implied very conclusively that he saw nothing at all. 'And,' he smiled fatuously, 'he's a flamingo.'

  'Left behind when the others went south.'

  'And you discovered him?'

  'The boys did—I told you. So we had to get a house for him. Oh, I know all about conservation and wild life, Mr. Smith, and how it's often unkind to fauna to be kind to them, but could it be unkind not to be dead, because if they left him he would be dead.' Bish had said that, and she had followed him, but could Agrippa Smith follow her?

  He did—though faintly.

  'He's there at Amathus?'

  'Yes.'

  'The boys are guarding him?'

  'He doesn't need to be guarded, they're friends.'

  'Have you attended to servants for the house? For pro­visions? For the supply of light and water?'

  'No… but there's a bag of rolls.'

  He ignored that. 'But you've attended to the establishing of one flamingo?'

  'Yes.'

  Another silence, longer than before, then: 'And I chose you to prepare these boys for a more practical life.'