Flamingo Flying South

by Joyce Dingwell

  'It is preparation in a way,' she cried. 'From the look on their faces I think this has been their first association with something living but not human.'

  'And you think that's necessary?'

  'Very necessary.'

  There was a third pause. It seemed to go on for ever. It must preface, Georgia felt sure, her walking ticket, her way out of his employ, and suddenly, quite desperately, she wanted this job, she wanted it for Bish and Seg, she wanted it for— She gave a little start, annoyed at herself, annoyed at the way her eyes had dropped to that jacket she had held, that tobacco, after-shave, pepperminty male jacket.

  Again she was going red.

  Then she heard him saying, 'You think living things but not human are necessary… well, so do I. What are we waiting for, Miss Paul?' He turned and went to the door.

  She came after him, out of the room, out of the hotel. At a nod she got behind the wheel of the new car again while he sat beside her. She hoped she drove satisfactorily, but she would not have been surprised at anything she did.

  She didn't do anything, though. She drove smoothly and efficiently to the house above Amathus.

  He said as they approached the tall, white, blue-shuttered edifice: 'Fair enough.'

  'It's a good view.' She glanced back at the sea, the olives, carobs, fields of gourds… Justin. And flinched.

  He was looking at her shrewdly, and she knew he would have something to say later on; little would ever miss this man.

  'He's down in the fold of the two slopes. Oh, dear, I forgot to buy the spade! Then we'll have to get molluscs as well. I thought down in the bay—'

  She was preceding him to the bottom of the garden, showing him the way. When they were halfway there, she ran, ran in panic. What if the flamingo had flown off, the boys run after him?

  She rounded a bush and saw the same picture that she had carried away with her when she had left them—two adoring small people sitting beside a complacent bird. She went and sat herself.

  'He'll come to you now, Georgie,' Bish told her. 'Just put out your hand and stroke his bill.'

  'He'll try to eat your finger, but not really,' advised Seg, 'and anyway it doesn't hurt much if he does, only a sort of tickle.'

  She put out her hand.

  That was how Grip Smith saw her… and would always think of her. A pink wading bird, a pink girl. For if ever a girl could be expressed in colour, this girl was pink. Either blushing, or flushing, or reddening, or crimsoning… but roseate.

  He stood staring, seeing the girl merge into the satin per­fection of perhaps nature's most glorious bird until you could not say in certainty where the roseate story began, where it finished; you were only aware of pink.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  But when Grip Smith, having examined the house sur­rounds, entered the house, he was the factual world affairs man again, no pink in him at all.

  Standing nervously beside him, aware as she looked with him that this was one of the several houses yesterday (for there had been many, too many) that she had not personally probed, that she had accepted as duly scrutinized, Georgia became embarrassingly aware of her inadequacies in the very first commission he had handed her.

  It was a beautiful house, as many Cypriot houses are, gracious of line, never a square where a curve could in­terpret the need, arched, fluted, flowing. And full of nothing at all.

  She should have remembered that fact, she should have recalled that a house in Cyprus 'To Be Let' generally meant just that—only the house. Everything to make it a home must be purchased or hired. She could only excuse her fail­ure now in recalling this fact to seeing a little furniture in the houses that she had examined, probably leftovers from the last tenants. She did not look up at Grip Smith looking down a canyon of emptiness, she looked at the floor, a lovely glowing polished timber floor that merged into marble, since the next room was summer-designed.

  Oh, there were certainly chairs, a score of chairs, for the Cypriots believed in chairs. They sat under trees in them. They took them out to the sidewalk and sat in the sun in them. They took them into fields with them as they watched their flocks. They went everywhere. Always light, raffia-bottomed chairs, village chairs, as they were called.

  'You sleep sitting up, Miss Paul, I see.' Grip Smith's voice came in drily. He walked into the next room to another gaping emptiness. Another room, all the rooms. Only chairs.

  'I'm sorry.' Georgia had come up behind him.

  He held up his hand. 'Fortunately my financial news yes­terday was good news. Take out your little black book, Miss Paul, and write down what I tell you.' Without waiting for any more apologies, he began smartly. 'Lounge: One settee, three easy chairs, coffee tables, standard lamp.'

  He left the room smartly, and she had to run to keep up with him. They did not do every room, the house had more rooms than they would need, but by the time he had finished the list was formidable, and there were no drapes in­cluded.

  'I could make the curtains,' she proffered uncertainly.

  'Do you wish to add a sewing machine to that column?' he asked brutally.

  'By hand, Mr. Smith.'

  He gave a gesture of impatience. 'I don't want to wait a month for privacy, there are many windows to this house should you care to count. On the other hand, I have no intention of tacking up cardboard.' He paused, undoubtedly to let his censure sink in deeper. Then he instructed: 'Add drapes to the list.'

  She did.

  'Perhaps,' he said after they had finished, 'though you didn't remember that Cypriot houses To Be Let are like this, you might remember if we're anywhere near a fur­niture-hire shop.'

  'Yes,' she said eagerly, 'a good one by the port.'

  'Then come along, Miss Paul.'

  'What about the children?' she queried.

  'They can come, too, if you can prise them away. I don't intend making a habit of leaving them alone like this, but until I get some domestic staff it will have to be so, but what would be the use of staff without anything to be staffed?'

  The children did not even consider coming; they looked pityingly at the two adults for suggesting such an inane thing, and answered an uncompromising No. As Georgia got into the car, beside Grip this time, she started to apolo­gize again, then was surprised by his sudden, quite unex­pected boyish grin. It changed him completely. From the world affairs writer he became a chatty columnist, she thought. She would have liked to have told him so, and the present expression on his face made her think he would have accepted it.

  'Not to worry,' he dismissed her apology. 'I would prob­ably have hated the sticks, anyway. Now we can choose our own sticks.'

  But sticks they certainly were not. Every piece that Grip Smith decided on was a very special article. When he came to her bedroom setting Georgia protested that something plain and utilitarian was all right, thank you. He brushed her words aside, and she saw a low, deeply upholstered bed-divan being earmarked, a low, deeply upholstered bedroom chair, a table with a mirror that could fit an entire room in its capacious reflection.

  'Mr. Smith, I—' she began.

  'Now the boys. Single rooms? Double?'

  'Double room.'

  'I think so, too. Beds or divans?'

  'I was wondering about a double decker bed.'

  'Good thinking,' he nodded. 'It could prepare them for more crowded living than their pampered years so far have done.'

  They went through the whole gamut… scatter-rugs to soften the first morning impact of marble or timber floors, office setting, dining setting, sunroom setting, bathrooms. The curtains came last, and, by mutual agreement, were plain white voile.

  'So,' Grip Smith said.

  They were sitting under a canopy by the harbour drinking coffee by this time, not because they were thirsty, for the very impressed furniture hirer had kept up a continual supply of drink and nourishment delivered by a small boy on a tray from a café next door, but because it had been rather tiring.

  'I'd sooner,' admitted Grip Smith, 'write
a chapter than that.'

  The furniture was going up at once. The furniture man had been instructed where to place it As soon as they had rested they would call at the employment bureau and obtain a cook, a maid, a gardener and an odd job boy.

  'All that isn't necessary,' Georgia protested; she still felt guilty.

  'I've only been on this island a short time, but I can see it is,' he refused, and she knew from her last time in Cyprus that he was right. Help was an established thing, an ex­pected thing. Also, it turned the wheels of the republic's economy.

  She became aware that Grip Smith had not spoken for several minutes. She glanced at him, and saw that he was gazing at the water, that incredibly blue Mediterranean water, the deep pure blue of larkspurs, except where it touched the horizon and changed to misty veronica.

  'And to think,' he wondered sadly of the loveliness, 'that we're talking about pots and pans!'

  He looked back from the water to her… but Georgia could not answer his gaze. All at once ridiculously shy, she had lowered her gaze. Then she looked up in shock again. 'But we didn't,' she remembered.

  'Didn't what?'

  'Talk about pots and pans, arrange for the kitchen. We left out the kitchen.' She half rose. He went to stop her, press her down again, then he shrugged at the water, an ironic shrug of defeat.

  'If you worked on paper, it would certainly be in the domestic hints column,' he said unkindly. 'You'd go for butter always, wouldn't you, never lilies.'

  'You say that?' she answered, incensed. 'A factual man?'

  'Oh, come along,' he dismissed impatiently, leading the way across the street to the hirers once more, 'and add basins and kettles to the list.'

  The cook they obtained was a man, Yiannis, and he said he understood what English people liked.

  'We want Cyprus food, too,' said Grip Smith.

  'Ah,' smiled Yiannis in a manner that promised future food for the gods.

  Olympia was the maid, Georgiou the gardener. Georgia chose Georgiou, even though Grip Smith protested that their two names would be confusing… how could they be when she to him was strictly Miss Paul?… because she saw him talking to a dog, and an attachment to animals… fauna… could be an advisable trait with the Pink One in close settlement. Andreas was the odd-job boy.

  By noon everything was delivered and everybody was there, the furniture, drapes, pots and pans, cook, maid, Grip Smith and Georgia in the house, the gardener, odd-job boy, children and flamingo outside the house. They were all kept busy the remainder of the day.

  But by sundown everything was shipshape; tomorrow Agrippa Smith could sit down at his desk again and turn out concise, astringent current-affairs copy, Yiannis could cook his food-for-the-gods meals, Olympia flutter her duster, Georgiou dig around the magenta and yellow roses that ran rife in the garden, Andreas do as he was told, and Georgia take the boys down to the sea for sea things for the Pink One.

  'A little browning up during the process,' advised Grip Smith, 'wouldn't hurt.'

  When she asked Bish and Seg what colour trunks they would like her to buy for them… Mr. Smith had opened an account in one of the larger Limassol stores… they said pink, which, though unsuitable for boys, was still better than their previous 'It doesn't matter' which they had used almost as frequently as 'Not much'. Resigning herself to some quiet persuasion for a more male and less flamingo-faithful hue, Georgia was pleased to hear Bish add that already they had swimming equipment. That was what he actually said: 'We have swimming equipment.'

  She rummaged through their expensive cases and found several smart silk morsels. The labels said Biarritz. Poor little rich boys, she thought. But if they hadn't been really rich when they were rich, they were rich now. Rich in the Pink One. Their joy in that bird was a very tender thing.

  It was even a small amputation to leave him to go for the molluscs, but when Georgia pointed out his need for a change of worm diet, they agreed to put on their trunks, their reason the fact that better sea things might be found away from the shore, Georgia's that their pale skins might achieve a golden glow.

  She might even, and she glowed herself at the thought, teach them to swim. She enjoyed that vision. She enjoyed the idea of going casually to Grip Smith, very casually, even offhandedly, and remarking in passing: 'We had a lovely morning swimming—oh, yes, the boys swim. I taught them, didn't I tell you?'

  Poor Georgia! It wasn't that they wouldn't try, it wasn't that they were unteachable. It was just that they swam, and swam competently, already. Swimming out first herself for encouragement, or so she believed, she turned round to jolly them in the water, but they were not on the beach. They were in the Mediterranean, much further out than she was, but blissfully unconscious of that fact, Only concerned with:

  'Mollycules!' shouted Seg, then seeing Bish's scornful ex­pression: 'Mosaics… mollycoddles!'

  'Molluscs, stupid. Just say sea stuff. You're a very babyish boy.'

  'You're a fat pig!'

  'You're a fat porpoise!'

  They splashed water at each other, had they been ashore they would have thrown sand, exchanged punches, believed a surprised Georgia.

  'The boys,' she reported that evening to Grip Smith, 'fought.'

  'So,' he said, and grinned. 'Time to buy some boxing gloves?'

  'If you did I fear you'd find they had them already. Did you know they were good swimmers?'

  'I didn't. But it would add up. The best of tuition in some posh, exclusive European resort pool. Yes, that would be Sigrid.'

  Sigrid. So his wife was Sigrid. It was certainly a family of unusual names. But perhaps it wasn't unusual, perhaps she actually was Norwegian. If so, what right had the lordly head of the house to insist that their children become strictly Australian? What a man, Georgia thought, no halfway meeting where he was concerned, the woman was expected to come all the way; no wonder their marriage stood where it did.

  She looked at that photograph again the next day; she had a charge plate for him to sign for her so she could use it in the store he had nominated.

  The photograph was still as carelessly placed as at the hotel, as though it had only happened there, and in­voluntarily she went to straighten it, put it upright, more centrally placed.

  'Leave it where it is.' His voice snapped irritably at her. 'Better still, take it away.'

  'Away?' she queried.

  'Remove it.'

  'I'll put it in this drawer, Mr. Smith,' she said, 'it'll fall where it is.'

  'It's fallen already,' he said.

  She did not answer. This was no business of hers. But she did give the photograph another look as she opened the drawer. She supposed it must be Bish's and Seg's likeness that made it so strongly familiar.

  The boys were slowly gaining a pale honey hue. She did not know what degree of tan Mr. Agrippa Smith desired, but she was determined they would do it painlessly, which meant gradually, and helped along with lashings of sun­screen. It startled her sometimes when she realized how keenly she had attached herself to these two small people. What had been a challenge before had become something much more intimate. Instead of preening herself over her achievement with the Pink One, she found herself worrying about their future activities, for, although the flamingo seemed as content as his friends were… Bish and Seg always called themselves that, his 'friends'… the summer was well into maturity, some early autumn colours indeed were already showing on the Troodos Mountains, and after autumn was winter, winter when the flamingo squadrons called in at Cyprus as they flew south. This time the smaller, more delicate bird that had been rejected last year, or so Georgia supposed, would join his brothers, and if they objected, then his new strength, quite remarkably built up by worms and sea things as provided in over-lavish quan­tities by Bish and Seg, would afford an entry on power alone. Good for him, she thought, but what of two small bereft boys?

  So she introduced Peaceful, the donkey, Buttons, the dog, Purr, the cat. She had been impressed on her last island stay at the amiabil
ity shown by one island animal to another. One expected that with donkeys, who had an inbuilt peace, hence Peaceful's name, but not with dogs and cats, yet never once had she witnessed a dog and cat fight, and it was the same with this pair, Buttons, called so since his pointer-shape torso was neatly worked in tan coins on a fawnish back­ground, was on the best of terms with Purr, called so since he possessed an engine that could be heard all over the garden. Though not, Georgia trusted, in the library, from where Mr. Smith, since he had settled the household, had barely stirred. It was apparent that he was writing some­thing very important, something that needed all his atten­tion, and for that Georgia was relieved, for she did not know just how that man would take a menagerie.

  She hit upon the idea of introducing the boys to future horseback riding by beginning them now on Peaceful. They looked unenthusiastically back at her when she suggested this, so to show them the ease of being jaunted around as compared to walking, she climbed on to Peaceful herself. He was a dear little donkey, with that gentle mark on him prov­ing that he personally was related to that favoured ancestor who had carried a Precious Load to Bethlehem, but he was also a donkey accustomed to big burdens, great toppling loads of aromatic herbs, lengths of timber, both usually ac­companied by a human burden, with two, three, even more children. The sudden light burden that was an unen­cumbered and slender Georgia surprised him so much that he kicked up his heels in exuberance, and took off.—Where, oh, where, despaired Georgia, hanging on to his fortunately shaggy coat, were all those stubborn donkeys who refused to budge an inch, who had to be shoved? Peace­ful needed no carrot in front of his nose, he simply flew.

  At first it was fun, for the boys, anyway, and though Geor­gia found no fun in bumping up and down, she did resign herself to giving Bish and Seg a few moments of hilarious amusement. Then Peaceful, beginning really to enjoy him­self, beginning to like the wind whizzing past his ears in­stead of merely settling dust on him, must have felt he would also like soft turf under his hooves, the turf he pos­sibly faintly remembered from his small donkey years, when he had sauntered the hills at the back of Limassol by his mother's soft belly.