Flamingo Flying South

by Joyce Dingwell

  Mischievously she said, 'I wouldn't charge any more.'

  He shook his head. 'I'm going into town to see if I can find an agency. It occurred to me that you might like the run in, it must get monotonous lying here.'

  It didn't, but she did like the idea, and said so.

  He went outside to bring the car up to the door, and she slid off the divan and hobbled to her drawer for a scarf to tie round her hair. She was in the passage by the time he re­turned, and with an ejaculation of annoyance he came quickly forward and gathered her up in his arms.

  'You damn nuisance, Miss Paul!' he exclaimed crossly.

  'I'm not an invalid,' she protested.

  'You would be if you slipped.'

  'I have no intention of slipping.'

  'Your instructions were to rest the injury for three weeks. Is it three weeks?'

  'No, but—'

  She could not answer any more as she was being man­handled, and not as gently as she could have been, into the car. But he did make her comfortable before he started off.

  He was unsuccessful. He found no copying office, and the employment bureau had no one on their books at present desirous of temporary work only.

  'It will have to be me,' Georgia smiled.

  They were sitting in the car, and rather than carry her to one of the outdoor cafes, Grip had had a tray brought across to them, bearing the usual iced water as well as the thick dark coffee, sunflower seeds, grapes.

  'Do you touch type?' he said unexpectedly, and she looked at him, surprised. 'A touch-typist just spins along,' he explained inadequately.

  'You're in a hurry for this manuscript?' she asked.

  He hesitated. 'What I really meant,' he said presently and a little awkwardly… awkward? this man?… 'is that in touch it's the operation and not the subject.'

  'If you mean do I absorb what I type, the answer is no, or, from my training, that's what it's supposed to be. A student with an eye to becoming a good confidential secretary is strictly drilled in that at business school.' She half-smiled. 'I wasn't the gold-medallist of the year, but I got through!'

  He said no more. He returned the tray, drove the long way home through villages to give her a change of scenery, then once more, upon arrival, carried her to her room.

  'Thank you,' Georgia said.

  There was nothing more on the subject until the next day, when, once more, Grip Smith came to Georgia's door.

  'May I?' he asked. He walked in and stood beside the divan.

  'I'm taking you up on that offer, Miss Paul.' At her puz­zled look, he said a trifle offhandedly, 'The typing offer. You'll be remunerated, of course.'

  'Then I won't do it. It's too absurd, Mr. Smith, I'm not doing anything as it is.'

  'You are by being here.'

  'But that's nothing constructive,' she objected.

  'I'll be the judge of that. About this typing—'

  'I will not be paid for it!' Georgia insisted.

  'I want it done, so I'll agree to that. Do you think it will tire you to sit up?'

  'My back isn't injured.'

  'I could fix up a table, a suitable chair.'

  'Mr. Smith, there's nothing wrong with me!'

  'You can have a stool for your foot.'

  'If it will satisfy you,' she nodded, 'I'll agree to that.'

  'You see,' he explained, with a lack of composure she had never seen him betray before, 'I've done this thing, and—well—well, I'd like to get it in typescript for my second checking. I could attend to it myself, but I've a current affairs deadline to meet.'

  'Please yourself which you give me,' she told him.

  'I do the current affairs direct on the machine,' he infor­med her. 'When it comes to facts my fingers are an extension of my brain. But when… well…' He was actually fumbling a little, she saw.

  Presently he said, 'I've two machines, I'll bring you the lighter of them, you wouldn't be a banger like I am.'

  'Very well,' she agreed.

  He fixed up the table, fixed up the chair and stool. He checked his writing with her to see if she followed it without trouble. She did. It was surprisingly neat writing for a large person. She assured him there would be no worry.

  'So you'll be able to spin through.' Once again he spoke a little oddly.

  Georgia expected he meant speed through it, and she nodded. After he had left, she estimated the length to be that of a smallish book, more a novelette than a novel. She slid in the paper and began.

  She was a good typist, but she had not, as she had told him, graduated as top of the school. She had liked her job for the freedom it gave her… no preparatory work after hours as for teachers, no sudden calls as for nurses… and she believed she had schooled herself to be fairly mechanical in her execution. Not as much as some, she had seen girls type every word, every punctuation mark, yet still not lose one second.—'You must read copy, not absorb it,' her teacher had told her. 'There must be no contemplation.' She resolved to do this now.

  She typed all day, quite enjoying being useful instead of an ornament, enjoying time speeding by instead of having to be filled in.

  The neat pile of typescript grew. Georgia reckoned she was halfway into the book. Then— Insidiously, the theme, the tune, the mood of what she was typing seeped into her. She paused, and turned back a few pages… turned back a few pages more.

  Then she had the manuscript on her lap and was reading it, not just reading it to copy it, but reading it. Feeling laughter in her… feeling tears… feeling something secret and haunting and very lovely. For that was what it was: a love story.

  'So you don't just type.' Grip Smith had not waited to be asked in this time, he came in and took the manuscript from her hands.

  'I'm sorry,' she stammered.

  'It's my fault, I should have known it would be impossible for you to copy and not absorb.'

  'It isn't impossible, I do it. But—'

  'But?'

  'Somehow this came through,' she faltered.

  'You really mean you were curious what I was so anxious about, so you probed.'

  'I mean nothing of the sort. It just—well, reached me.'

  'And since then you haven't stopped laughing.'

  'What do you mean, Mr. Smith?'

  'The factual Agrippa caught up in the web of love. What a joke!'

  'You're wrong,' she protested.

  'I was wrong believing a female when she assured me she'd do what I asked and nothing more.'

  'I tell you I never had that idea.'

  'On the other hand,' he ignored her, 'I should be flattered that you took that much interest in me, enough interest to probe.'

  'I didn't probe!'

  'But you read the damn copy, didn't you?'

  'Yes, I did. Or some of it before you came in. Do you want to know what I found ?'

  'No, I don't.' He took up his manuscript roughly, then turned to go through the door. Suddenly and angrily he came back and took up the pages she had completed and tore them across.

  'You'll be recompensed,' he snapped.

  'For what? I was only filling in time.'

  'All the same, you put in some hours you wouldn't have otherwise.'

  'It was a diversion.'

  'And an amusement?'

  'Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Smith, how temperamental can you get?'

  That hit home. She saw the dull colour creeping up his face. After a while he said, 'I suppose I am a fool.'

  'You are,' she assured him.

  'Forget the whole thing.'

  'You're the boss,' she shrugged.

  'And that's how you consider me?'

  'Of course. How else?'

  He looked at the book, at her, then ran the tip of his tongue round his lips. She saw he was about to say some­thing, and felt herself stiffening in anticipation, feeling that sensation one received when one is going to hear something that is important to them.

  'Georgia.' She had been concussed when he had called 'Georgie' that day, so she h
ad never heard anything from him when it came to names other than 'Miss Paul', so she looked at him in surprise.

  There was another pause, a pause of preparation, his preparation, then Bish's voice cut through the waiting, cut sharply and anxiously.

  'It's the Pink One, the Pink One… Georgia, Grip, Olympia, Yiannis, Georgiou, Andreas… the Pink One!'

  The wading bird was certainly in a bad way. At first Geor­gia thought he had been attacked; one wing hung useless, he was bleeding. Because his balance was affected by the damaged wing, he veered drunkenly to one side. She felt tears filling her eyes. Beautiful pink bird, how had he come to this?

  Georgiou, who had an intense love of animals and birds, was saying savagely that he would get that cruel shooter, but Grip, who had been looking objectively at the flamingo, said it was a landing injury, no bullet, no marauder of any sort, that the bird had inflicted it upon himself. He was, after all, Grip said, for all his maturity now, through circumstances not long on the wing, inexperienced in fact, and evidently he had misjudged.

  'He found Georgie.' It was Bish, defensive for the Pink One and his flying ability.

  'Yes, he did well there, but today he spiked himself.' Grip was approaching the bird carefully, extending his fingers to it, soothing it with little comforting sounds.

  Amazingly amiable, even in its distress, the flamingo al­lowed him to take him in his arms and examine him.

  'Shall I have Georgiou and Andreas fix up the coop so as he can rest?' asked Georgia.

  'No.'

  'But he'll need to be confined to regain his strength.'

  Across the pink and white bird, Grip caught and held Georgia's eyes, held them unmistakably, held them significantly.

  But you can't let him die without trying first, Georgia's own eyes said back to him.

  It would be cruel to try, flicked his. It would be against nature. I'm going to do the only kind thing — take the chil­dren away. Don't make it harder for me.

  No!

  Do as I say.

  No.

  Even if he recovered he would be miserable.

  We don't know for sure, do we?

  Georgia, stop this nonsense.

  NO! No words had been said during all this, but their eyes fought it out, the others watching silently.

  Then Georgia said aloud: 'Andreas, rig up the coop. Ol­ympia, bring a bowl of warm water and bandages. Bring rags. Bring tapes.'

  She turned challengingly to Grip Smith, but he had gone. Well, that was better than still fighting her, but she could have done with his co-operation. There was to be none. She heard him get in his own car that he had bought and leave the house on the hill in a hurry. Probably in a rage as well; All right then, if that was how he wanted it…

  She permitted the boys to remain with her so they could soothe as she worked on the damaged bird. He was a re­markable one, she felt sure at times she must have hurt him, but not once did that down-curved bill lift to attack her back.

  Georgiou and Andreas were fixing the old coop, making a floor of clean sand, putting in bowls of water. Because they badly needed something else to do, something more positive than soothing, Georgia directed Bish and Seg to find food, and, as soon as they had run off, settled herself to the more serious task of taping the bird up.

  It took a long time, and she was not aware that the sweat was running down into her eyes and that her hair was soaked, until a handkerchief mopped her brow.

  'Right,' said Grip Smith, 'lay off now, the expert is here.'

  'Expert?' she queried.

  'The aviary curator has sent up his best bird man. Step back while he gives his opinion, but I can tell you now, if it's negative, as by all bird law it should be, I'm not listening to you any more.'

  Georgia saw his reasoning, if sorrowfully. You could not sentence this lovely thing to a caged life, and if it was to be crippled, a cage would be essential for its preservation.

  She stepped back.

  The bird man was examining the flamingo closely. He took his time. Then he got up.

  'Well?' asked Grip. He said to Georgia: 'Mr. Stephanides… Miss Paul.' He waited while they exchanged courtesies, then: 'Well, Mr. Stephanides?'

  'It is hard to say. These birds are never domesticated birds.'

  'This one is,' Georgia said.

  'Perhaps there could be recovery, but what kind of recov­ery?' Mr. Stephanides spread his Hands.

  'We could wait and see.'

  'No,' came in Grip, 'that would be cruel.'

  'You have to give him his chance,' Georgia cried.

  'To be half alive?'

  'On the other hand,' came in Mr. Stephanides, 'he could be a fully recovered bird. As I said, it is hard with an in­stance of his size to estimate the extent of damage, it could be that it is more superficial than we think.'

  'He would have to learn all he has learned alone, and laboriously I should say without any example, all over again,' said Grip.

  'He would do it-he's a very special bird,' fought Georgia.

  'We're getting nowhere,' Grip said. 'I don't want to de­stroy the bird—good heavens, it's the last thing I could want, but I don't want to preserve it for a coop. Not that lovely thing.' He paused. 'Flamingo flying south,' he said, and Georgia saw the Pink One with him, in roseate flight to Kenya.

  'It could be this way, it could be that,' said the bird man, and he made a balance scale of his arms.

  'The children—' appealed Georgia.

  'Would suffer more than if we finished it all now.'

  'If it has to be, which we don't know, even the expert doesn't know.'

  'Oh, girl, girl!' Grip cried.

  'For the bird's sake, for the Pink One's sake, give him a chance,' begged Georgia.

  He stood silent.

  'For my sake,' she said.

  Now he looked at her, and Georgia knew she had never really been looked at by any man before in her life. Never by Justin. This man seemed to be looking right into her. What was he seeing? she thought, suddenly startled. Then she heard him speak. He said the words gruffly.

  'All right, then. For your sake.' He turned to Mr. Step­hanides. 'What is to be done?'

  The man made a gesture. 'The lady has taped the bird as well as I could tape it. Rest is all that is needed now. After that the usual recuperative things, the usual offerings to sick bird… some green food, perhaps, even though ordinarily the diet does not include such variety. Cuttlebone might be advisable. No allowance of any mite infestation. But most of all rest.'

  'How long?'

  'For general health, not long, I think. For wing recovery, as long as it takes the bird.'

  'Thank you,' said Georgia.

  They carried the Pink One to the coop and settled him there. Grip Smith drove the man back to the aviaries, and Georgia sat by the coop talking softly to the bird.

  One thing, she thought, as the sun went down and it started to get dark, there would be no need to worry about warmth. The night air would be little cooler than now.

  Olympia came down. She looked worried, so Georgia told her not to be sad, everything could turn out all right after all, they had just to wait.

  'But those boys,' said Olympia, 'there are not here.'

  The boys! She had forgotten all about the boys! The last she remembered was settling them to the job of finding food for the flamingo. That had been just before her taping of the bird, the taping that had taken all her attention and a great deal of time.

  'They'll be down in one of the gullies with the spade. Tell Andreas to go down to call them home.'

  'He has been, madam.'

  'But they can't have gone far, they would be too anxious about the Pink One to leave him. Unless…'

  Yes, unless… And that was what they would have done, gone down to the beach for 'sea things'. In their anxiety just worms would not have been enough for their 'friend'.

  Forgetting her ankle, Georgia rose sharply, then as sharply drew in a painful breath. She had re-wrenched the wretched thin
g.

  Her little intake of breath came at the same time as Grip's car up the drive. To her relief, even in her pain, two small boys got out… but oh, what a mess! Not just a muddy mess, but a bloody one; they must have fallen on the rocks, for they were scratched and torn.

  She could see that Grip was furious. That unaccustomed father had a lot to learn, she thought.

  He turned on her, and called, 'All right, you're so clever with birds, see what you can do with two little fiends who crossed the motorway and then promptly fell over a cliff, and don't try to defend them by saying they meant well.'

  He said the last words to himself, though; the pain in the barely recovered ankle was sharper than it had been on its first infliction, and Georgia felt herself pitching forward. Well, was her last thought, I'm glad I'm not vomiting this time—anything but that.

  When she awoke she was in bed in the divan, properly in bed… she wondered a little about that… and there were two other beds in the room; it was a regular ward, you could say.

  Sitting in the middle of the room with a book and a pen to write with, no noise from a typewriter to disturb the patients, was Grip Smith.

  He saw Georgia open her eyes.

  'Doctor Smith's Ordeal,' he said of his open pad and poised pen, 'how does that sound?'

  'Your new book?'

  'Yes.'

  'What about Doctor Smith's Decision?' she considered.

  'I made it long ago,' Grip Smith said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  To make it easier for Olympia, they kept it a ward until the patients were moving round again. To carry meals upstairs as well as down when the three plates could be put on the one waggon and wheeled in together would have been an imposition, Grip said, and he was heartily agreed with. Georgia for her part preferred the boys with her; they diverted her, and lately, for a self-sufficient, independent person, she had felt a need of diversion, while the boys… well, it was quite apparent that the boys were becoming fond of Georgia.

  Apart from a few deeper cuts that could become septic, Bish and Seg had got off lightly, their worst punishment had been the removal of oil which had drifted in to that par­ticular beach, and which Olympia, not knowing of any easier way, had tackled with scrubbing brush and soap. The marks of her vigour still showed. Adding to this a few stone bruises, an emotional exhaustion over the Pink One, and you had two small boys not so unwilling to be confined to bed as was time-honoured with small boys.