Flamingo Flying South

by Joyce Dingwell

'Oh, I see.' Again the deliberately unknowing voice, 'As a matter of fact I know Miss Paul. As a matter of fact she is my employee.'

  'Oh,' said Justin, taken by surprise. He looked eagerly at Agrippa Smith—the great Agrippa Smith, Georgia knew he was thinking, impressed. Her lip curled at the non-com­mittal way Grip Smith accepted Justin's anxiously outflung hand, his casual pushing aside of Justin's: 'I always wanted to meet you, Mr. Smith,' with a shrugged:

  'Well, here I am.' He added, 'And your name?'

  'Reynolds.'

  'How are you, Mr. Reynolds.'

  The boat was clear now, and the skipper was turning it about for its return trip to Limassol. The Cypriot spoke to Grip, and once more Grip addressed Justin.

  'Joannides says that if you like he will attend to the tug­ging off of'… a brief pause… 'the Georgia tomorrow.'

  'That would be fine. I expect he's thinking I'm all vari­eties of a fool not to have taken an itemized chart.'

  'I don't think so. In fact I'd be surprised if there was one in existence. Along this stretch of coast there have been six wrecks in the last year, as we were to see while we looked for you.'

  'Yes,' came in Justin, 'and you must tell me about that to further dismay me over my stupidity.'

  'No stupidity,' insisted Grip Smith, 'as you'll realize after I tell you this story. Money was raised for a lighthouse, Joannides tells me, but, after tenders were called, the villagers voted instead for a church.'

  'Putting the responsibility Somewhere Else?'

  'Joannides declares devoutly much more efficiently—for, he says, this stretch has no suitable aspect for a lighthouse, but the light from a church lights everywhere.'

  'We saw its light tonight,' nodded Justin, 'we couldn't believe the day had deserted us.' He accepted a cigarette from Grip, who gave one to Joannides as well, but took out his pipe for himself. 'How did you come to find us?'

  'When Miss Paul did not arrive home after her day's stand-down, we were a little surprised. Though she was not expected officially, she's always very correct in everything she does'… Georgia squirmed… 'and it was foreign of her not to telephone at least if she was going to be late. I ques­tioned the boys and they were unanimous that she would be either digging worms on a Troodos slope or gathering mol­luscs on a stretch by the sea.' He laughed shortly. 'They see life, I'm afraid, Mr. Reynolds, only from a bird's eye view.'

  'Yes, Gigi has told me.'

  'Gigi… oh, of course.' Again Gigi squirmed. 'Kate, my secretary, was all for the shops,' Grip went on. 'She insisted that Miss Paul would have run up to Nicosia. We let it go for some hours, then I decided to do some scouting. Luckily the car I obtained for Miss Paul is a good dusk colour—'

  'Yellow,' murmured Justin.

  'Which made the search easier. I disregarded the worm-seeking, but I did not disregard the beaches. Of late Miss Paul had acquired quite a tan, so I thought the coast would be more likely.

  'I was fortunate—I'd barely examined three beaches when I saw the yellow car parked at the northern end of a small bay. I must admit I was a little concerned to find the car and no girl.'

  You would have been more concerned, thought Georgia unfairly, to find a girl and no car.

  I came back to the hill house and questioned the boys. They were adamant about one thing, and that was that Miss Paul wouldn't drown.' He laughed shortly.

  It was encouragement of a sort, I expect, but I'd noticed when I had examined the bay that boats had been ramped there, and it gave me an idea. I contacted Joannides, and he agreed to search for me. He said he had a pretty fair idea where we might find you, and he was right.' Grip looked at his watch. 'All in all it's taken only a few hours,' he con­gratulated Joannides and himself.

  For the rest of the journey back to Limassol, Grip and Justin talked together, and Georgia was surprised… and a little piqued… at how well they got on. She did not know to what she should put that pique, unless it was feminine frustration that the attention was not on her.

  Justin had read Grip Smith's books, and he was a keen critic. He argued a few issues, but lucidly, intelligently, and Georgia, growing more and more incensed, and not helped by not knowing why she should react like this, saw that Grip really enjoyed his company.

  When they reached the skipper's jetty, though it was Justin who helped Georgia off the boat, it was Grip who put authoritative fingers under her elbow and led her to his car parked by the harbourside.

  'Home for you, Miss Paul, this has been quite an experi­ence. What about you, Reynolds? My hill house? A whisky is called for, surely.'

  'It is, but my hotel—'

  'I understand perfectly, no doubt an alarm is out already.' Grip put his hand out first this time, and Justin took it. 'See Joannides in the morning regarding your Georgia,' he ad­vised. Then he led Georgia to the car.

  They got in silently, he started off without speaking. They went for fully five minutes before Grip broke the quiet. He said: 'Just as well you are sitting down, Miss Paul, and not walking, or you would trip over your bottom lip.'

  She sighed audibly. 'I suppose you're waiting for an ex­planation.'

  'Certainly not. Your free day is precisely that. Had you been within informing distance I would have expected a ring, but you weren't, so that's that.'

  'So that's that,' she said after him.

  'Except…

  Ah, she thought, so here it comes.

  'Yes, Mr. Smith?'

  He turned surprised eyes… at least he made them sur­prised, she thought angrily… on her.

  'You were saying?' she prompted.

  'You must have misheard. I said nothing. Ah, here we are now, and the good Kate at the door anxious over you. That's a homecoming if you like.'

  If I like, thought Georgia—well, I don't like. She felt cross and dishevelled and inadequate. It made it worse that Kate, even in her concern, looked cool, composed and beautiful.

  'Dinner has been kept back,' she said.

  'Ten minutes, Miss Paul,' Grip Smith advised.

  'I don't want any.'

  'Of course you want some,' he said irritably.

  'Grip'… how very accustomed Kate sounded to that, how very accustomed Grip sounded now when he said Kate… 'I believe Georgia knows what she needs. Go and soak in a hot bath, Georgia, then into bed with you, and I'll bring up a tray.'

  'What about the boys?' asked Georgia.

  'Already in bed, and not over-anxious about you, I must admit,' Kate laughed. 'They both appear to have a deep regard for your efficiency.'

  'That's nice, anyway,' Georgia said, and went to her room.

  The next few days went by as though nothing at all had happened. Grip Smith questioned her in no way, made no reference to the affair. She should have been satisfied, for liberty to please herself was what she wanted, but she felt he could at least have made some remark about it in passing, have told her how Justin had fared. For she had not seen Justin since that night.

  She was anxious about his boat, and every time she re­turned from depositing the children at the school she glanced in at the ramp. He was never there.

  Then on the last morning of the week, Saturday morning, for the Cypriot children attended Saturday school for half a day, she turned the corner and saw a car parked. It was the same colour as Justin's, and that was all she concerned her­self with. She had drawn up and got out before she found to her annoyance and embarrassment that it was not the same make of car. It was not Justin who came forward, it was Grip. How could she have forgotten they both had selected a dark-green model?

  'So you, too,' said Grip, 'favour the view from here?'

  She did not turn round to the blue sea, to the cigar-leaf hills and the damson mountains, she looked to the ground instead.

  'You're on your feet now,' he reminded her, 'so you could trip over that bottom lip. You pout a lot, don't you?'

  'What is it you want of me, Mr. Smith?'

  'I? I thought it was you who wanted, you did the pulling up, you showed
the initiative. Or'… after a pause… 'was it the initiative to see not me but someone else?'

  'If you mean—'

  'Yes, I do mean, but let's cut it short. I find it a dreary subject, and not worth any stretching out. Why have you been meeting Mr. Reynolds at this spot?'

  'It's no—'

  'If you're going to say it's no business of mine, skip it, for it is. Anything that happens during your working hours must be my business. Your escapade the other day… night… was nothing to do with me, it was your stand-down, but when you deviate from your line of duty in working hours I have to be interested.'

  'So you're timing me,' she said, 'so long to deliver the boys, so long to return.'

  'No,' he drawled.

  'Then—'

  'Then how do I know you've dallied?'

  'Dallied?' The old-fashioned word put her on edge.

  'Loitered, then. Simply by watching you from my study window, Miss Paul.'

  'You—you snoop!' Her choice of words was childish, and she said it angrily.

  'By no means. It's my habit to stand by a window—most authors do, I should say. When I can't compose at a desk I don't sit there chewing my nails, I move around.'

  'To the window.'

  'Yes,' he said blandly. 'To look out.' As she did not speak, he asked, 'What did you think went on in the office? Two heads never looking up from books?'

  'I really couldn't say,' she said coldly. 'I've never been interested enough to wonder, listen, or'… deliberately… 'look.'

  'Well, I looked,' he said, unperturbed, 'and saw your little rendezvous. Mr. Reynolds, I believe?'

  'If you saw, there is no need to make a question of it. I encountered him one day, and by chance encountered him several times afterwards.'

  'Encountered?'

  'That's what I said.'

  'There was no design?'

  'It's no—' But she stopped herself this time from telling him it was no business of his. 'No fixed design,' she shrugged.

  'Why this hill?' he demanded.

  'Because'… with a sudden resigned rush… 'we used to come here.' There, it was out. She had nothing to be ashamed of—why did this man, this hateful Grip Smith make something clandestine of it?

  'So, the truth at last! Why didn't you tell me it was the pull of the island that influenced you to accept my employ­ment offer when you did and not the pull of two small boys?'

  'Because it was the two small boys who pulled. The—the other was over years ago.'

  'For you? For him?'

  'For both of us.'

  'Yet you both met on a nostalgic hill?'

  'Mr. Smith, working hours or not, this is not your business,' she said angrily.

  There was a pause, then: 'No. No, it isn't,' he said, and his voice was suddenly subdued. 'I'm sorry, Miss Paul.'

  'It's nothing,' she shrugged.

  'I did not snoop on you, as you put it, I just looked down and saw a girl and a man on a hill.' He paused. 'As you met once before.'

  'Yes. Years ago.' She felt beyond argument now.

  'So something happened that you did not reach the usual joyful conclusion of two people on a hill?' He said it so kindly she could not possibly resent it.

  'Nothing happened,' she answered dully. 'It simply ended there.'

  'And has started again?'

  'No. I mean—'

  'You mean?'

  'I don't know. Please, Mr. Smith, do we have to go on like this?'

  'No. But tell me, please, before we close the subject, why didn't you stage that usual joyful conclusion?'

  She did not answer.

  'Didn't you want the happy ever after-ing?'

  'Yes, I did.' It was out before she could stop it. 'But Justin didn't.' She put her hand to her mouth. She was trem­bling.

  'And now?' he persisted.

  'Can't I go up to the house, please, do some work, after all this is in working hours.'

  Grip moved across and opened the door of the little yellow car for her. He made it clear with a small shrug of his shoulders that he would not probe any more.

  'Work well,' he advised, 'for myself, I'll be away until tonight.'

  He bowed as she sparked the engine to life, then ascended again.

  Up at the house, Georgia went down to the coop and let the Pink One out for a scratch and a scrape in the ground. It was not because they feared the wading bird would fly off that the Pink One was cooped—that, thought Georgia sadly, was the least of their fears—but because rest was still needed, and that always with an imprisoned bird there was a certain likelihood of harm from a marauder.

  The Pink One explored busily, but never once, sighed Georgia, tried those lovely wings. Had he experimented, and failed, so was he frightened to begin again?

  She got up, looked cautiously around her, then made a flapping movement with her arms. The Pink One looked away. He knows, Georgia felt.

  'Well, now I've seen everything.' Kate joined her. 'A human trying to teach a bird to fly! No, Georgia, I'm not laughing. Would you be surprised if I confess I sometimes do it myself? Georgiou and Andreas, too. The boys, of course. Possibly Grip. But I didn't come down for that. You're wanted on the phone, the caller is waiting.' For a brief moment there was a little frown in Kate's lovely violet eyes; she seemed to be trying to reach at something that eluded her.

  'Thanks, Kate.' Georgia was on her way.

  It was Justin at the other end.

  'Hullo there, Gigi, think I'd flown out?'

  'I knew you'd have a lot to do, though I've been glancing fn at the ramp.'—I got out, too, once, she could have added.

  'No need for that,' he assured her, 'not with an official invitation to dinner.'

  'Have you?'

  'I had it that evening, you couldn't have been attending.'

  'Perhaps.'

  'I would have availed myself earlier, only Georgia has been quite a trouble.'

  'Have I?'

  'Not you, nor were you ever.' His answer was quick arid warm. 'No, Gigi—Georgia, boat variety.'

  A slight pause, then again from Justin: 'Was it the sec. who answered just now?'

  'Yes. Why?'

  Another pause, then: 'Nothing. Nothing at all. I want you to ask if I can take up that invitation.'

  'Must I?'

  'We want to see each other, don't we, and if you're like me pulling in at a ramp isn't quite the way you'd prefer.'

  'No,' she sighed.

  'Then ask would it be all right some night this week. Look, is Agrippa Smith there now?'

  'No.'

  'Then not to worry, I'll ask him myself. When will he be back?'

  'This evening.

  'Good.'

  She inquired rather perfunctorily, 'How is the boat?'

  'Your namesake is as perfect as the one it was called after. When are you coming out again?'

  Somehow the prospect did not delight her any more. 'We'll discuss it when you come for dinner,' she evaded.

  'That will be fine. No, don't worry your little head, don't be bashful, for that's what's really holding you up, isn't it—you don't like asking your big boss for permission to have me there, even though he asked me himself, so I'll do it, Gigi. 'Bye now. Love.' He rang off.

  She put the phone down and saw that Kate had returned to the house. The girl gave Georgia a rather long look.

  When she collected the boys that afternoon they were full of excitement. It was to be a festival time.

  'Karnivali… Karnivali!' they cried, in the Greek manner.

  From her last stay in Cyprus, Georgia knew that the car­nival period came somewhere around St. Valentine's Day, and she told the children they were months too soon.

  'No, no,' they insisted, 'there are many festive days, this is the harvest happiness, there will be lights and clowns and glikisma and siokolata'… they said cake and chocolate with the ease that children do learn the pleasant things before verbs in a foreign language… 'all sorts of fun.'

  Bish drew a big breath. 'But
most of all—'

  'The masks,' finished Seg.

  'We must buy masks,' they both clamoured, 'then we go from house to house in the masks for money.'

  'For the hospital?' asked Georgia.

  'No.'

  'For animals?'

  'No.'

  'For poor children?'

  'For us,' they explained.

  Georgia was horrified, and said so, but the boys, upon arrival at the hill house, ran off and did not listen.

  She said she was horrified again at dinner… Grip was back by now… and told Kate and Grip what the pair intended.

  'I won't create,' Grip shrugged.

  'For charity, yes, but for themselves!' protested Geor­gia.

  'They spoke about it before to me, and I asked Olympia. Children indeed do wear fancy dress and masks and invade other homes for handouts. It's considered quite all right when the period is carnival.'

  'But our children'… Georgia flushed, and hated herself for his amused eyes on her pink cheeks… 'these children have more than enough.'

  'It might interest you,' Grip drawled, 'to learn that I haven't given them more than a hundred mil between them for pocket-money per week since I was dumped with them.'

  Georgia stiffened at that 'dumped', but she had to see his good sense as regarded their money. She wondered how they had accepted it—they had never complained to her; perhaps like all children the discipline had made them feel secure.

  'Then I'm to buy their masks?' she asked.

  'Goodness, no! Masking time is a very private affair, it's kept strictly secret. Bish won't even know what Seg has chosen, and vice versa. None of their schoolmates will di­vulge their choice. Also, once on, the mask is never removed for identification. Even though they choke for breath, they see the secret out. Or so I'm told.'

  'Well,' said Georgia, 'it looks as if I'll be driving them to Limassol, then, waiting in the car.'

  'No, you'll be in the adult section of the store choosing a mask yourself.'

  'I will?'

  'Adults recognize carnival as well.'

  'You know a lot more of Cyprus than I do.'

  'But you were only here one remembered summer,' he said carefully.

  'And you?' she asked.

  'Not here at all, but I've been years in Greece, in Rhodes, Crete, and more or less the same customs prevail. So look out for a disguise, Miss Paul. You, too, Kate. Your friend of the boat incident'… he was looking now at Georgia again… 'has rung me up and reminded me that I've invited him to dinner. I feel confident he'll participate as well. Tomorrow night for that dinner. I thought, and we can ar­range a night out for the adults as a tribute to carnival. What do you say?'