by Gee, Maurice
‘You’re lucky.’
‘I pay her,’ the old man said. ‘She gets a good wage. I’ve told her if she stays …’
‘Yes?’
‘The thing is, you see, there’s no way I can check up.’
‘If she really is your granddaughter, you mean?’
‘That’s it. She’s May’s daughter all right, same looks. But how can I know if May was mine?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You brought her up as your daughter. So she is.’
‘She ran away.’
‘That’s not Heather’s fault.’
‘It cancelled it. It’s like she said, Stuff you, stuff your orchard.’
‘Heather’s not May.’
‘Ah, you’re soft. I thought an army man … You know what I’m saying: if Heather’s not mine then someone’s got to have it and it’s you.’
‘What about David? What about May?’
‘They lost their chance. Anyway, this is for your mother. Except …’
‘Heather, eh?’
‘I made a kind of promise to that girl.’
‘Keep your promise. I don’t want it. I’ll tell you, Dad, I’d sell it and then it would be gone.’
‘You’re not getting it unless you run it. You could keep that girl as manager. That might be enough for her.’
It would not. Alan heard her through the trees, shouting instructions at the tractor driver. I don’t want any of this, he thought. I don’t want a fight with her, I want to get out. The rights and wrongs were clear, there was no need to consult.
He turned his back on the sea and walked through the trees. His way took him round the back of the shed. He was grateful for that. He was not ready for her. He struck out for the boundary, through the Granny Smiths, but the trees went on and on. The old man had expanded, bought out neighbours, brought in more land. Some of these new trees, strung on wires, would be varieties he had never heard of. Did ‘that girl’ understand it all? How old was she? No one had said. He did not like the stretched branches and the crucified shapes; they were not trees any more but production units. He turned back, blaming her, not liking her.
The duck pond was gone, the fowl shed gone, and where the Jonathans had been more wires stretched away with more tortured saplings strung on them. I can’t run this, he thought. I can’t even own it. It’s not mine.
He circled the house and came into the yard, and Freda, on the patio, said, ‘There you are. You’d better bring your stuff in.’
He got his suitcase from the boot of the car and the bottles of wine from the back seat.
‘How long are you staying?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m here for yet.’
‘Did he give you that eyewash about May not being his?’
He looked at her, surprised. ‘Yes. Has he told – the girl?’
‘Heather? No. He doesn’t even know he’s told me. His mind wanders a bit.’
‘Then she’d know.’
‘If she does she’s keeping quiet. What’s he want you to do about it? Hey, I’m family, I’m not prying.’
‘I don’t know what he wants to do. But I think May should be told.’
‘You must really like trouble.’
‘You think I should keep quiet? Maybe I should.’
She showed him a bedroom whose bareness he liked – wardrobe, bed and chair. ‘I think this is where she wants to put you. I’m off now.’
‘Don’t you stay here?’
‘Me, I’m in the pickers’ hut. I’m nine to five. Well, eight to five. If I stayed here I’d get sucked in.’
‘I see.’
‘Heather looks after him at night. She’s young, she’s got the energy. I can’t do twenty-four-hour shifts.’
‘Does he need night nursing?’
‘He wakes a bit. Yells out. You’ll hear him. She manages all right. Heather likes him. Don’t say anything against him when she’s around.’
‘He likes her too.’
‘Yeah, he does. It’s really nice to see them sometimes.’
He looked at her sharply, suspecting sarcasm – but no, she meant it. ‘God knows, they both need someone in their lives. But nothing funny,’ she added quickly, ‘I don’t mean that.’
‘No, of course.’
‘He tries that on with me. And any other woman that gets close.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m a nurse. We’re used to it. Well, I’ll be off. But look, Alan …’
‘Yes?’
‘This stuff about May not being his. Don’t tell her, eh?’
‘I don’t know whether I’m even seeing her.’
‘Go across. She’d like it. But she’s had a lot of trouble and now she’s coming right, with Evan Yates.’
‘All right.’
‘May and me go back a long way. We were at school.’
He nodded. Good feeling in a woman always drew him. ‘Have one of these,’ he said, pushing a bottle at her. ‘I bought it for May but she can have the other one.’
She took it, startled, then was pleased. ‘Hey, that’s great. We’ll open it now. I could do with a drink.’
‘It’s supposed to be chilled.’
‘I haven’t got a fridge over there. Or an opener either. Come in the kitchen.’
He opened the bottle while she found glasses.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Warm white wine. What’ll we drink to? There’s plenty.’
‘Like what?’
‘Problems to get sorted out. Me and David for one. Let’s drink to my happy divorce.’
‘Which he doesn’t want?’
‘No. Drink to it anyway. Go on. You gave me the bottle so I get to make the toast.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘To your divorce.’ Drank a mouthful. ‘What’s my brother like?’
She drank too. ‘He’s not a nice man. I know I should let you make your own mind up, but I’m a kind of specialist on him. He’s not nice.’
‘That seems to cover a lot.’
‘There’s a lot to cover. Let’s just say he got spoiled – by him in there. Maybe it should have been chilled.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You apologise a lot, don’t you? I didn’t think a soldier would. What do you do now?’
‘I’m an office manager. I run an office.’
‘Who for?’
‘A firm of accountants.’
‘Bean counters.’
‘You could say that.’
‘It must be a long way from – what do soldiers do? Guns and stuff?’
‘I was behind a desk for most of the time.’
‘So you didn’t go out there shooting at people?’
‘A couple of times. There wasn’t much shooting.’ Sharp was part of her as well as soft – the dominant part? He did not like it; felt how she moved into it for control.
‘You look a bit like David,’ she said. ‘Same eyes.’
‘Yes?’
‘Your mothers were different though?’
‘One and two. What’s rosacea?’
‘Oh, redness in the face. High colour. It comes from overheating, not booze. David’s an overheated character. Not that he’s not a boozer too. The old man’ – she jerked her thumb at the sunroom – ‘seemed to go through a lot of women.’
‘Two wives. And May’s mother, I guess she counts.’
‘You don’t take after him? With wives, I mean.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Robert. But he wanted me to know you’re not a fairy.’
He sipped his wine. ‘Do you always go jumping round like this?’
‘Flea-brain, that’s me.’
He suspected that her brain was good. She had learned how to move so as not to be focused on. He wondered if it was from necessity or choice. A pretty woman once, he thought, but good looks ruined now. A kind of hard bewilderment in her. She won’t lie down. She’s camouflaged.
‘Take
a good look, why don’t you?’ she said.
‘Sorry.’
‘I never heard David say that once.’
‘Did he hit you? Physical violence?’
‘Just black eyes and fat lips. I’ve got a chipped tooth, see.’ She pulled down her lip. ‘I’ll have to get it filed one day. Do you mind, though? I don’t want to talk about that.’
He stopped himself from saying sorry. Finished his wine, poured some more in her glass, then in his. ‘How long is Dad going to last?’
‘You should ask his doctor that, I’m just the nurse.’
‘You’d have an idea though.’
‘He could go on for months. He’s hard – in his body, I mean. Worked hard all his life. I don’t think he’s ready yet either, in his mind. He has to get it worked out who’s going to get the orchard. God, I hate people who play around with wills.’
‘I don’t want the place,’ Alan said.
‘Yeah? People always say that. You don’t turn money down.’
‘I think maybe you don’t know enough about people.’
‘I know about David. If Heather gets it he’ll go to court. You can bet on that. It’s likely to get messy round here. Anyway, I’m off to make my tea. Is it all right if I take the bottle?’
‘Yes, please do. What time does Heather come in?’
‘Any time. You mightn’t get your dinner for a while.’
‘I can cook it. I’ll see what’s in the fridge.’
‘She wouldn’t like that. She’s a control freak. She doesn’t need to be last over there in the shed but you try and get her out of it.’
He went with her as far as the patio and watched her walk away with her bottle down the road. The cottage was halfway to the gate, backing on to the low part of the cliff. All the pickers were locals, she had said, so she had it to herself. He wondered what would happen if David found her there.
Back in the kitchen, he looked in the fridge. The usual things: butter, cheese, milk, fruit juice, cans of beer, tubs of flavoured yoghurt; and some he would not have expected to find: capers, olives, acidophilus. Pork pieces overflowed a bowl. He could not be sure how Heather meant to cook them, and Freda’s warning made him nervous, so he left them and walked through the lounge to look at his father. The old man was awake but did not see him in the door. Alan went into the sunroom and sat in the chair.
‘I went around the orchard. There’s been a lot of changes.’
‘There would be after all the time you’re gone. Alan …’
‘Yes?’
‘Down there in the cabinet. Pour me a dram.’
‘Are you allowed to have it?’
‘Habit of a lifetime. No one’s got the right to stop me now.’
Alan took the bottle and glass and poured half an inch. ‘You don’t smoke your pipe any more?’
‘I stopped that myself. Get yourself a glass. Have one.’
He went to the kitchen, came back with a glass and a small jug of water.
‘Cheers.’ Was that the sort of thing you said to a dying man? ‘You’ve just about doubled the size of this place.’
‘Thought you’d like it.’
‘It’s a big orchard. I see you’ve got some new plantings down where the fowl run used to be.’
‘Fujis. That’s the girl. She ripped all the Jonathans out. There’s no market.’
‘Does she know what she’s doing?’
‘She knows. Don’t you try telling her what to do.’
Robert Macpherson closed his eyes. He was tired, Alan saw, and perhaps in pain. There were pills on the side table, but Freda would have seen to that. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Lift me up a bit. I get a sore bum.’
Alan put his glass down and took him round the shoulders. The bones were still big, they made a frame, but the flesh was gone and the skin slid as though not secured to anything. Alan was surprised at his father’s lightness too. It was as if the organs in the torso had dried out. He settled him, rearranged the pillows. ‘Okay?’
‘Did you ever kill anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Ever get wounded?’
‘No.’
‘You were in some wars though?’
‘Yes. Two.’
‘I was too young for the first war. I would’ve gone to the second. I stayed home for your mother.’
‘I thought they wouldn’t let you go. Because of the tugs.’
‘I could have worked it. Could’ve gone on merchant ships. That was war too. But I stayed home.’
He was unhappy about it, Alan saw. He was almost grieving. Again he felt wrenched around. He had never known his father not be pleased with himself. Even when brooding, when raging, there had been a glow in him, of satisfaction, of complacency, or a reaching out and grabbing of what was his, and no question.
The whisky after the warm wine freshened his mouth, but too much would go to his head. He put his glass on the table.
‘You got born before the Japs came in,’ the old man said.
‘I know.’
‘Same week as Dunkirk.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘If I’d been there I could have saved a few, English or not. I would have rowed across if I’d had to.’ He sipped again, then gulped and made a face. ‘Even this stuff has lost its taste.’
Alan put the empty glass on the table. He wondered how long Heather would be. The nursing seemed too casual for a man as sick as his father.
‘Are you getting some pain?’
‘Tired is the worst thing. I can’t even lift my hand sometimes. And my mind keeps going every which way. I think there’s people here and there’s not. Why did you go away and never write home?’
‘It’s a long story, Dad.’ He reached for his glass again and drank. ‘I’m here now.’
‘You’re too late if you’ve come for your share. You don’t get anything.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘It’s going to that girl, all of it, the whole shebang. You and David can come sniffing round all you want.’
‘I’ll let you sleep.’
‘No, sit there. You ran out once, you’re not going to do it again. Sit still.’
Alan waited, and saw the old man’s fierceness grow damp and shut down. A shifting and confusion started in his eyes.
‘You there, Alan?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll have a sleep now. Wake me up when she comes in.’
Who was ‘she’? Alan wanted it to be his mother. He watched the old man drift away. It was most likely Heather, but could be Freda, May, or some woman he did not know, from any time. As Freda had said, there were enough of them.
Footsteps sounded in the lounge. Heather came in, with her head scarf in her hand. Alan stood up: ingrained habit when a woman entered. Some of them ridiculed him for it. Heather slid her eyes past and went to the other side of the bed. She laid her hand on Robert Macpherson’s forehead. The old man’s eyes came open. He smiled at her.
‘You’ve finished there?’
‘Kevin’s doing the last bit. I’ll go down later and have a look.’
She lifted one of his hands and laid it on the other. ‘I see you’ve had your dram.’
‘Alan got it for me. Alan’s here.’
‘I saw him walking round.’ She thrust an arm across the bed. ‘Hello.’
They shook hands. She’s a neutral, Alan thought. There was no friendliness and no hostility. And neutral – it startled him – in her sexual nature. It was like shaking hands with May, ten-year-old May. She had the same plump face, unformed. Her hair, though, was not brown but so pale it almost had no colour. Silver hair. And she was a woman, mature. Large-thighed, big-breasted, hard in her hand. But sexless still. Her indifference was natural.
‘You found your room all right?’
‘Freda showed me.’
‘I’ll give you a towel and a face cloth.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Maybe you’d like to go and watch TV while I
fix Robert.’ Her eyes did not meet his but stayed on the level of his mouth. He went out to the lounge, taking his glass, then out to the patio, strangely agitated. There seemed to be usurpation as well as dismissal here. But he had long ago lost his right to be resentful at being turned out of his father’s room. One thing was certain, he would not watch TV.
He finished his drink. The sunset was less fiery than on the previous night, although it gave flat-topped Crusader a volcanic plume. There was nothing neutral, he thought, in Heather’s intentions. She meant to have the orchard, for whatever reason – profit, vocation? But she wanted – needed? – Robert Macpherson too. He should step aside and let it happen – but felt he would somehow be reduced. So, not understanding, he worked out his practical course: to stay for the four or five days he had intended; to watch and listen here, and be charitable; to see May and David, probably there (Golden Bay and Nelson), discover the situation and play things sensibly. He would help the woman Freda if he could. And it would be best, he thought, to keep out of Heather’s way – although he should thank her at some point for her care of his father. His feeling of being diminished, he saw then, came from her fondness for the old man.
She was working in the kitchen when he went in.
‘I’m doing a stir-fry,’ she said without looking round. ‘I hope that’s all right.’
‘Yes. Good. Is there anything I can help with?’
‘No. Have another drink. There’s more whisky in the cupboard.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Beer?’
‘I’ll have one with my dinner. What about you?’
‘I don’t drink.’
He sat at the kitchen table, forgetting his decision to keep out of her way. The contradictions in her needed understanding. Dumpy, quick. You couldn’t be both – but she was plainly quick; she demonstrated it: quick, certain, in control, competent, precise. Full of knowledge, he thought, at least in the kitchen. So the other word was wrong, her shape could not be called in evidence. Then what about neutral and involved, that contradiction?
‘How long have you been here?’ he said.
‘Six years.’
‘Where were you before that?’
‘Sydney.’
‘Doing what? I mean – do you have a trade? Profession?’
‘I did all sorts of work.’
‘And now you’re an orchardist. Dad says you’re good at it.’
