The Isle of Song

by Hilary Wilde

  Adam nodded. 'I know.' He glanced at his watch. `Time for a tea break,' he said cheerfully. 'I guess you can do with some.'

  Kate nodded. 'As Ian would have said, you can say that again.'

  `Talking of Ian,' said Adam as they sipped the hot sweet tea, 'Nancy must miss him a lot.'

  `She must,' Kate agreed, 'but she's never said so.' Adam looked thoughtful as he stirred his tea. 'She wasn't in love with him ?'

  `In love ?' Kate was startled. 'Oh no. She's had sort of crushes, you know, but I don't think she's ever been in love.'

  `She's very young,' Adam said, still thoughtful.

  `Very young,' Kate agreed. 'Far too young to know her own mind,' she added. 'I think she found Ian good fun and he was her own age which she liked .

  Adam put down his cup with a little bang and stood up. 'Yes, she must have liked it,' he said, his voice strange for a moment. 'Back to the grindstone, Kate.'

  Kate swallowed the last of the tea. 'Yes, back to the grindstone,' she agreed with a rueful smile. 'It seems a crime to have to work on a day like this.'

  Adam was already bent over his ledgers. 'Yes, it does,' he said briefly, as if annoyed about something. Kate looked at him, gave a little helpless shrug and

  got down to work. It looked as if Adam, as well as Simon, had 'moods', after all.

  That evening, Simon was in fine spirits and after dinner they played scrabble with zest, but Kate noticed that Adam was very quiet and Nancy asked Kate before they went to bed what was biting Adam.

  `He was just getting friendly,' Nancy said, and Kate was startled at the wistful note in her voice. 'Why has he changed tonight ?'

  Kate said she didn't know. 'He was a bit moody today,' she added. 'Probably he'll be over it tomorrow.'

  `Let's hope so,' Nancy said fervently. 'We're so cooped up here and there are so few of us that we've simply got to be good friends.'

  Kate was startled, and yet, when she came to think of it, Nancy was right. They simply had to be good friends. Well, at least, Kate thought gratefully, Simon seemed to have forgiven her little outburst of anger and her refusal to be accused by him of something she had not done, for he had been his usual self that night.

  The next day, with unexpected suddenness, the weather changed. A high wind screamed its way through the island, twisting and bending the palm trees, sending tropical rain pounding against the windows and beating on the roof, cutting out the view with a dismal cloud of grey water. Mike's feet took a turn for the worse and he was back in bed, Adam's `office' which was really a coconut-log hut, leaked shockingly and work in it came temporarily to a standstill.

  `It won't hurt you to have a few days' holiday,' Simon said crisply to Kate after Adam had said it

  wasn't worth risking the ledgers and books getting wet on their way to the big house, so he had locked everything away in the steel cupboards. 'You can do some serious work on the diaries, Kate,' he went on. 'It seems to me that what my great-aunt has recorded is worth publishing. What do you feel about it ?'

  Kate looked up at him. 'I agree,' she told him. `If I find them fascinating to read — not only the human element but all the background about life here in those days — many people would and it would surely be a help to anyone wanting to settle on an island,' she added with a little smile, remembering some of Great-Aunt Adele's problems before she got the islanders really organized

  `Good. Well, Kate, I'd be grateful if you'd sketch out some vague idea of compiling them into a book. Then we'll get a draft typed out and I'll send it along to a publisher I know rather well. If he's interested, I'll get hold of some writer who could make it into a book. Right?'

  `Of course,' said Kate.

  So while the rain beat dismally against the windows and the wind went screeching round like an irritable banshee, Kate sat in the annexe, reading the yellowed pages of the diaries, making notes, trying to work out which portions of the books would be most interesting to the average reader. Kate herself was most interested in the diaries written in the early days when Adele Scott was fighting her heartache and loneliness and the bitterness against her family that she could not overcome. But perhaps the average reader would not be ...

  The door opened suddenly and Kate recognized Simon's firm footstep.

  `How's it going, Kate?' he asked.

  He must have just come in from the rain, Kate thought, for his short fair hair was wet and his lean face had rain still trickling down it. His khaki shorts and shirt were rumpled as if he'd been wearing one of the big mackintosh capes they wore in wet weather. Now he was shaking his head, the small cold raindrops flying towards Kate.

  `I'm just wondering if the part about her husband is too personal and too sad,' she told him.

  Simon lifted a chair in one hand, swung it round and straddled it. He looked at her gravely.

  `Too personal? I don't know what you mean.'

  Kate coloured. 'Well, if you lost someone you loved very much, would you want your ... your anguish and your tears read about by lots of strangers?' she asked.

  Simon frowned. 'Frankly, I've never thought of it. Do you feel she gives a solution? I mean, what she writes, would it help anyone to get over such a loss?'

  Kate felt uncomfortable. Were they on dangerous ground ? Caterina had said that Simon had once been badly hurt by a woman.

  `Yes,' she said slowly, 'I do think it could help.'

  `You've read about the rainbow shell?' he asked.

  Kate nodded. 'Yes, she says that when the burden of her sorrow grew too great, she would take out the rainbow shell and ...'

  Simon was not listening. He stood up, strode with his usual long effortless strides to the cupboard which

  he opened. In a moment he turned round, carrying something very carefully in his hands.

  `This is the rainbow shell,' he said.

  Kate looked at the shell. It was not very big nor even a very unusual shape, but what made it different from any other shell was the colours. Now she could see why Mrs. Scott had called it the rainbow shell, for it was veined with palest pink, a turquoise blue, a faint yellow and pale green specks. All the colours of the rainbow.

  Simon put it carefully on the desk and straddled the chair again.

  `Have you come to the part in the diaries where she explains how she was given the rainbow shell ?'

  `No ... no, I haven't,' Kate confessed. The diaries were thick books with close lines filled with meticulously neat but small handwriting, and often she had caught herself skipping some of the more pedantic phrases. She preferred the parts where old Mrs. Scott — who had been young Mrs. Scott when she wrote the diaries — had been completely uninhibited and had written in natural phrases about her loneliness and pain.

  Simon rested his arms on the back of the chair, his lean face thoughtful.

  `Her husband gave it to her soon after they reached Papeete, before he was ill. In one of the diaries, she quotes a poem.

  ' "My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water'd shoot, My heart is like an apple tree

  Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit .. . My heart is like a rainbow shell

  That paddles in a halcyon sea;

  My heart is gladder than all these.

  Because my love is come to me ..." '

  Simon paused, his deep voice coming to a standstill. Kate sat very still. She would never have believed that Simon could show so much emotion. He had recited the poem beautifully and she felt goose pimples on her skin as a result. But what he said next surprised her still more.

  `If only Great-Aunt Adele had known how lucky she was,' Simon said slowly. 'Even though she had her love for so short a time, at least she knew that he loved her

  There was another silence, even more awkward, for Kate felt she should say something yet had no idea what was the right thing to say. How wistful Simon had sounded.

  And then his mood changed. He was on his feet, picking up the shell gently and smiling at Kate.

  `I bet that gave you a shock,
Kate,' he said. 'I'm sure you didn't think I could quote poetry.'

  `No, I didn't,' Kate admitted honestly. 'Who wrote it ?'

  He shrugged. 'Rossetti, I think, but I'm not sure. Would it also surprise you to learn that once on a time when I was young, I also wrote poetry ?' He was smiling as he looked down at her, and Kate smiled back.

  `Nothing would surprise me about you, Simon,' she

  said.

  Momentarily he looked startled and then he laughed, turning to put the shell away, coming back to stand by Kate.

  `I suppose I'm a sentimental fool to keep it, but ...' `You couldn't throw it away,' Kate cried, shocked. `What shall I do with it, then?'

  `Give it to your children one day,' she suggested.

  `I'm not interested in love. I told you that,' he said. Kate saw that he was teasing her, so she smiled.

  `Every man has his Achilles' heel ...' she began.

  Simon laughed. 'I bet Georgia Appleby said that. Right ? I knew I was. Kate, when I first came to Papeete, there was quite a stampede. The single girls thought it was time I got married, the older women tried to matchmake. In the end, even Georgia gave up, but I know that she won't be happy until I'm marched to the altar. Why is every man supposed to get married ?'

  `You think love is stupid ?' Kate asked.

  Simon leant forward and put his hand on hers. It was a strong hand, a warm hand, but also a gentle hand.

  `Kate, I do believe in love, but I think it happens very rarely. And it's even more rare for both parties to love sincerely. Usually one of them gets hurt.'

  He lifted his hand from hers and walked to the window, looking at the wild scene outside, where the palm trees were being swayed and pummelled by the wind and rain. He spoke over his shoulder.

  `Kate, my parents stayed together for the sake of us children. I think it was the biggest mistake they

  ever made, for we grew up in an atmosphere which was either one of bickering, long frightening silences or sudden outbursts of furious anger. Two of my brothers rushed into marriage to escape this, and both were unhappy. Ian's mother was one of the wives. She and my brother Bill eloped when they were very young and they hated one another. I had known them when they were so crazily in love that they were prepared to be cut off without a penny — yet a few years later, they could hardly bear to speak to one another . .

  Simon was walking backwards and forwards across the small room, hands clasped behind his back, face looking thinner than usual, the life gone from it, his mouth sad.

  `Kate,' he went on, 'I'm not a cynic and I believe that some people continue to love one another. Unfortunately my own experience has usually been that one person either loves too much, too jealously and possessively, or not enough ...'

  He paused, and Kate, sitting very still, very conscious that this confidence was something she had never expected, said nothing, but wondered if Simon was thinking of Caterina. Did he feel she did not love him `enough' because she could not give up her career? Though to Caterina, Kate thought, medicine was more than just a career — it was her life's work.

  `What do you feel about love, Kate ?' he asked abruptly.

  Taken aback, Kate stared at him 'Why, I ... I hadn't thought ...'

  `You've never been in love ?' Simon asked, looking

  surprised.

  She shook her head. 'Never, but then . . then I haven't known many men,' she added honestly. `Mummy was happy with both her husbands, though sometimes she got worried about things, but I just took it for granted that if you love someone, it lasts.'

  Simon smiled wryly. 'How blissful to be so young and innocent,' he said, glancing at his watch. 'I must be off. I told Jerome . .

  In a moment he had gone and she was alone. She stared at the wild world outside. How strange it was that Simon should have talked like that to her!

  That evening Caterina joined them. Simon had driven to fetch her, for the wind was very strong, almost approaching hurricane strength, he said, after they had both raced indoors, covered in heavy mackintosh capes, Caterina undid the scarf with which she had covered her head and her hair was immaculate, brushed back into a loose chignon. She was wearing black for once, a plain straight frock that seemed to bring out the highlights in her ash-blonde hair and make her skin look creamier than ever. She sat near Kate while Simon was preparing the drinks and smiled at her.

  `Green suits you, Kate,' Caterina said gently. `You're looking very happy tonight.'

  Kate coloured. 'I am ... feeling happy, I mean. I was reading the diaries this afternoon and . .

  Caterina laughed and raised her hand. She glanced quickly at Simon, but he was too far away to hear what they were saying.

  `You don't have to tell me, Kate,' she said, laughing.

  Simon recited a poem to you about the precious rainbow shell! Am I right ?'

  Kate felt her cheeks growing hot again. 'Yes, he did, but ...'

  `Oh, Kate, dear child,' Caterina said gently, 'I am sorry if I've hurt you. You were flattered because Simon confided in you. Is that it ? And now I have blown the bubble apart, for it is obvious that you are not the first woman to whom he has recited the poem so movingly, so magnificently? I am sorry.'

  `It's all right ... there's nothing to be sorry about,' Kate stumbled, trying to find the right words, trying to hide the fact that she was disappointed to learn that Simon had confided in other people as well as herself. Yet what right had she to expect to be the only one? Simon had never shown any particular liking for her. In fact, quite the reverse, Kate thought miserably, wondering why she felt so upset. She felt the gentle touch of Caterina's hand on her arm.

  `You must not look so upset, Kate, dear child. You may not be the only woman to whom he recites poetry, but it shows that he does consider you an adult. He would not speak thus to everyone — not to Nancy, for example,' she added, her voice kind.

  `I'm not upset,' Kate said quickly, wondering how to change the subject, how to escape from Caterina's shrewd, amused eyes.

  Jerome came into the room and Kate drew a sigh of relief.

  `Caterina, you have braved the elements,' said Jerome, his voice jocular, as he came to join them.

  `I am a woman of courage, Jerome,' Caterina told

  him laughingly, her slight accent suddenly pronounced.

  Kate murmured something and slipped out of the room. Upstairs in the quiet safety of her bedroom, she gazed blindly at her reflection. Why had she felt so disappointed when she learned that Simon confided in everyone — or nearly everyone — the story of the rainbow shell? Why should she feel so deflated — so . . . so ridiculously miserable ?

  It could only be because she hated feeling on the outside of everything again; because she felt that Simon had, at last, accepted her — just as he had accepted Nancy from the beginning.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE squally gales and torrential rain died away as abruptly as they had started and the island was once more a land of sunshine, steam rising in great misty clouds from the rain-drenched earth. Once again the sound of guitars and singing filled the air, the deliciously haunting scent of tropical flowers teased their nostrils; and they could enjoy the beauty of the blue Pacific with its great white rollers and the placidity of the lagoons with the small boats with the fishermen in them.

  A feast was to be held the next day, Simon had told them one night at dinner.

  `This is to welcome me back from my week's visit to Papeete,' he said. 'They snatch at any excuse for a feast,' he added with a wry smile. 'It can be fascinating, Kate. I'll take you to see the preparations.'

  Caterina laughed. 'What time have you, Simon ?' she asked. 'You'll forget or be too busy. Let me initiate Kate into the mysteries of Polynesian feasts. I'll call for you in my car, Kate.'

  `Thanks,' said Kate.

  `What about you, Nancy ?' Caterina asked, looking across the table.

  `Nancy's got work to do,' Simon said at once. 'Besides, she's not really interested, are you, Nancy ?' Nancy smiled. 'Not really.' />
  `Kate will tell you all about it anyhow,' said Simon.

  The following morning Caterina collected Kate as she had promised and drove her to a large clearing where trestle tables were being laid and decorated with exotic fragrant flowers by women and girls in their gay pareus with flowers tucked behind their ears and their laughter filling the air.

  Caterina showed Kate the deep pits which would be filled with wood and volcanic stone and then after they had burned and the fire died down, the stones would be glowing with heat and the sucking pigs would be put on them. Banana fronds and wet banana leaves and finally wet copra sacks and then earth would be put on top of it all.

  `It sounds an awful lot of work,' remarked Kate.

  Caterina, trim in a linen suit of strawberry pink, a coolie-type straw hat on her ash-blonde hair, laughed.

  `Just wait until you taste it, Kate, it's delicious.'

  It was pleasant under the tall shady palm trees and Caterina led Kate to a long table where there were flowers being made into leis. There was every kind and colour of flower, each one as lovely, and Caterina explained what they were for.

  `Each girl that comes to the feast has to choose a different flower, Kate. One flower is taken from each lei and laid on a tray made of plaited palm fronds and the tray is taken to Simon, whose eyes are blindfolded. He has to pick a flower at random and the girl whose lei contains the matching flowers is the Queen for the evening. Which flower will you have, Kate? This lime-green one is specially lovely, I think, don't you ?'

  Kate looked at the lily Caterina indicated. It was

  indeed exquisitely beautiful, not only the colour but the shape of the petals.

  `Yes, it's very lovely,' Kate agreed.

  `Then that is your choice, Kate,' said Caterina with a smile. 'I think this rose-coloured flower for Nancy, do you ?'

  `Yes, it's also lovely, but which will you have ?' Kate asked.

  Caterina looked thoughtfully at the flowers on the table and then picked up a small round white flower.