The Tender Winds of Spring

by Joyce Dingwell

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now that Gee—’ She crumpled again.

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘Gee was going to be their mother, so now I have to take her place.’

  ‘You’re not serious, of course.’

  ‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.’

  ‘But that’s quite unpractical of you, unless you’re a secret heiress.’

  ‘I have nothing,’ she assured him.

  ‘Then how in heaven can you think in any other terms than letting them go?’

  ‘There would be money from their father.’

  ‘Their father might not have been so comfortably off.’

  ‘But Gee said—’

  ‘Or Gee guessed? Look, Josephine, you still don’t know, do you, and children cost money. They’re the most expensive articles in the world. Anyway,’ drily, ‘they were scarcely eager to throw their arms around you just now.’

  ‘It’s early yet.’

  ‘But time creeps on and often things don’t alter. You can’t be sure how things will turn out, and incidentally, you don’t even own the house you’ve bedded them in. I do.’

  She was shocked into silence at that. How could he say such a cruel thing? She turned quickly away from him.

  ‘A meal,’ he reminded her again.

  Jo made the meal. She found she was glad to do so. She sliced the ham, she fried some vegetables, she kept herself busy so she could not think.

  But very soon she would have to think. The empty room with the empty beds next to her ‘in case’ room would see to that.

  Until then, though, Abel Passant kept her on her toes, both physically and mentally. Things to be done. Things to be discussed.

  It was nearing midnight before he let her stop. Then he produced a nightcap in the form of a mug of hot milk.

  ‘Drink it and get to bed,’ he advised. ‘Goodnight, Jo.’

  She took the mug into the ‘in case’ room, and did as he said. Not that it would make any difference, she knew she would never sleep.

  But she did not even stand at the window after pulling up the blind, something she and Gee had always done. They had always looked out at the stars caught in tatters of banana leaves, it had been another of their special things.

  She fell asleep at once, but her last vague thoughts were concerning the milk. Again he had cheated her. Cheated—or spared? For there had been something in that milk.

  She could not think what it was. Easier to let sleep take over. She drowsed.

  When she awoke the room was bright with morning, and beyond the window the banana palms were shining in the sun.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When Jo came out to the kitchen it was to see three children sitting stolidly at the big table and Abel Passant standing stolidly at the big stove.

  Abel looked across at Jo and explained shortly: ‘Breakfast.’ He returned his grim attention to the range.

  ‘We told him he’s wasting his time because we don’t eat breakfast,’ Amanda said coolly.

  ‘I think you would eat it at school,’ suggested Jo.

  ‘This isn’t school where we have to.’

  ‘There are other places where you have to.’ Abel put down a stirring spoon ... what was it he was trying to cook? ... and approached the table to glower down on them.

  ‘You can’t make us, you’re not our father.’ The two older ones said it together, Sukey coming in later with the echo: ‘Not our father.’

  Jo was to find out that Sukey often echoed the last words.

  ‘No, darlings,’ Jo hastened tenderly to console them, ‘not your father.’ She wanted no emotional scenes.

  But she need not have worried.

  ‘The other wasn’t either,’ Dicky began, and was promptly kicked under the table by Amanda. A hard kick.

  ‘I mean—’ said Dicky, glancing nervously at Amanda, ‘that is—’ Jo, seeing his unease, tried consolation again.

  ‘I know how it is,’ she told the trio. ‘Some people like hot breakfasts.’ She nodded to the stove. ‘Some like cold.’ Now she nodded at the table with its usual deep dish of bananas. Aunt Mitchell always had insisted on deep dishes of bananas. But carefully Jo did not look at Abel.

  ‘I myself,’ she went on, ‘always have cold. Sometimes sliced bananas with cream, sometimes bananas on bread and butter, sometimes mashed up, sometimes eaten as it was good manners to eat them in the ancient Eastern palaces.’

  She had their attention, unwilling and rather meagre attention, but having it she did not let it go.

  She took up a banana and tore the skin carefully down from the stem into three equal ribbons. ‘As you eat, you tear further,’ she instructed. ‘It was expected of you in an oriental court. It also looks pretty, doesn’t it? Rather like an opening flower. Try.’

  Three hands came out.

  Bread and butter was included. Milk. When Sukey said: ‘May I leave the table, please, I’m finished,’ Jo answered:

  ‘You may all leave.’

  They rose and left.

  ‘They’re very polite,’ Jo said to Abel.

  ‘And currently very unsuitably nourished.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Jo said hotly. ‘A banana provides everything a breakfast should.’

  ‘There speaks a banana-lander,’ he grinned.

  ‘But it’s true.’

  ‘Then provide me a couple of fried bananas along with some ham, eggs and tomatoes for my first meal. While on it, provide yourself.’

  ‘You might have heard me say I don’t eat hot breakfast.’

  ‘You might have heard me say there are places where you have to, and don’t answer that I’m not your father, because if I was—’

  ‘Yes?’ She looked challengingly up into his red-tan face and very blue eyes, but for all her challenge it was her own eyes that fell first.

  ‘Breakfast,’ he prompted her.

  He watched her make it.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ he admired, ‘all I achieved was a burnt mess.’

  ‘You probably had the pan too dry and you may have let your attention stray from the food.’

  She put down two filled plates, but she did not touch hers.

  ‘Eat,’ he said. ‘You have a long day ahead.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Right here. You see, you’ll have the children to cope with by yourself. I’m going into town to—well, to—’

  She knew that he was looking at her more gently now, even though she did not look back at him to check. She also knew why he was going into town.

  ‘I have your permission to arrange—things?’ he asked quietly, after a pause.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Good girl. Good girl, too, for eating that much at least. I’ll get going, Josephine, so I can get back before it’s late.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you for bothering. There’s no call for you to bother like this.’

  He seemed about to say something, but he did not say it after all. He patted her shoulder and went out. Presently she heard his car going down to the highway. She stacked the dishes in the sink but she did not wash them. She went out to look for the children.

  They were in the garden. Amanda was desultorily swinging Sukey, and Dicky was desultorily looking on. I wish, thought Jo, that for a while they would be naughty ... throw something ... misbehave ... try running away.

  They watched her come up to them.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Jo had reached them and she asked it brightly ... too brightly.

  They didn’t know.

  ‘Would you like to see the creek? There are tadpoles there. We used to call them pollywogs.’

  They did not mind. They went down to the creek, Jo issuing a stick apiece against snakes, as Aunt Mitchell used to do.

  ‘Snakes will never come out and attack you, though,’ she told them. ‘They’re as afraid of you as you are of them. But if you’re between them and their nest it could be different, and can you blame them? Imagine if th
ere was an enemy between you and your babies.’

  ‘I don’t have babies,’ Dicky informed her, ‘my wife does.’

  ‘Well, I’m not having any,’ said Amanda, ‘even if I am a wife, because what’s the use?’

  ‘Use, darling?’ asked Jo.

  Amanda did not answer, but Sukey came in with an echo. ‘Whatseruse?’ She said it futilely, though Jo knew she could not possibly understand, not a tender under-five, that she was only following Amanda.

  ‘Well,’ said Jo brightly, ‘I think if we make a noise any snakes will go. I don’t suppose in boarding school you ever saw a snake.’

  ‘Not in boarding school but once at—’ Amanda did not finish it, instead she closed her lips tightly as though she had suddenly remembered something.

  It was a glorious way down to the creek, among the subtropical vegetation. Great tree ferns grew from the side of the track, orchids festooned the trees, the mosses were inches deep and spun with spider threads.

  But there was something else about this particular part of the country, and Jo told the children proudly. It was what was called one of nature’s phenomena, she related thrillingly.

  ‘That means wonders. And this is our own special wonder. Through this belt of terrain goes a strange division, left over from millions of years ago. At that time we were a cold-country place, you see. Now, even though it seems impossible, beeches and firs still occasionally occur, and other ‘cold’ trees, but always on that side of the valley.’ Jo pointed. ‘You can look to the left and see a tropical garden. Then you can look to the right and think you’re in Canada. I—well, I thought you might be interested.’ For the trio were standing politely waiting for her to finish.

  She did, by pointing down to the gully and saying: ‘There’s the creek.’

  They climbed down and looked vaguely around for tadpoles. It proved less than exciting, and even when Amanda found a leech on her that diversion did not help.

  ‘I think we’ll go back,’ Jo said. She led the way, hoping for a goanna, or a lizard, or something. Anything, she thought, to break up this inertia.

  They had lunch, then Jo put them on the verandah with books, ludo and snakes and ladders, and came inside to see to the house. Perhaps they’ll run away, she wished, and we’ll have to find them, and that will burst whatever there is to be burst. One thing, the worry over them had diverted her, and Jo apologised to Gee for this. As she worked she said to her twin: ‘Darling, as you see I’m not crying, but I think you understand, as I understand you now when you said it wouldn’t be roses. Oh, Gee, Gee!’

  For a moment it seemed that the tears would start after all, then the telephone pealed and Jo went across.

  ‘Abel,’ Abel announced.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How is it?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘I think I understand, Josephine. Well, leave the kids awhile and come back to yourself. Are you listening?’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Josephine, it’s not going to help bringing you in here. It’s not going to help the children ... that is, if they need , help.’

  ‘Oh, they do, they do, but I’m not sure if it’s because of Mark.’

  ‘All right then, help is needed, but you’re not certain if it’s that kind of help. Now back to what I rang you to say. Having you in for the purpose you would expect, a service, a memorial, would avail you absolutely nothing. Mark and Geraldine are gone, Josephine. You have memories, but the memories are there, not here. I know it’s the conventional thing, the expected and accepted thing, but it will do nothing to help you. It will not help the kids. Are you following me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then do you know what I feel you should do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I feel you should create your own tribute to Geraldine. To Mark, too. Those children are too young to understand a formal tribute.’

  ‘And too uninterested?’ Jo said spontaneously.

  A pause at the other end, then:

  ‘You poor kid. It’s been bad, hasn’t it?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Abel’s few words had soothed Jo immediately. ‘I’ll do something, of course, Abel. Will you be back?’

  ‘Not till later. I’m trying to find out something more about the kids. I know you don’t approve of that, but—’

  ‘Change it,’ broke in Jo, ‘to I didn’t approve. It seemed so early then, so—’

  ‘Heartless? And now you feel differently?’

  ‘Yes, a little differently. Though I still don’t think it’s anything to do with you.’

  ‘You may be surprised. But one thing I am certain of is that it’s something that has to be done. About the other, the little gathering, can you cope?’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘Good girl!’ He put his end of the phone down, and after a moment Jo put hers down, too.

  She did not go straight out to the children. She stood a while whispering: ‘Help me, Gee.’ Then she straightened her shoulders and crossed to the verandah.

  ‘Down in the garden,’ she began to the trio (still there and why, oh, why didn’t they go exploring, or hide somewhere as ordinary naughty children do?) ‘once my sister Geraldine and I put up a cross for our little dog who had died and whom we had loved very much. We had a service. Do you know about services?’

  ‘We had one every morning and every evening,’ said Amanda, ‘at school. Our song went:

  ‘ “Here in comradeship we stand

  Members of a happy band! ” ’

  ‘Ours was:

  ‘ “Rise up, go forth and do your best”—and the boys used to finish:

  ‘“Take speedy mixture for your chest.’” Dicky said it without mirth so that it didn’t matter that no one laughed.

  ‘Well,’ said Jo bravely, ‘we’re going to have a service for my sister and your father. It’s going to be in the garden because Geraldine loved the garden and because your father must have loved the outdoors. People who fly in the sky must love the wide world.’

  No comment.

  ‘We’ll all think about things for a while, shut our eyes as we do, and after that we’ll sing.’

  ‘ “Here in comradeship”?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Well, I don’t think so. Being a school song it mightn’t be suitable.’

  ‘Mine wouldn’t be any good,’ said Dicky, ‘because of that line about taking speedy mixture for your chest.’

  This was too awful. Abel should never have suggested it. These children were plain savages. They had no feelings at all.

  ‘Don’t you know any hymns?’ Jo asked chokily.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but I want us all to sing, all to feel, not just me.’

  ‘I don’t know any,’ said Amanda.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Dicky.

  ‘I know Hear the pennies dropping,’ said Sukey.

  ‘Then,’ said Amanda, ‘that will have to do.’

  Before Jo could protest, could lead them to another channel, another song ... All things bright and beautiful would have done, even Bringing in the sheaves ... they broke loudly into Sukey’s pennies dropping.

  ‘I said after we go into the garden, after we quietly think,’ Jo tried to call out, but they did not hear her. They opened up and sang.

  Oh, Gee, Gee darling, forgive, forgive, Jo prayed, forgive this travesty.

  Somewhere in the banana palms she could have sworn she heard Gee’s old infectious giggle. Gee had always giggled like that. All at once everything fell into perspective. Surely I can smile here, she told herself, if Gee is laughing in heaven.

  She sang, too.

  But there was no alchemy. When they went into the house, they were the same drab trio. No, quartet. I, thought Jo, am as dull as they are. She was almost pathetically glad when Abel’s car drew up.

  ‘Look,’ she indicated, ‘Abel is back.’

  ‘Yes,’ they agreed.

  They went back to what they had been doing before, if it had been anyth
ing, but Jo went eagerly to find Abel. He was in the kitchen making a cup of tea.

  He smiled across at her and Jo smiled shakily back.

  ‘You first,’ he said. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘It didn’t. Well, we did sing Hear the pennies dropping.’

  ‘What? No, never mind. Mine didn’t go, either. I tried to find out more about the children. It was hard.’

  ‘What eventually you did find out or finding it?’

  ‘Both,’ he said, and reached for a cup for Jo.

  ‘No one seems to know about Mark Grant,’ he resumed, ‘and the little I could cajole from the schools and’ ... a pause ... ‘from the aero club makes it rather a hard situation.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘At the schools, the children got only a basic education, not one frill extra. There are few pupils, Josephine, who don’t receive some little extra.’

  ‘Perhaps Mark was one of those men who believed in direct education. I mean, extras are nice, but they are not necessary.’

  ‘Extras are also expensive,’ Abel pointed out succinctly. ‘That wouldn’t matter.’

  ‘You believe so?’

  ‘I know so.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, Gee gave the impression that Mark was—well—’

  ‘Comfortably situated?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But we need more than impressions, don’t we?’

  ‘I suppose so, but it must have been true. I mean, Mark flew his own plane, and men don’t just fly planes like they drive cars. I really mean—’

  ‘You really mean they have to be endowed with more worldly wealth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I agree. But what when a plane is rented and not owned?’

  ‘Rented?’ she queried.

  ‘I said just now an aero club, Josephine, for that’s where the crashed Cherokee came from.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Abel.

  He poured the brewed tea into the cups and pushed one to Josephine.

  ‘The Club was very co-operative. Everyone was very regretful over it all, yet not exactly cast down. Well, after all, they didn’t know Mark Grant, only as a customer, as it were. Again, they were well insured. I spoke to them regarding the payment for the hiring, and they produced the cheque Grant had given them. I noted the bank and after I left I got in touch.’