Blind Man's Buff

by Victoria Gordon

  Her landlord, it seemed, wouldn’t be coming north this winter. His wife wasn’t up to it. But a friend of his, one Randall Logan by name, was apparently in Bundaberg ‘on some wild goose chase or another’ and was finding his present accommodation quite unsatisfactory. Naturally, having been told this in passing while the two men were discussing something quite irrelevant to the current issue, her landlord had thought it only proper to offer his flat to an old and trusted friend. Mr Logan’s secretary, Miss Dunn, would be calling to ensure this didn’t cause Rena any problems, and if for any reason it did, Rena was to telephone him directly.

  Problems? Rena could have screamed. She stood and read the letter again and again, almost oblivious to Valerie Dunn’s impatient figure beside her.

  Problems? It would mean worse than just problems. It would mean big problems. Huge problems! And yet what could she do about it? Rena could just imagine her landlord’s reaction to any sort of excuses she might concoct. Even the truth would seem beyond belief, not that she’d dare tell him that in the first place.

  But to have Ran here, living in the same house, having to see him regularly? And even worse, having Valerie Dunn here as well, having to know, to see, what they shared ... Rena shook her head, flinging her mane of sable hair in a gesture that could have meant anything, but to her meant simply defeat.

  ‘I’ll get you the keys,’ she said dully. And not even the woman’s officious, patronising, demanding attitude could penetrate the dull, nagging start of a headache that had its beginnings not in Rena’s head, but in her heart.

  Valerie Dunn, fortunately, didn’t stay long. Only enough to glance disparagingly round the simply-furnished ground floor flat, her every attitude suggesting she thought it entirely unsuitable.

  ‘Well, I suppose it has at least the advantage of sea breezes,’ she finally condescended.

  ‘That can be more important than you’d expect, especially in summer,’ Rena replied, feeling almost conscience-bound to defend this lower, seldom used portion of what she thought of as her home. ‘But then perhaps you won’t be staying that long.’

  ‘God knows!’ The woman’s reply was almost a derisive snort. ‘If I had my way we wouldn’t be here at all, but...’ Then, as if realising she had perhaps already said too much, she clamped her perfectly-painted mouth shut.

  ‘I wasn’t meaning to pry,’ Rena said graciously. A graciousness she certainly didn’t feel. She hadn’t been meaning to pry, but in retrospect she dearly wished she’d got a more comprehensive answer.

  Even more interesting, she thought after Valerie Dunn had departed and Rena was alone in her own flat, would have been some suggestion about why Ran Logan had come north in the first place. Not knowing that, it was difficult even to speculate on how long he might be staying. At least six weeks more, though, assuming he would finish the course he had begun.

  Six weeks ... a lifetime in some respects and hardly anything at all in others, she thought. And wondered if, by some freak chance. Ran knew he’d be flatting in the same house as herself.

  The answer came, from Rena’s viewpoint, nowhere near quickly enough. Despite Valerie Dunn’s vague suggestion that the move would take place ‘in a day or so’, it was late Saturday afternoon before Rena saw the black Jaguar again. And this time the elegant female driver wasn’t alone.

  What to do? Rena caught her first glimpse of the car from her kitchen window; there was nothing but the presence of her own vehicle in one half of the carport to suggest she might be home. Dared she simply ignore their arrival? Or should she play good neighbour and see them safely settled?

  Cowardice won. She cursed herself for a prying, spineless busybody, but merely established a surreptitious watching brief as case after case was unloaded from the big car.

  At one point she; nearly did go down, but wisely thought twice about it. She knew it would only end in disaster if she were to complain about Ran being left sitting in a hot, confining motor car while his secretary gave first priority to the movement of her own luggage.

  But once the luggage, and finally Ran, was in the flat below, things took on an oppressive silence. It was smothering, bothersome, like the build-up to a thunderstorm. And after less than an hour, during which the subtropical darkness dropped like a shroud, Rena knew she couldn’t take any more.

  Abandoning her original plans for an early night with a light supper and some time spent washing her hair, she threw on a pair of jeans and a light jacket, then crept silently down the outside staircase and strode off down the esplanade in steps quickened by her nervous tension.

  Gradually, as she walked southward beyond the built-up esplanade area and on to a rutted gravel track that paralleled the sea, the soft swishing of waves calmed her, slowed her steps. The rising moon made it quite light enough to walk in safety, and Rena just kept on heading south.

  She walked for hours, down past the old quarry, along the scrubby heath to where a narrow creek died within reach of the sea itself at this dry time of year, and finally on to the glistening sands of Mon Repos, world famous as a turtle rookery and one of the district’s major tourist attractions. Then back again, retracing her steps homeward.

  She approached the now dark house with slow, silent steps, not wishing to wake anyone. It was, she realised without the need for a watch, somewhat later than she had originally thought; almost all of the Oaks’ houses were already dark.

  Ran’s Jaguar was now parked in the carport beside her own ageing machine, moonlight recoiling from their flanks. She glanced at the broad, lower-floor veranda, shaded by her own balcony above, but saw no one. Hardly unexpected, she thought, until she reached the bottom of the staircase and heard her own name whispered softly.

  At first she didn’t believe it, thinking it a trick of the night wind, but when she paused the whisper was repeated and her startled eyes finally found the source.

  ‘Why are you sitting out here in the middle of the night?’ she whispered in reply. Forgotten was her week-and-a-half-old anger; now she felt only surprise and concern.

  ‘Enjoying the peace and quiet,’ he chuckled. ‘And the surprises. I knew the other tenant of this place was named Everett, but I hardly expected it to be you.’

  ‘No,’ she replied hesitantly, suspicion returning with the memory of their last encounter. ‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’ll bet you were surprised, though,’ he chuckled, louder this time. ‘I understand you didn’t get much warning about all this.’

  Rena didn’t reply. Indeed, what could she say? That if she had been given warning she’d have found some way to object? That she wished he weren’t here? It was senseless to reply; it was too late for anything she might think to make the slightest bit of difference.

  ‘You weren’t amused by me coming here.’ Not quite a question, but not really a statement; it demanded some form of reply.

  ‘It’s none of my business,’ she said.

  ‘You were not amused.’ This time it was a flat statement. Too, the chuckle was gone from his voice, replaced by a tone mingling bitterness with regret.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ she replied quite unnecessarily, and got the expectable reply.

  ‘You didn’t have to. I don’t need my eyes to tell me that.’

  ‘All right, I wasn’t amused,’ she snapped. ‘But since I don’t have much choice in the matter, I certainly can’t see much sense in arguing about it.’

  ‘You could have screamed for help to Bob Jacobsen. I was quite specific when I talked to him ... not wanting to put anybody out.’

  ‘You’re not about to put me out,’ she retorted. ‘I don’t see that having you here is going to make any difference to me at all, unless you persist in skulking about like a thief in the night and frightening hell out of me!’

  His laugh this time was so loud that she shushed him. ‘You’ll wake Miss ... whatever her name is,’ Rena cautioned, not wanting to be found in this particular circumstance by the super-efficient Miss Dunn.

 
‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ he replied. And was there still bitterness in his voice ... or something else entirely? ‘She sleeps like the dead.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you’d know.’ And she paused, mouth still open in surprise. Had she really said that? Thought it, certainly, but surely she hadn’t actually ... not out loud ...

  ‘My, my, my, is that a bit of the old green-eyed monster I detect?’ His words removed all doubt. ‘Funny, I wouldn’t have thought you the dog-in-the-manger type, Rena.’ Ran’s voice was alive now, vibrant with sarcasm but not loud enough to disturb anyone.

  ‘Frankly, I don’t much care what you think,’ she snapped. ‘Besides, you don’t know enough about me to make such judgments.’

  ‘And never will,’ he finished for her, solemnly. ‘But I think I know more about you than you’d expect. You’ve no idea how blindness heightens the other senses — like touch, for example.’

  ‘And rudeness! Not to mention conceit,’ she snorted. ‘I think you just use it as an excuse for pawing anything female that comes within reach.’

  ‘You know better than that, although I don’t expect you to admit it,’ he replied calmly. ‘And regardless of what you might say now, you certainly didn’t mind being kissed by me last week.’

  True. Too true! What she had minded was the betrayal by her own body, her own heart. But to admit that would be the first step to total disaster. She said nothing.

  ‘Does my blindness upset you so much?’ he asked after a brief silence.

  Upset her? And yet how could she tell him how much, how it tore at her heart to see him that way?

  ‘Not ... in the way I think you mean,’ she replied honestly enough.

  ‘You mean you’re not physically repulsed by it, I suppose,’ he mused, almost idly. ‘Which I rather think I must interpret to mean that you dislike me then just because I’m a man; the blindness isn’t really a significant factor. Did he hurt you all that badly, then?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know damned well who ... or whom ... I mean. This fellow who seems to have managed to put you off men for life. I’d like to have met him when I could see; perhaps I’d have hammered some sense into his thick head.’

  Rena choked back an hysterical giggle, choked it back and had to keep swallowing convulsively to hold it from escaping. The thought of Ran thumping himself over the head was simply too much for her fragile emotions.

  Ran, however, appeared to take her silence as something quite different. ‘I don’t suppose you think it might help to talk about it?’ he enquired gently. ‘I’ve become quite a good listener, in recent times.’

  Tell him about it? Tell him? But then why not? Wasn’t that one thing she’d been wanting to do for two long years? To meet Randall Logan face to face and tell him what a bastard he was? Of course it was, only she hadn’t calculated on finding him blind. And she knew she couldn’t attack him, personally, because of that damnable factor.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘He met me; he seduced me; he left me. That’s about all there is to it.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s a good deal more complicated than that, but I certainly share your feelings,’ he replied. ‘I suppose you loved him?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she replied scathingly. ‘I hop into bed with every man I meet and then get horribly emotional afterwards.’

  ‘Which means he was the first ... and presumably the last man you’ve been to bed with,’ he replied with astonishing accuracy. ‘And a fair time ago, judging from your reaction to me last week.’

  ‘I think you tend to put far too much faith in what you think you feel,’ Rena snapped.

  ‘Well, you didn’t immediately hop into bed with me, as you so arrogantly put it,’ he replied. ‘So it’s obvious the fellow taught you one lesson, at least.’

  Rena caught herself before her hand reached out instinctively to strike him. She wouldn’t do that again; she knew his concept of retaliation too well.

  ‘Yes, I suppose you could certainly say that,’ she agreed. Damn him! He certainly could say that! But why then was there so little satisfaction in the fact that he couldn’t even see the truth of his own words?

  ‘What did he do ... for a living, I mean?’ A casual enough question, but it sent warning signals through Rena’s mind. But after a pause, she answered him truthfully.

  ‘A journalist ... that’d be right,’ he muttered. ‘1 know the type only too well.’

  Too, too well, Rena thought, and almost smiled at the irony of it. What would he do, she wondered, if she dropped all pretence and told him the plain, unvarnished truth? If only he weren’t blind ... but she couldn’t, not this way. Instead, she resorted to scorn.

  ‘And I suppose you’re going to tell me now that you’re so much different?’ she scoffed.

  As well scoff at the wind. When he finally replied it was in a voice so calm, so cool, that she wondered if he had even felt the scorn.

  ‘Perhaps not. Although I suppose he must have told you he loved you. I’ve never done that just to get a girl into my bed.’

  Liar! The word screamed into her mind so vividly that for an instant she thought she had screamed it aloud. But she hadn’t; not even super-cool Ran Logan could take that charge without a change of expression.

  ‘And I suppose next you’ll tell me you’ve never had to,’ she sneered.

  ‘I’ve only ever once in my life told a woman I loved her — and I meant it,’ he replied quietly, expressionlessly. ‘Which isn’t to say I might not do it again some day.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant,’ Rena replied, her mouth revealing the confusion in her mind. He’d sounded so sincere, so totally honest ... but he wasn’t. She knew that; she was the living, breathing evidence of his deceit.

  ‘Love isn’t the only reason two people go to bed together,’ he replied. ‘And if you’re fishing for numbers or whatever, forget it.’

  ‘Why? Don’t tell me you’ve lost count?’ her voice was syrup-sweet, but the syrup was poisoned, bitter as almond even in her own mouth.

  ‘Don’t be crude. I offered to be a sounding board, not a wall for you to bounce your bitterness off.’ He sounded bored.

  ‘I think it’s time I went in,’ she replied. This was getting too intense, too close to the pains inside her.

  ‘Maybe we should change the subject, instead,’ he said. ‘Are you going to come back to classes, or have you washed your hands of that, too?’

  Was she? Certainly it didn’t make sense to avoid him one night a week when he was living virtually in her pocket.

  ‘I … don’t know for certain,’ she hedged.

  ‘I’m perfectly willing to apologise for last week. I’ll even say please.’ He was smiling now, teeth glinting in the soft, pale moonlight.

  ‘Don’t bother.’ She sounded short with him, but she knew it was herself she was out of tune with.

  ‘Oh, but I must,’ he grinned. ‘Although not without an ulterior motive; you’d expect that, of course. I was merely thinking it might be convenient for us to travel together.’

  ‘I’m sure your secretary would like that,’ Rena countered.

  ‘She probably would, but in actual fact I’m thinking of sending her back to Sydney. She really cannot abide life up here; it isn’t her scene at all.’

  ‘But ... but how would you cope? I mean, living out here, and alone ... it’s sort of isolated, you know.’

  ‘So am I ... so am I,’ he drawled wearily. ‘What the hell difference does it make, in the long run? At least out here I can smell the sea, taste the salt in the air. It’s better than the awful stink of sugar cane being processed.’

  ‘Almost anything is,’ Rena agreed drily. ‘But I’d be careful about saying so, if I were you. Up here, that’s the smell of money.’

  ‘I’d have expected you to be used to it, having lived here all your life.’ Again he bespoke her own lies, and it hurt. Rena shivered. She would have thought so too, but the road to and from Bundaberg led straight past — and downwind of
— Qunaba Mill, which made each day’s drive on the Bundaberg Port road an olfactory nightmare. The sickly sweet scent of the crushed sugar might be the smell of money, but it was anything but pleasant.

  ‘Yes, but ... but what about cooking ... and ... well, just everything?’ she queried, returning to her original point. The thought of leaving Ran stranded and alone was incomprehensible. What kind of woman was this secretary of his?

  ‘Oh, I daresay I’ll manage,’ he shrugged. ‘Blind people aren’t nearly as handicapped as some people imagine ... at least in some respects.’

  ‘That isn’t the point and you know it,’ she replied hotly, her voice probably revealing her displeasure at the insanity of the proposal. She didn’t care; it was ludicrous and she fully intended he should know it. ‘What are you going to do all day, for instance? The bus service is only a school service; there’s a long walk even just to the pub ... oh, it’s ... it’s just ridiculous!’

  He merely shrugged, untouched by her concerns. ‘I don’t need the pub, there’s a phone here in case of emergency; and if I need to go anywhere I can always call a taxi. What’s the hassle? Or is it that you’re afraid you’ll be stuck with looking after me?’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all.’ But it was, although he wasn’t to know the true basis for her worry on that score. To look after him, to cook his meals, organise his clothing, just ... be with him. That would be the purest combination of heaven and hell she could imagine.

  ‘I’m glad, because one of the reasons Valerie is going back to Sydney is that I’m damned well sick and tired of being fussed over,’ he snarled. His voice was a throaty growl that left no room for doubt. He meant it. Rena felt a strange lightness in her heart, which raced wildly just at the words. No Valerie Dunn. But then no Rena, either. Not really.

  ‘Well, I think it’s a bit stupid,’ she said. ‘Not that it’s any of my business, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Except on Wednesday nights, if you decide to combine the roles of student and chauffeur. It’ll be your business then, because I’ll insist on taking you to dinner first, so you’ll have to be ready to check that my tie’s straight and I haven’t got on mismatched socks.’