The Wind and the Spray

by Joyce Dingwell

Her heart leapt. To get away, she thought, to break from the web.

  Then she remembered what he had said ... what he had in his possession ... the power he wielded.

  “I don’t want to go. I’m not going.”

  “Am I to take that as a compliment?” Nor asked. “Am I to infer you want to stop on here?”

  “I can go later ... when the Fuccillis have left ...” That might give him time to get out of Humpback, she thought.

  Nor smiled thinly. “I see your point. You prefer to stop on while there are numbers, go when there is not. But I assured you before on that point.”

  In a rush she said, “You assured me, too, of David.”

  Instantly Nor got up.

  Short of racing after him, clutching hold of him, insisting that he do something about David, do what he promised he would, she knew their short talk had ended. Why did Nor always back out the moment David’s name was in the air?

  She did not go after him. There was something heavy inside her. It was not just the thought of that thing of steel in the hollow of a man’s hand, it was not just Nor letting her down like this, letting David down, it was something else.

  It was the sudden, curious knowledge, although she knew nothing, had heard nothing, that it wasn’t going to matter, anyway ... that nothing was going to matter to David ... not ever any more.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE teacher and the school equipment arrived.

  Of the teacher, Nor observed, “A pity the Fuccillis are not about to leave, for then you could have followed them up with Mr. Brent, as you promptly filled Nathalie’s empty niche. You could have kept the house full.”

  “I didn’t fill it, the fire saw to that.” But had she not in a way, thought Laurel, done just what Nor said? If only she had told Nor of that first encounter on the cliff, Jasper would have been hunted out before he could do the damage he had. For at no time had Laurel nurtured any illusions as to how the fire had really begun.

  Tony Brent, young, keen, gratified to be chosen to start a brand new school, found board with Mrs. Jessopp.

  “The next thing,” said Laurel unthinkingly one day, “is to get some nice unattached girl at Humpback.”

  “For Brent?” drawled Nor.

  “He’s the only available male—now,” she returned.

  He nodded idly.

  “You do like tying things up, don’t you?” he said presently. “Making people permanent. And yet”—taking out his cigarette makings—“you’ve never become permanent yourself.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t really know, I can’t actually put a finger on it, yet you’re on edge, aren’t you? You’re never sure, never settled in.”

  Of course she was on edge, certainly she was unsure. Who would not be with that cold knowledge of that cold thing belonging to that cold man always on their mind?

  Day by day, when she went for a walk, Laurel took something, some tin of food, with her. For caution’s sake she did not always leave it in the same place, but it did not matter, he still found it. Undoubtedly he watched her conceal it. He had boasted that he saw everything up there.

  Then one day, when she went to the place where she had last planted a bundle of groceries, that previous bundle was still there. She glanced quickly up to the hill. Could it be that he had been unable to find it? Agitated, she chose a more obvious spot for this bundle, glancing up to the hill again.

  The next day both lots of groceries were untouched. She felt as she believed ancient people must have felt when they heaped up sacrifices to appease the gods. She wanted to spread all she could at Jasper’s feet ... anything to stop him doing what he had in his power to do ... and to wield.

  If she had paused to ponder on it, to consider it calmly, Laurel would have realized how foolishly, how near-hysterically, she was thinking and acting.

  But she didn’t pause. She only hurried up day after day and almost burst into weak tears when the groceries were still not gone.

  She went through a thousand agonies that week. Several times she saw Nor looking at her through narrowed eyes, but she was past caring what he thought.

  The nightmare that was Jasper coming down the track, gun in his hand, faded painfully at last, and another nightmare took its place. This time it was Jasper dead up there in the bush. She hated him, and she was afraid of him, but the thought of his lying ill, unable to come down for food, eventually perishing, haunted her even more than had the previous nightmare. Then at last, through exhaustion of repetition probably, both nightmares faded, and she had peace at last.

  Jasper had just got sick of everything and gone away, that was all. Now that the island was more populous, it would be comparatively easy to slip back unnoticed to the coast.

  Yes, Jasper had gone, the web was broken, she was free to breathe again.

  She came out of the darkness so noticeably that Mrs. Fuccilli as well as Nor had a comment.

  “You see the end of us in sight,” laughed the Italian, “that is it. For many days you think: ‘Still and still and still these people, how long more?’ Then all at once our house that is getting built becomes more like a house, and you know soon we go. Yes, that is it, I think.”

  “It is not, Louisa, I like you very much, and I don’t want you to go.”

  But Louisa brushed aside her words. “Ah, now, was I not young and newly-wed too, once? When two are so new in love is there room for more?”

  “But—”

  “You are good, Laurel, and Nor is good, you share so willingly with us. But time passes, and our house is nearly ready, and you will be alone, carissima. And that is right, for soon you are not alone.” Louisa gave a resigned shrug. “Look at me, little friend, five bambinos in so many years. They are sweet, yes—but so, too, that green time before the harvest.” Louisa sighed gustily for a vanished spring. Nor’s comment was less poetical.

  “So you’ve snapped out of it,” he said.

  To make up for her lethargy, Laurel threw herself into Island activities and organized left and right. Tony Brent looked a little startled, and Laurel thought laughingly to herself that perhaps she had better curb some of her enthusiasms lest she frighten him into believing all women worked madly like this.

  That long longed-for letter at last from David, too, gave her new spirit ... yet there was little reason why it should, really, for there was less in it than ever. And then, too, it was opened when Nor passed it across to her ...

  “Sorry about that. I just saw the Larsen ... never thought to look closer. Careless of me.”

  It was something that could happen with anyone, she knew that, but somehow his words did not convince. Why had Nor opened her letter? she thought.

  “Dearest Sis, Grand news about your marriage. Things just the same here. Will write more later. My love always, you know that, Dave.”

  It was typical of David’s letters, except that it was briefer. She examined it closely. Was the weak, disembodied writing a little more thin and spidery? No, it was just the same, she was imagining things. But she had not imagined Nor’s examination of the letter before he had passed it on to her. The broken seal, the re-folded sheet were evidence of that. Why had Nor opened it? Read it? What possibly could interest Nor in a letter from his wife’s brother? The answer, of course, was obvious. Nor, as yet, had made no real move to bring out David. He had said he had, but that had been only to silence, to appease her. He had opened David’s letter to make sure now that he was not yet involved.

  Laurel had put the letter down.

  “Nor,” she said, “you have started something about David, haven’t you?”

  “I told you I had, didn’t I?”

  “This letter”—she held the sheet up—“makes no reference to it.”

  “Need it make reference? Because a man writes and states that in a short time he is bringing someone out it doesn’t mean that the recipient of the letter must write back pages of enthusiasm.”

  Slowly Laurel said, “David never writes pag
es.”

  “Very well, then, you’ve received a customary letter, there is nothing out of the ordinary. What, then, are you complaining about? Why meet trouble halfway?”

  “Because I feel it is trouble, that’s why. I feel—I feel—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” flung Nor.

  Tony Brent had asked Laurel to word Mr. Larsen for swimming baths.

  “They have the whole sea, why do they want to confine themselves to a pool?” argued Nor when Laurel did.

  “These children are not babies like Jill and Meredith, they are past the paddling stage, they must learn to swim. It wouldn’t be safe in the sea.”

  “If it’s sharks, don’t worry. There are too many porpoises here. Where porpoises are, sharks are not. And the brats can learn to swim from them if they like. I did.”

  “You were surely a very remarkable child,” came back Laurel.

  “I was,” shrugged Nor in that maddening way of his. For all his argument, however, he had the baths built, though not near the school as Tony had requested, but on the shore. “At least let us have a right setting if nothing else,” Nor decreed.

  While the baths were being erected, four visitors came into the bay one day, just beyond the farthest slats, two adult whales, two children, now very big children of many, many tons each.

  The look-Out man recognized them ... as did all the Islanders ... so there was no “HVAL-BLAST!”

  “Is it usual for whales to come back and say ‘How are you?’ ” laughed Laurel delighted.

  “I think all things have a sense of gratitude. I know Mummy Reed once unstuck a sea lion’s eyes that were glued up with slick, and that by the time she got back to the cottage he had flipped there too, and was sitting on the mat.”

  When school was over, the children would race down to see how the baths and the whales were progressing.

  “Sometimes I can’t realize it,” grinned Nor. “For years no young life here at all, then, and unwillingly, Nath’s pair, and now even more than we want.”

  “There’s room for still more,” Laurel declared. She became aware of his eyes on her and felt herself colour.

  Hurriedly she resumed.

  “The way Humpback Island is forging ahead,” she said, “we’ll have a village with shops instead of ordering all our goods from the mainland quite soon. I can even see Nathalie returning under those circumstances. You’ll have your dynasty after all, Nor.”

  He shrugged. “That was your word, not mine.” He took up a slat and hammered it home. “Frankly I couldn’t care less,” he announced.

  But that was not true. Laurel knew it. She knew what Humpback Island, what a Larsen to carry on the Island, meant to Nor.

  She and Louisa went many times up to the house that was to be the Fuccilli house.

  It was nearing completion now. “Next week, the week after, we will be gone,” Louisa beamed.

  “How long have you been on the Island, Louisa?”

  “This many weeks.” The Italian held up her hand.

  Laurel counted, and thought to herself, I was married only several weeks before those many weeks; I was married because it was not a proper thing to live with a man in a house without a third person. She recalled how she had laughed hysterically that day of the fire, laughed and reminded Nor that that had been the only reason for their marriage and that now it had turned out quite unnecessary, they need not have married at all.

  She remembered ... and she felt a little cheap.

  Louisa smiled again for her Laurel and her Nor alone together at last. “The budding,” she insisted sentimentally, “before the flowering, the greening before the harvest, spring before summer, it is good, little friend.”

  Laurel said evasively, “Yes.”

  They went from room to room, mentally decorating it. Of course it would be a long time before it was decorated, but it was fun all the same.

  “You’ll want a big chair for Nino,” advised Laurel. “He works very hard, Louisa, and the man of the house should have an easy chair at night, his pipe, his slippers, a dog’s ears to fondle and hair to stroke.”

  “He must want them,” smiled Louisa. “The pipe perhaps, the slippers yes, but not the easy chair or the dog. Easy chairs cost much, and as for the dog, a bambino must do.”

  “But your bambinos are growing too big to have their ears fondled and their hair stroked,” laughed Laurel.

  “I am a thoughtful wife,” dimpled Louisa with a twinkling virtuousness. “I think of all these things, I think of the ears and the hair and I present my Nino with— guess!”

  “A terrier—they’re very smart, or a spaniel, they’re very affectionate.”

  “Terriers, spaniels, pouf! I give him a new bambino to nurse.”

  “Another baby!”

  “Why not? We have our house soon, we have room. Either a boy, a girl, it does not matter, but we talk it over and we like a boy, we think. Then he can be a big brother to your boy, Laurel, of if your bambino is a girl instead, our boy may marry your girl.” She looked at Laurel a little anxiously, worried as Laurel did not respond.

  “It is not what you want?” she asked humbly. “You like better that your children marry not someone from Roma like us?”

  Laurel threw her arms around her. “Of course not, Louisa, it’s just that—that—”

  “I know,” nodded Louisa gently. “You are concerned, little friend, because it is still the greening and not the harvest, eh? But worry not. The other soon comes. And look, I even put a spell on you. I give you this vest to knit. In. my old village the wise grandmothers would say: ‘Knit for others, knit for self.’ It is very powerful, this spell.” She laughed and handed over needles and white wool.

  That night Nor said, “What’s that you’re making?”

  “A vest.” Laurel added hastily, “Not for me.”

  “I hardly thought so. You’re certainly on the skinny side, Laurel, but that would be only big enough for a doll.”

  “It’s for a baby.”

  “Oh?” He was rolling a cigarette.

  “Nino’s and Louisa’s new baby. I was wondering about the rocking chair. Mummy Reed would have liked it to be used.”

  Nor yawned disinterestedly. “Please yourself.”

  Laurel finished the row and started on another. “They want a boy,” she giggled, “so that it can marry our girl.” Her laugh became a fond smile as she remembered Louisa’s concerned “You like better that your children marry not someone from Roma like us?”

  “You might let me know about it,” Nor drawled.

  For all his perpetual cynicism, however, since Jasper’s departure, or so Laurel assumed, and since David’s letter, she and Nor had been getting on better together.

  Whatever it was the weeks had built up between them ... a partnership? an inevitable if unwilling understanding? ... it still made for sunshine not ice.

  Almost Laurel was happy these days.

  The building went on, the planning went on, the lookout man called “HVAL-BLAST!”, the children recited tables and Tudor kings, a whaleman, making a whale fast, was struck by a fluke and for days lay unconscious in the Larsen house. But this, anyway, had a good ending. The whaleman recovered and not only was the monthly medical service shortened to fortnightly but a resident nurse was established.

  Then all at once, or so it seemed, after weeks of waiting the Fuccilli house was complete.

  Moving morning arrived, and Nino got behind the wheel of the jeep. There was room for all the family and their belongings, and there would be no need for a second trip. The Fuccillis had come out of the fire in little more than what they stood up in ... “These clothes, a fry pan,” Louisa once had recounted, “and Maria’s dolly pram for Christmas,” so shifting house in their case was no ordeal.

  “You come for dinner tonight,” shouted Louisa from the jeep.

  “Not tonight, it is too early, you will not be straightened up.” As she said it, Laurel was hoping urgently that Louisa would protest and insist t
hey come, for all at once she was thinking of the meal this evening, and only Nor and herself, and knowing a faint heart.

  But Louisa beamed widely. “How foolish of me. But then I am the old married woman. All this time all of us around you and I ask that. Tomorrow, then.” She waved a cheery goodbye. They all waved. Laurel waved back.

  When they were out of sight round the bend of the track, Laurel went back and tidied a few rooms. But there was nothing to tidy, really. Louisa had been the perfect guest. She had left the house just as she had come to it. There was no evidence of any family, no imprint of little fingers, no impression of small feet.

  All at once it all got on Laurel’s nerves. It seemed cold, lonely, unnatural, somehow. She had never thought to think of it like this.

  Nor was out on the Clytie. He would not be home for hours. Then when he did come, would it be any different from this?

  She knew she must get out for a while ... take an apple, some sandwiches, walk round the coast, up one of the hills, feel the wind in her hair, smell the brine and spray.

  She almost ran down the long dividing hall, dividing each set of rooms from the other set ... Nor’s room from hers. This time there was no family to follow up with afterwards, she thought, in a small panic, no Nathalie, no Fuccillis, no injured whaleman, there was only Nor and herself and the big old house.

  Quickly she packed lunch, put on her rubbers. Her mind was racing ahead to Nor’s long, easy stride up the hill tonight, his impatient unlatching of the gate, his sailor blue eyes taunting as they found and held hers.

  She slammed the door behind her and took the beach track.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LAUREL rimmed the creamy edge of the little bitten-in beach until its sands came to a rocky end. As ever the rhythmical surf pattern of crash, swirl and withdrawal contented her heart. The tern was not so shrill today. The sea had a lilac shimmer. The soldier crabs scuttled away as she approached.