The Tender Winds of Spring (7 page)

‘I say so.’

‘Then the welfare lady will be here tomorrow morning, so see the kids’ noses are wiped.’

‘They always are,’ she retorted indignantly.

‘Do it extra well. A lot depends on her report.’

‘You mean I’ll be given an extra day guardianship?’ Jo’s voice was strained.

‘For two of them,’ he reminded her cruelly. ‘The lucky, or unlucky, one, of course, won’t be affected. Really, Miss Millet, you’re making a fuss about nothing. It just comes down to one out of three. That’s no big guns.’

‘It is for me. I simply can’t say in a week.’

‘Then ask him for longer.’

‘No, it wouldn’t work. Gavin is a changed man, he’s really—’

‘Really keen? Well, un-keen him.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Instead of being suddenly desirable, become a case for a second thought. No man wants to hurry a marriage if he has to have second thoughts.’

‘But you’re forgetting something,’ Jo said distinctly. ‘I love Gavin.’

‘Then that bright idea is off, isn’t it!’ he smiled blandly. He turned and left without another word.

At dinner that night Jo broke the news about the welfare officer.

‘A lady will be calling to see if you’re all right. If you’re not, she’ll take you back with her.’

No one commented.

‘But I think you’d sooner stay, wouldn’t you? Well, for a time, anyway. I mean’ ... desperately ... ‘at least you know us here. I thought it would be nice if we were bright and happy tomorrow, then the lady would know.’ Jo’s last words on the subject were a discouraged: ‘Wouldn’t she?’

She changed to the second topic. Friends. From this she expected nothing.

But for the first time there was interest.

No, they hadn’t said goodbye. Yes, they would like to send some farewell presents. Almost intoxicated at her first success, even though it was really Abel’s success, Jo showed them the money.

Amanda and Dicky at once took out paper and pencils and began dividing up. It was agreed that they took half the money each, then donated a sum each to Sukey, who was too young to have many friends.

For the first time Sukey did not agree. ‘I do have some, too,’ she argued.

But Amanda and Dicky paid no notice in their absorption over their arithmetic. It appeared that Amanda’s amount had to spread over twenty-one friends, Dicky’s over nineteen, though he was desperately trying to think of two more to get level with Amanda.

Each recipient, it also appeared, must get a present of the exact same value.

‘That makes,’ said Amanda, licking her pencil, ‘sixty cents.’

‘Mine’s more,’ said Dicky.

‘Yes, but you’ve not so many friends.’

Thrilled with the nearest thing to animation she had seen in them yet, Jo said craftily: ‘We’ll all get dressed nicely tomorrow and as soon as the welfare lady goes, we’ll drive into town.’

They nodded.
They actually nodded.

Mrs. Featherstone was driven out next morning in an official car, and one look at her made Jo glad. She was plump, motherly, unruffled, and she had the right answers. She did not pay over-attention to Amanda and Dicky, and when Sukey, eyes set on Mrs. Featherstone’s blue rinse, asked: ‘Why is your hair like that?’ answered at once:

‘It’s the reflection of the sky, my dear.’

Mrs. Featherstone assured Jo that nothing would be done at present, then was driven away again. Five minutes later, keeping to her promise, Jo took the children to town.

Then it began.

Twenty-one, nineteen and ten (Amanda, Dicky and Sukey) added up to fifty gifts to be bought. In half an afternoon. With each gift had to go a card, and a different card, and no two presents, of course, must be the same.

Different wrapping paper ... (would Dicky’s friend John really take to
Welcome to the new baby
that Dicky had chosen without reading first, but then the parcel contained trick matches and a false moustache, so all might be well.)

Amanda meanwhile had bought false eyelashes, a startling lipstick that no school would permit, and ‘parfum’. She asked each time for Parfum. ‘It smells better than scent,’ she informed Jo. That was the lovely thing about it all—the children were actually confiding. Not Sukey. Not quite yet. Sukey’s presents, too, baffled Jo. She had bought her best friend Karen coloured toilet paper and a plug of tobacco.

The shops were beginning to put up their grilles when the money ran out and they agreed to come home. Jo sighed with relief, a relief that lasted for exactly one block.

‘Stop the car!’ squealed Amanda in agony.

‘Darling, are you sick?’ asked Jo.

Amanda had the book and pencil on her lap, and she looked up in pain at Jo.

‘I’ve spent two cents more on Catherine. It has to be the same as Janet, Lynda, Miranda—’

‘But, darling—’

‘Oh, I couldn’t, I couldn’t! It would be awful. I’d die of shame. Could you go back?’

‘They’ll be closed.’

‘They mightn’t be, they were only putting out the cages.’

‘Grilles. But—’

‘Please.
Please
!’

This was a moment of breakthrough, and all at once Jo recognised it.

‘Yes,’ she smiled, ‘we’ll go back.’

Bringing the others up to what Amanda had spent on Catherine (through a loan from Jo) sometimes made them more than Catherine. It all had to be cleverly adjusted, and it was all very involved, but at last it was done, and by that time the shop attendant had a strange look.

Jo had a strange look, too, but she felt absurdly happy, almost lightheaded. They came out of the store and the thankful proprietor turned a key.

Amanda had asked Jo to try on a sample lipstick she intended to give to Lynda now that the agreed amounts had been changed. Only it hadn’t stopped at one sample lipstick, it had grown to many. Jo had forgotten how many, but she was very conscious of the rainbow she wore as Gavin came out of his office at the same time as she and the children emerged from the store. She was aware of her ruffled hair ... she had been trying on a fishing cap for Dicky. She was alerted to many things ... particularly one of the things. What had Abel said? A case for a second thought. She knew she must look very much like a case for a second thought to Gavin on the opposite side of the street.

‘There’s that man who came to see you,’ said Dicky.

‘Yes,’ said Jo weakly. She waved.

Gavin bowed back, then looked indicatively ... and thankfully? ... at the traffic.

Jo nodded, and returned her group to the car.

In the back seat she could hear them babbling, arguing, quarrelling ... and not in soft voices. Wonderful, she rejoiced, they’re talking like, normal beings. No, they’re shouting. They’re not whispering together so I can’t hear them. Gee darling, can you hear them as well? But of course you can. Oh, I’m happy, happy!

I love Gavin, I love Gavin. In her joy Jo included Gavin, too, with every turn of the wheels back to Tender Winds. At the house the children tumbled out and actually raced up to Abel. Not Sukey, though. Not yet.

Jo followed more thoughtfully. She was sober again now and could not have said for sure how she felt.

Yet she must have been content, for when Abel, the children in their rooms discussing their purchases, asked keenly of her: ‘Success?’ without a moment of hesitation Jo answered:

‘Oh, yes, Abel, success.’

CHAPTER SIX

But
still there was no magic. All the next morning the children wrote their messages on their gifts, in Sukey’s case a simple: ‘From Suk’, for her four little years evidently made her incapable of getting beyond that, then they encased the parcels in brown wrappings and gave them to Jo to be mailed.

Then that was that. The effervescence went flat.

Not such a handsome return, Jo thought, for the substantial sum that Abel Passant had passed over.

She said this to Abel when he came in from the plantations, but he only smiled and shrugged, ‘The recipients at least will gain.’

‘That wasn’t the idea.’

‘Look, Josephine, you advanced. If only for a short while you went forward, not back. Isn’t that enough?’

‘At the price of all that money!’

‘I’m not complaining, am I?’

‘No.’ She looked at him estimatingly. ‘You must have a lot of money.’

‘Enough. Though you could say I could do with more.’

‘No one needs more if they have enough.’

‘For extra mouths.’ A pause. ‘To buy someone off.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘What I said.’

‘You have no extra mouths,’ she pointed out.

‘Not yet.’

She decided to pass that one over. ‘And the buying off?’ she asked.

‘Want to hear the bitter story?’

‘No.’

‘Then why did you ask?’

She did not reply to that and a few minutes went by in silence. Abel Passant broke the silence.

‘How were the kids today?’

‘This morning diverted. This afternoon back to their old form.’

‘Then you’ll have to think of something else, won’t you?’ ‘I can’t, I’ve tried everything, and anyway, it can’t go on.’

‘What can’t?’

‘Always thinking of something.’

‘I suppose not. I suppose also you may think it pointless to work on three when only one is your goal?’

‘It’s not my goal, it’s all I can hope for.’

‘Honestly, Josephine?’

‘I told you what Gavin said.’

‘But honestly, what do you hope for? Be really truthful now. Would you really like to take three children with you to your marriage with Gavin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well—if you say so.’ He shrugged and smiled thinly.

‘I am saying so.’

‘Out of conscience?’

‘Mr. Passant—’ she began.

‘Look, Josephine, don’t try to include any love for them on me. I’m too hard-bitten for that.’

‘They—they’re hard to love,’ Jo blurted. The children’s return to their clam-like state had disappointed and saddened her.

‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘So we’re honest at last. There is no love.’

A long moment went past, Jo not trusting herself to speak. Again Abel broke the silence.

‘Heard from fiancé Gavin?’ he enquired.

‘No. But I saw him in town when I was with the children.’

‘That must have been a difficult moment for him, an anxious period of Which? Which? Which?’

‘Actually he didn’t look at the three,’ she admitted.

‘Of course not, not when you were there.’

‘I was flustered, dishevelled, untidy,’ said Jo miserably. ‘Amanda had discovered she’d spent two cents more on Catherine, so we had to go back to the store and do it all again. I had five different coloured lipsticks on me.’

‘Go on,’ encouraged Abel, obviously delighted.

‘We couldn’t meet, of course, he was on the opposite side of the street and it was peak traffic.’

‘So Gavin signalled you on and rang you later?’

‘He signalled me on.’

‘No ring?’

‘No.’

‘Excellent, Josephine. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? What you needed? A delay. A pause. Instead of having to give him your answer in the time he set he’s now going to propose a deferment.’

‘I’m sure he won’t.’

At that moment the telephone pealed, and yes, it was Gavin.

‘Josie?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Gavin.’

‘Feeling better, I trust, than you looked yesterday. Poor dear, those children certainly are getting you down.’

‘I was tired,’ she admitted.

‘And showed it. My dear—’

‘Yes, Gavin?’

‘You must be very certain over your choice. Unless, of course, you’ve had a complete change of mind?’

‘No change of mind.’

‘Then use care, dear. In which case I’ve decided not to hurry you as I have been doing.’

‘What do you mean?’ she queried.

‘I thought perhaps a deferment.’

‘I see.’ Jo could also see Abel’s grinning face, and she squirmed.

Something in her voice must have reached Gavin.

‘My dear, I’ll run out to see you. I’ll come tomorrow.’

‘Yes, I’ll expect you, Gavin.’ Now she could look triumphantly at Abel.

‘Then goodbye, dear girl.’

‘Goodbye, Gavin.’ Jo put the receiver down.

‘He’ll be out,’ she said unnecessarily.

‘Good for you,’ praised Abel. ‘Or should it be good for him? Or is it good for whom?’

‘Will you please leave now, Mr. Passant? I have a few things to do.’

‘I also have some things for you to do. Yes, I know all this is not my business, you’ve told me so often enough, but don’t forget I was in it right from the beginning as well as you—something your Gavin was not. So you can’t expect me to be totally uninvolved.’

She nodded unwillingly. ‘I suppose I can’t. Please go on, Abel. What is it you want of me?’

‘I want you to begin asking questions again, not hedging around them as you have been.
Ask.
Say: “What was your mother’s name?” ... “Did you father smoke?” Anything at all so long as it connects, even remotely connects.’

‘I’ve tried,’ she sighed.

‘Then try again, Josephine.’

All at once Jo could not contain herself.

‘For what?’ she burst out at him. ‘For one out of three, none of which I really want, according to you. For one I’m only trying to come to a decision about because of Gee and my conscience.’

‘Oh, Josephine,’ he said sadly, and left it at that.

Later that day Jo tried again with the trio, and, as she had expected, got no results.

‘I know it must be painful to talk about your father,’ not one small face showed pain, ‘but it might help. Did he—did he—’ What was it Abel had said? Did he smoke?

No, that was too ridiculous.

‘Did he play games with you?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘What did you call him? Father? Dad? I guess Sukey called him Daddy.’

‘No,’ said Sukey.

‘When he was there we tried not to say anything,’ recalled Dicky, but anything else he might have confided was stopped by a painful kick in his shins. Amanda was very adept at that.

‘When he was there! Where else would he be?’ picked up Jo.

‘We don’t know,’ said Amanda. She added triumphantly: ‘How could we know, we were at school.’

‘But he wrote letters to you.’

‘No.’

‘Your mother did.’

‘No.’

‘What did you call your mother?’

Silence.

Jo took a deep breath.

‘When did she die, dears?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘But she did die, didn’t she, or were your father and mother—’ Jo stopped herself from finishing that. ‘There must have been something,’ she said instead, ‘because there was going to be another wedding. You knew there was going to be a wedding, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. Him and her.’

‘Amanda.’

‘Mark and your sister.’

‘Yes, Mark and my sister Geraldine,’ confirmed Jo. ‘Have you always called your father by his first name? Mark?’ Amanda darted a quick look at Dicky and he flicked one back at her.

‘Can we go out to play?’ they asked together.

‘Play?’ echoed Sukey.

‘Yes, of course, darlings. Go and have a good play.’

They went out to sit in a huddle in the garden, certainly not playing, leaving her exactly nowhere, she had to admit.

Flattened, she went through the back door and took refuge in the old plantation. Perhaps if she spoke to Gee—

But Gee did not come, not even her amused laughter came, but the wind making pleats in the leaves of the banana palms, making them with a sibilant whisper like the sound of the sea, soothed Jo, and presently she went in again.

She was up early the next day making the place as she knew Gavin would certainly expect it, three children around or not. As she tidied things she thought about Gavin and a child in the house. Somehow she could not picture it. With children, even one, you could not have the same order, and Gavin liked order. Of course the child would be going to school, but when it wasn’t at school—
It.
This was awful. She should say ‘he’ or ‘she’, or Amanda, Dicky, Sukey. Which brought everything back to that basic question again. Which? She knew Gavin would ask it when he came, ask, anyway, if she was any nearer an answer. What could she say then ... no,
now
? For a car was pulling up at Tender Winds at this very moment. But it was not Gavin’s car, she saw. It was a different make. Also, a girl was getting out of the car, not Gavin. And she was one of the loveliest girls Jo had ever seen. Even including Gee. Jo wondered who she was. She had never seen her before. Another welfare worker checking up to see if what the first one had reported was indeed correct?

Jo went out to the verandah.

The girl had reached the bottom of the shallow steps now.

‘May I?’ she smiled up.

Jo said: ‘Please do.’

The girl joined her on the verandah. ‘I’m looking for a Mr. Passant, a Mr. Abel Passant. Would you know him?’

‘Yes, I know him.’ A pause. ‘But he’s not here. He doesn’t live here.’

‘Then there’s another plantation house?’

‘This is the only house. But a new house is being built for the banana boss. Pending that Mr. Passant is camped on the site.’ Except for an interlude when he slept at Tender Winds, Jo thought. But she did not add that.

‘I wanted to see Abel. Where would I find him?’

‘Possibly up top, possibly not. It’s a very big plantation and he may be working among the trees.’

‘Can I drive up?’

‘Hardly.’ Jo smiled at the idea. ‘You’d have to return to the highway and take the next sealed road to do that. It’s the fruit truck road. This small track only runs for another few hundred yards, then the valley rises almost vertically. You have to take the flying fox.’

‘Oh, dear. Is there an operator?’

‘Only if the bananas are going up, but it’s quite simple to work and you’d be all right. It’s quite breathtaking, really, once you get used to the giddiness. I’d come with you, only I’m expecting someone. I thought you were the person.’

‘Thank you for the thought. I’ll manage. By the way, my name is Erica Trent.’

‘I’m Josephine Millett. Perhaps I’ll see you on your way back. You’ll have to return to collect your car. Call in and have some tea.’

‘I will. Thanks.’

Jo watched the girl leave, then turned to enter the house again just as Gavin’s car wheeled into the drive. She waited for him to join her, as Erica Trent had, on the verandah, but Gavin took his time. He was looking at Erica walking along the winding track towards the flying fox. When he came at last he said:

‘There’s a remarkably pretty girl for you, Josie.’

‘Yes.’

‘Welfare type?’

‘No. She’s visiting Mr. Passant.’

Gavin looked again, then came into the house with Jo. ‘Dear child,’ he said sympathetically, ‘you seemed so tired in town, and you sounded so tired over the telephone. Are you sure these children are not getting you down?’

‘Sure, Gavin. They’re very quiet children. But making a choice isn’t easy.’

‘You still won’t forget the whole thing?’

‘No, Gavin. And you still won’t accept the three?’

‘Let’s be reasonable, dear.’

‘Oh, yes, we must be reasonable,’ Jo agreed.

‘Have you any more to report to me about them?’ Gavin asked.

‘Only that the welfare people are satisfied with this background until the time comes for them to be moved. Also, there were several payments to Mark’s—to their father’s bank through the Mines Department.’

‘Now that really
is
something,’ Gavin said with interest. ‘A mine, eh? If several payments have been made, it must have been productive once, and if it was once it might be again, so these children could possibly come in for something.’

‘Yes, all
three
of them, Gavin.’

That silenced Gavin for several moments.

‘But we don’t
know,
do we?’ he said at length. ‘It could be some wildcat scheme. Most of the holes in the ground only produce a couple of times, then no more, in spite of what’s written up in the newspapers about a mining boom. I suggest, dear, that you ask the children where this mine is.’