The Wind and the Spray (18 page)

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 they 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.

She found new shells for the shell table, but thinking of the shell table with its clams and its lobster floats made her think, too, of Nor’s tin of pearls ... of
one
pearl.

She discovered a starfish, a sea anemone, a little stranded mullet in a rock puddle, very indignant, very bewildered, very anxious to get out.

She spent ten minutes making a seaward gutter for him, and had the reward of watching his shining silver body shoot out like the flash of a gun. A gun? Laurel thought. Why did I say a gun? Jasper, thank heaven, is gone.

She walked on, hoping she had not rescued the little fish for food for a bigger fish.

At the end of the beach she stood and picked out a likely ascent up the cliffs, then began to climb. It was steep, but if you dug your fingers into crannies, wriggled your feet into toeholds, it was quite accessible
...
and the view from the top was superb.

She turned at last from the blue and lilac of it all and set inland. The rock outcrops soon gave way to gorse beneath drooping she-oaks, then presently the gorse and she-oaks stopped and she was right in the bush, there was bracken beneath her feet and musk and eucalyptus over her head.

She came out on a little clearing and ahead of her saw a knoll farther to the east. From here it looked as though it was enamelled in heraldic azure. Morning glories? she asked herself.

She forgot that blue air that southern hemisphere hills take upon themselves
...
forgot the wise story of the little boy who coveted the house across the valley with the golden windows
... All she knew was that she must climb
down, then climb up again. Climb that morning glory knoll.

It was pleasant doing it. Nor had told her that this was Australia’s, thus Humpback’s, loveliest season. The mellow end of summer, the crisp beginning of autumn, both blended leisurely yet piquantly together, the air moist, soft and caressing, the tapestry of trees stripping their bark in ribbons instead of shedding their leaves, because, Nor said, in Australia in the fall nothing fell.

When she got to the bottom of the slope she had a stream to cross. It was not such a small stream, either, it hurried itself as though it had a fairly substantial and reliable source. Even after she had spanned it and started to climb her knoll she could still hear its persistent water-bells as it busied itself along.

She frowned. There was a rivulet on the island, but it was not this side. As far as she could puzzle it all out, this creek’s course should come out just above their own house. She had never seen any sign of a stream, but then it might dwindle out before that, go underground, change its course.

She turned round a moment to ponder about the stream and whence it came. She even retraced her steps and stalked it for a few hundred yards. There was a germ of a suspicion in her mind, but certainly Nor would pooh-pooh it. He always laughed away her aspersions as to the reliability of the high level storage tank. That, and the house, had become a point of mild argument between them. Nor admitted the age of both, but persisted that there were other things to be done. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps the storage tank still had years of service. All the same Laurel looked dubiously down now on the busy little watercourse.

When it came to returning to the ascent of her morning glory knoll again, it seemed that it wasn’t there any more to ascend. She decided to climb back to the clearing to make sure of the direction once more, but the clearing wasn’t there either, she found.

No clearing, no blue hill, nothing, nothing, it seemed, but dark green bracken and sage green bush and trees, trees, trees.

Laurel stood confused. Nor once had warned her about the island.

“A little place like this!” she had laughed incredulously.

“Little though it is, it’s large enough to be lost in.”

Later she had come to believe that. Had she not seen with her own eyes how it had been large enough to conceal a man, to hide Jasper? But why was she
t
hinking
of Jasper now?

“Australian bush doesn’t look dense,” Nor had said. “It appears to present no hazard, but there’s no other place on earth where a man can get lost so easily, so hopelessly, than in our own deceptive wilds.”