The Wind and the Spray (7 page)

“I’ve enjoyed the walk,” smiled Laurel, “but I don’t say I’d enjoy the rest. It climbs fairly steeply from here, doesn’t it?”

“Not as steeply as Dee,” said Luke. “That’s why the reservoir was put on Dum. Better grade.”

“Dee and Dum?”

“There was a Tweedle in front of both once, but it’s been dropped through the years,” explained Luke. “Dee was harder to climb, so the first Larsen put the Island’s high level water storage on Dum. That’s why Dum got the road.”

“Track,” smiled Laurel.

“On our standards, road,” persisted Luke. “The storage has been standing a century and a half, same as the house,” he continued. “Both sadly need renewing, but so, Nor tells me when I warn him that usefulness comes to an end when an article wears out, does his exchequer. In other words, Miss Teal, Nor is so anxious to expand he won’t spend money on things that are already there.”

Laurel glanced to the little girls. She had not brought them walking with her because she had felt it might be too much.

Teasingly she said, “How is it you two are riding in the despised jeep? Not even cushions on the seats like in the Sydney cars?”

“Nothing else to do here,” announced Jill in an adult manner. No doubt she had heard that said before from a bored parent.

“And nothing better to ride in,” added Meredith, also in a very grown-up way.

“The dead spit of their mother,” sighed Luke regretfully, pushing the jeep up the last few steep feet. He added sadly, “And the dead spit of their pop as well, and in saying that I don’t mean looks.”

Laurel knew what he did mean ... he meant future Humpback Island material, and she silently agreed with him. These children were not bo
rn
Islanders and that was
a fact.

The reservoir, when they arrived there, certainly needed renewing. Laurel thought impulsively, “I’ll tell Nor that it’s never expansion when you don’t maintain,” then she flushed, imagining his raised eyebrows, his cool sailor blue eyes becoming Antarctic blue as he answered, “Oh, yes, Miss Teal, and what business is this, pray, of yours?”

The view from the hummock was quite superb; height changed the island to a little world of colour and light, transparency and fragile unreality, something that might shiver away at a touch.

“It’s very beautiful,” Laurel breathed.

Luke said nothing, but his face creased into a million wrinkles and she guessed he was pleased.

They descended again, and when they were on the bottom, Luke took the track that rimmed the coasts to the northern end.

“We’re going to see Nor’s new boat,” the little girls clapped.

Laurel was not sure about this. She remembered how she had sensed intrinsically that a boat had character and a soul, how you could not intr
u
de, unasked, uninvited. She said so a little haltingly.

“I know what you mean,” nodded Luke, “but I reckon you’d be all right, and I reckon Nor knows it as well.”

“How would he know it?”

“He chose you, didn’t he?”

Laurel reddened, recalling Mrs. Reed speaking, in a way, in the same strain.

“I applied for a job and I got this,” she told Luke.

“Not unless he said so,” said Luke. “Not unless Nor decided, Miss Teal.”

The Dynasty, the House of Larsen. Before she could fling this at Luke, they were halted beside the slip.

Laurel had not known what she had expected in Nor’s new boat ... an old warrior like the stout but outdated
Leeward
... a two hundred tonner with diesel engines and a top speed of twelve knots as she had been told the
Clytie
was.

This was neither. It was not even as large as the
Leeward,
but it was a slim, obviously manoeuverable, vastly superior craft. It was lithe and trim, a singing thing from bow to stern.

By her side Luke said proudly, “With lines like that she could be close-winded.”

“What shall she be used for?”

“He could put a sail on her for some fun outside the bay if he’d find time for fun; he could put an engine in and use her for scouting around, seeing the lie of the land, reporting back to the
Clyde
and setting the chaser on the chase.”

Laurel shivered a little.

“Poor whales,” she said.

To her surprise the old whaleman nodded agreement.

“Yes, ‘tis sad,” he conceded wholeheartedly. “They’re harmless things. But you need have no fear that the species will be killed off, Miss Teal, for when the number is reduced to half, the chase would be too expensive to continue. In other words it wouldn’t pay not to have a quota and stick to it, see?”

“Does Mr. Larsen stick to his quota?”

Luke gave Laurel as frosty a look as his warm little eyes could produce.

“He cares about his whales,” he said.

“
Male
whales, I should say.”

“Well, as a matter of fact more males are caught than females. A cow with a calf is never caught, of course, because the calf would die, and that wouldn’t pay.”

“You mean it’s not caught purely for monetary reasons, not because it would be cruel?” Laurel asked.

Luke ignored her interruption.

“For some design or other there appears to be more males than females,” he announced. “In fact I
’
ve often heard Nor remark that he believes all the females are kept in some secluded pound.”

“Undoubtedly he approves.” Laurel found she could not resist saying that.

Luke gave her a quick look.

They returned in the jeep after the children had laden themselves with shells, in spite of the number of shells already in the cottage.

“These are different shells,” Jill declared.

Laurel helped them arrange the new shells on the table in the
corner
of the kitchen, and then she helped Mummy Reed with the meal.

Although, as Nor Larsen had said, there was island help for Mrs. Reed with the actual chores, there was still plenty of work Laurel found to do. Where obviously once the old lady had taken everything in her stride, the years had slowed her up, and she was grateful now for Laurel’s aid. Not only grateful but even quietly contented as well.

“Now,” she remarked several times, “I know he’ll be all right.”

Laurel did not ask her what she meant. Let her rest in her contentedness, she thought, she’s very old and tired.

The children, too, although placable, needed occasional guidance as all children do, so that was another job Laurel found for herself, another niche to fill. Nor Larsen, she thought, should be pleased she had taken his advice.

The sisters did not actually quarrel, but often bickered. Jill, as elder, loved to correct. One morning she corrected Meredith when Meredith announced dramatically that her doll-baby had Lumps.

“Mumps.”

“Lumps.”

“Mumps, isn’t it, Laurel?”

Laurel concurred, much to Meredith’s fury, for she was more quicker-tempered than Jill. She would explode, then calm down. “Like a fizzy drink,” Jill described.

Meredith looked at
L
aurel after the correction with baby hate. Laurel had sided with Jill against her. She could kick at Jill, bite her, but not a grown-up lady. She tried desperately to think of something really devastating to say. At last she thought of it and burst out triumphantly, “You’ve got a dirty face.”

However, apart from little upsets like this, like Meredith emptying Laurel’s only phial of perfume on the floor so she could use it as a feeding-bottle for her mumpy, or lumpy as she still persisted, doll-baby, and so for many days banishing the tang and brine and introducing an alien scent of Muguet, they got on extremely well.

“We’re lucky, we have two Mummys, a thin one and a thick one, the thick one is Mummy Reed,” said Jill.

“Soon we’ll only have our thin one, Daddy said so,” put in Meredith. “We’re going to Sydney where the thin Mummy is, going for ever and ever, and you know what, Laurel, we’re going to clap her, Daddy, Jill and me, and sing Sandra and Gloria too.”

Laurel pricked her ears at that “for ever” but decided not to probe. She simply asked about Sandra and Gloria.

“Send her Victoria, Sandra and Gloria. Didn’t you know you sang that at the end of things?” scorned Jill.

Any correction as to the right words of the National Anthem was stopped by Meredith’s excited announcement that a boat was coming in.

Laurel jumped up and looked over the little girl s shoulder, and in that moment she knew she was as excited herself.

It was merely because she was now an islander, she tried to reason; all islanders observed with deep interest all comings and goings to and from their midst.

It was the
Leeward.
There was no mistaking the three poky decks, the solid rails around the deck amidships, the clumsy lumbering look.

“Daddy’s there,” shouted Meredith, her lumpy doll-baby thrown down in a manner no sick-room would approve.

“Of course, darling,” said Laurel.

“We didn’t
think
he might be,” observed Jill.
“He
said the only time he’d set foot on here again would be to fetch us off.”

“Now I guess we’ll all be going off together,” gloated Meredith.

“And there’ll be cars with cushions on the seats in Sydney,” rejoiced Jill, “and no dirty old jeeps.”

She added in final bliss: “And we’ll sing Sandra and Gloria, too.”

They went scampering out of the room, out of the house, joining the other welcoming islanders on the jetty.

All at once, not caring about the portent of cars with cushions, the significance of future National Anthems, Laurel was running, her red hair flying, down to the jetty as well.

CHAPTER SIX

AS she stood there in the little crowd she felt as animated as the islanders were. She clapped her hands with them when it looked like Nor making the jetty in the first attempt, she said “Ah—” in disappointment with them when he had to circle after all and make a second run.

That second run took away her exhilaration. She had had a fleeting glimpse of Nor’s face as he had edged past the pier and turned seaward again, and it had no amusement in it, it was set and grim. He’s angry, she thought, and justifiably or unjustifiably, he’s going to take it out on me. She wished she had never been so stupid as to intervene on Peter’s behalf.

Peter, when the
Leeward
moored successfully on the second run, appeared chastened, but not unhappily chastened. He looked, thought Laurel secretly, like someone who had something up his sleeve.

He jumped on to the pier and hoisted one little girl on each shoulder.

“I love you for ever, Laurel,” he grinned.

She got into step beside him. “I don’t love you, then.”

“Oh, come,” he grinned again, “you didn’t really think I was going over just for the trip.”

“I did think you would keep your word.”

“My dear, haven’t you learned yet that there’s no honour in love? Anyway, why the long face? I’m the culprit, not you.”

“Nor won’t see it entirely that way,” said Laurel gloomily.

“He’ll get over it,” shrugged Peter, in such high spirits that nothing could daunt him. “He’ll get over it all eventually.”

“Peter, what do you mean?”

“My doll-baby had Lumps,” cried Meredith.

“Mumps,” corrected Jill.

“Daddy, did you see Mummy?” asked the doll-baby’s mother. “Are we all going to—”

“Daddy, when will it be?”

“Look, kids, there is a time and a place.” Peter said it quite sharply. He glanced over his shoulder. Nor Larsen was striding up the track. “Sorry and all that, young Laurel, but short of strangling these menaces I can’t shut them up. I’ll go ahead and leave you to his tender mercies. After all, it only has to be got over once.”

Laurel had reached the gate of the picket fence by the time the big man caught up with her.

He stepped adeptly between her and the latch, just, she recalled, as once, the first time she had met him, he had stepped adeptly between her and the cage of a lift.

“One moment, Miss Teal,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” She remembered on that occasion she had said that, too.

He must have recalled, as she did, for he drawled back.
“
Not
pardoned this time. I want a few pertinent words with you. We’ll walk up the hill.”

It was futile to try to say to this man that there was nothing to discuss, that she was busy, that she did not want to speak to him. He simply put his fingertips under her arm and led her away from the house. Though the touch was light she still had the impression of steel. She had the certain knowledge that had she resisted she would have had to go just the same.

A garden climbed the hill. It must be as old as the house, as old as the high level water storage, a century and a half old, Laurel thought.