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‘Even Sam the caretaker had to give in,’ she went on. ‘Joe, the book-keeper, took him home with him.’

‘Leaving the stud deserted?’

‘Yes.’

Another whistle from the other end.

‘I’ve been across, Kip, and so far things seem all right, but I know the attention that must be given, and it’s not being given. Kip, what am I to do?’

‘The answer’s obvious, my dear, but unfortunately it can’t be carried out.’

‘What do you mean, Kip?’

‘The answer is me, of course. A lot of them here have gone down, but not yours truly. Yes, I could come to your rescue, Padua, but on the other hand I couldn’t, for obvious reasons I couldn’t.’

‘Why, Kip?’

‘His Nibs. He would have a fatal relapse if he knew I’d lent a hand.’

‘In a case like this?’

‘Any case,’ he assured her.

‘But you told me you’d simply dissolved your employment with him, no bad words.’

‘That’s true,’ he agreed, ‘unless you count an order never to enter Yoothamurra Stud any more as a bad word.’

‘Did he?’

‘He did.’

‘Oh! ’ Paddy stood wretchedly with the receiver in her hand, wondering what she could do. Blessedly, or so it came to Paddy, Kip came to her rescue.

‘You said even Sam the caretaker is away?’

‘There’s no one there at all.’

'Then, Padua ’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ll just have to come, won’t I?’

‘Oh, thank you, thank you, Kip! ’

‘There’s only one thing. I don’t wish to involve you.’

Paddy protested, ‘But I’d have to be involved.’

‘If I have to involve you,’ Kip said firmly, ‘I don’t come. It’s as basic as that. I know David and I know his vile temper. I won’t have you suffer for having a kind heart.’

‘But how otherwise?’

‘Simple. You just know nothing about it.’

‘But ’

'You naturally have the appropriate keys?’

‘Why, yes.’

'Then leave them in the delivery box at the paddock gate. I’ll pick them up, do what has to be done, put them back.’

‘It’s deceitful,’ she sighed.

'That’s the only commodity David deals in. Anyway, please yourself, a small deceit or ?’

‘You’re right, of course. And Kip, you’re so kind.’

‘Just put those keys there now, pet, I’ll see to the rest.’

‘I wish I could repay you.’

‘You will,’ he assured her. ‘Now do that little job, then get back to your patients, Nurse. Lucky patients!’

‘Lucky me having a friend like you,’ smiled Paddy. ‘Lucky me having ... oh, we could keep this up for ever. Now off you go, love. And Padua ’

‘Yes, Kip?’

‘Worry no more. It’s all in my hands. I’ll see to everything, then put the keys back for you to pick up.’

'Thank you, Kip.’

'Thank
you,
darling.’

‘For what ? I’ve gone and given you a chore.’

'Thank you for turning to me,’ Kip said smoothly. ‘What else could a man ask?’

On that nice note it ended. Paddy put up the receiver, tiptoed into Magnus’s room and removed the keys, then went out of the house and along to the delivery box at the road end of the stud buildings.

Kip was discreet. It was not until she was entering the house again that she saw him ride down the track and remove the keys. Even then he did not avail himself at once, he went back to Standen again, showing prudence, she thought. He evidently intended to wait until he was quite certain that no one ... meaning Magnus David ... was about.

She went to the transferred phone and rang Standen again. She told Kip she had seen him take the keys, but he need not have worried, Magnus David certainly would not be around today.

'Thank you, but I’ll still do the necessary late this afternoon. It should be super safe then. You’ll find the keys put back.’

Paddy did find them in the box. She did not see Kip, though, and she mentally congratulated herself for doing things so adroitly.

Only once did she feel any alarm. As she was replacing the keys where Magnus had thrown them, the patient stirred and looked across at her. But he was too drowsy to look long. At once his eyes were closing again. He looked better, she thought. Possibly tomorrow, or the day after, he would be as fit as ever.

The boys meanwhile were very near to recovery. They were beginning to argue with each other, a sure sign.

But Paddy was feeling awful. Just as the boys got up and Magnus David sat up prior to getting up as well, she went down with her dose of virus.

Now she knew why Magnus, though he had worried about the stud, had been unable to stir himself. She was worried about the boys, and who would look after them, for Mrs Dermott had not recovered as quickly as she should, but still Paddy could not do anything about her concern.

She seemed riveted to her bed, and she knew even if she broke loose she would not be able to stand, her legs would not support her. Her head ached, her bones ached, all of her ached, everything seemed to be comprised of pain.

She was aware but uncaring of the boys peeping in at her, aware but still uncaring of Magnus David doing things for her that would ordinarily have sent her bounding out of bed to lock the door on him.

She was aware of tiptoeing, of things put down beside her, of arms around her supporting her while she drank and swallowed something, and if she didn’t swallow it then held like that until she did. She was aware of all indignity, but she couldn’t have cared less. Even when she heard Magnus David mutter one day: ‘Why in tarnation is the phone switched in here?’ did Paddy worry. She must have forgotten to switch it back after her talks with Kip, but who cared? Who cared?

She sweated, became chill again, tossed, went into deep sleep, then finally, a few days later, started to come out.

‘All right,’ invited Magnus David, sitting by her bed watching her, ‘say it. Say where am I?’

‘I know where I am.’

‘Good for you—I didn’t at first. What a bout! I’ve never had anything like it in my life. Had Jeremy been here he would have gone out like a match.’

‘Yes.’

‘But no one’s gone out. All accounted for, and for that I have to thank you.’

‘Me?’ she questioned.

‘You worked ceaselessly over us, you must have been run off your feet—no wonder you fell, too, in the end. But not only us, you attended the stud, something I’ll never forget. When I went over and found that everyone had gone off but that everything was still as it needed to be, I—well, I was petrified. How did you do it, girl wonder?’

‘Everything’s automatic,’ said Paddy feebly, ‘I really mean it didn’t entail much.’

‘Not entail much, when I found Into the Light as spry as he ever was? And to think you did it! You groomed and rubbed and exercised him—how, a new raw rider, no experience, also just about ready to drop yourself, I’ll never know.—Miss Travis, Miss Paddy Travis, how do you feel when I tell you that never,
never
have I known anyone less wanting?’

How did she feel ? Paddy felt as low as she could have felt. She said: ‘It's been awful. I want to forget it. Can’t we drop it, please?’

'
I
will never drop it. But if you don’t feel like talking about it now, then I’ll go along with you. Some bad news, though, Mrs D. is still not able to come in. Do you think you can stand my cooking a little longer?’

‘I don’t know,’ she smiled weakly, ‘I’ve really tried very little of it.’

‘No, and I’ll come clean, it’s not my cooking, I bring a prepared dish up from the stud. However, the boys are a hundred per cent again now, and assure me they can manage. I’m a great believer in that, so I think I’ll go along with them and say yes. Meanwhile the stable cook has brewed barley broth. Will you take some?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Paddy rather apprehensively, for Magnus’s announcement that the boys were taking over had not thrilled her. She had had experience of eager young cooks before, and she knew the strange results.

In the late afternoon she heard the noise of four boys in the kitchen arguing as to which switch to turn on and how far to turn it. Eventually a black chop arrived and four smiling faces. When Paddy managed to pierce the burnt offering, blood gushed out.

‘We did it,’ they announced.

Paddy ate it, and ate her omelette next morning ... Richard called it that and Paddy was glad, because otherwise she would not have recognised it... but the following morning she had had enough. How could anyone frizzle the surrounds of an egg, she wondered, yet keep the middle raw? She determined as soon as the four left ... they were all back to normal activities now ... to get up. She had another reason for not dallying any longer. Mark, as he had brought in the remarkable egg, had said:

‘We were looking through your banana cookbook.’

‘Mr David’s,’ she corrected.

‘There’s a recipe for banana preserve. Have you ever heard of that?’

‘No,’ Paddy had said a little faintly.

‘It’s all right, except there’s not much taste. So we put in a lot of salt and pepper.’

‘Salt and pepper?’ she gasped.

‘But Richard likes sweet things, so we put in a lot of sugar, too.’

‘Mark, you’re having fun with me, of course?’ But Mark had gone, leaving Paddy with the remarkable egg.

As soon as she heard the door bang, she got up. She swayed for a while, and then she found her feet. She tottered next door. On the table were filled jars and on the floor were contents that should have gone into jars but somehow had not reached there.

The colour of the jam-chutney-preserve, whatever it was, was horrific, something between smudge-blue and pollution-grey. Paddy approached the table and put out a testing finger. The concoction was watery but appeared also to be lumpy here and there. She tasted it and it was cane-sweet, yet seaweed-salt at the same time. Also, it burned. But most of all was its presence, all over stove, all over the table, all over the floor.

‘What in tarnation ’ Magnus David was standing at the door staring at the mess, and, forgetting she had come out in her nightie, Paddy defended:

'They did it to help me. You said they could.’

‘I said they could cook, not concoct. What is it?’

‘It’s out of your mother’s book.’

‘Right out from now on. Which page?’ Magnus had taken up the book from the table where it rested ... also covered with jam-chutney-preserve.

‘No, don’t do that,’ said Paddy. ‘They might have read it wrongly.’

‘Well, they won’t read me wrongly tonight. Little fiends!'

Paddy protested, 'They meant well.’

'They meant mischief. No one puts salt, sugar and pepper together like that and doesn’t.’

‘How do you know it’s salt, sugar and pepper?’

‘I just tried,’ he groaned, and he looked across at Paddy and grimaced.

Then suddenly ... Paddy did not know who started it ... they were laughing, laughing hilariously. Magnus was helping her scour and rub and mop and dry, and she was stopping him from discarding the concoction. ‘Because,’ she pleaded, ‘it meant something to them.’

‘I’d like to make it mean a lot more—and by heaven I will! They can eat it for dinner tonight. But how well are you, Miss Travis?’

‘You mean well enough to eat it, too?’ she asked without enthusiasm.

‘I mean well enough to eat out. To go out. Oh, I know you’re just out of bed, but if we drive there and back ’

‘Where?’

'The Plateau Club. There’s a restaurant-cabaret there. Not bad, though I seldom go myself. Too much -shop talk.’

‘Then ’ she began.

‘But there won’t be tonight.’ All at once his eyes were flicking at her, not deriding as they always did, also not sympathising as he had when she had been laid low.

‘What will there be tonight, then?’ she heard herself ask.

‘Soft music. Candlelight. Who knows? Hands across the table.’

A little wildly Paddy said: ‘If you meant mine ’

‘I did.’

'They’ll have chutney under the nails.’

'Then we must see to that, mustn’t we?’ He was taking her to the bathroom, the boys’ bathroom with the pickaback soap. There he was cleaning each finger in turn, and suddenly it came to Paddy that it was a very enjoyable process having each nail examined, then meticulously cleansed.

But—the club? She bit her lip. Suppose Kip was there ? Suppose he came across and said

But Kip wouldn’t, for it had been Kip who had been so adamant on her not telling Magnus.

‘Seven,’ Magnus was saying, drying the last finger. ‘And until then, rest.’

‘Seven?’ she queried.

‘I’ll book a table for then.’

‘But ’

She was in his big arms and he was carrying her into her own unit, putting her on the bed.

‘Sleep, little one,’ he said, and he pulled up the rugs and left her there.

Paddy heard him go out, but she still stayed where he had deposited her. She felt... she didn’t know how she felt... except that it was nice.

Paddy
rested obediently as instructed. Something inside her was urging her to look as good as she could tonight, and that would take complete relaxation now, for even getting up today had been a hard physical effort.

She found she was almost ridiculously excited about the prospect before her, and put it down to a previous dearth of social activity in her life. There had been the usual boy-friends at high school, but after that dates had been very rare. She had been too busy studying, and any men she met had been students too hard at it, too, leaving finally only Jerry at Pelican Beach, and to him she had been just Paddy, Old Man, Maryrose, and meals had been picnic variety on a rock, certainly not with someone on the other side of a table, soft music, candlelight, hands

Paddy dismissed the hands.

Fortunately she had brought one long skirt with her. Where would a girl be, she smiled, without a long skirt? She decided, eyes still closed, to wear the least utilitarian of her blouses. That should get her past even his critical eyes.

The boys arrived home and she got up and superintended their dinner. Richard had brought up the meat from cold storage, and Paddy, remembering another episode, took the opportunity to explain to him about fillet and scrag.