The Tender Winds of Spring (4 page)

‘It isn’t.’ It was the boy Dicky. ‘It’s after lunch. Remember all that food they gave us.’

That was a disappointment to Jo, she now could not hope for any help from her gingerbread men that had reheated beautifully and were sending forth lovely aromas. But she did not blame the good woman who had been called in by the stationmaster. Apart from crying over them, which she would know she mustn’t do, what else could she have done but ply them with goodies? Jo knew she would have done the same herself.

‘Welcome to The Tender Winds of Spring,’ she called. That might help.

They looked at the house suspiciously, and the eldest, Amanda, said that there was no wind today, even the banana leaves were still.

‘Escaped convict bananas,’ Jo tried desperately. ‘They’ve got away from gaol and now can grow as they please, ripen in the sun instead of a bag.’ She looked eagerly for one receptive face.

None.

‘Come in,’ she said.

They walked in, and as they did Jo was able to observe them. Not particularly outstanding children. Just children. She had expected Mark to be handsome because Gee was ...
had
been ... so beautiful, and beauty seeks beauty, but if so then they did not resemble him.

Jo’s eyes were attracted next to Amanda’s skirt. It was very unbecoming for a twelve-year-old girl, halfway to her ankles.

For the first time a faint spark of interest leapt up in Amanda because of Jo’s attention to the skirt. In Dicky also, but his spark was nor pride, it was scorn.

‘She did that on the train. She let the hem down. I told her they’d make her alter it.’ They? Mark and Gee?

‘I’ll be unfashionable,’ protested Amanda, ‘everyone knows skirts are down. They must let me wear it like this.’ They?

‘Sukey’s aren’t down.’ It was Dicky.

‘Sukey’s a child.’

‘So are you.’

‘I are—I mean I’m not. I’m a young lady.’

‘So you am,’ Dicky pounced triumphantly. He looked a bright button. ‘Well, they won’t let you.’ They?

Sukey said nothing.

‘So you don’t want any gingerbread men?’ Jo came in.

‘No, thank you.’

‘I haven’t made any introductions,’ tried Jo next. ‘Neither have you. But I think I can guess. Amanda. Dicky. Sukey. And this is Mr. Passant.’

‘Abel,’ said Abel Passant, and he came solemnly forward and shook three unextended hands.

‘I’m Jo,’ said Jo, ‘short for Josephine.’ She, too, shook three limp hands.

A silence descended. For the life of her Jo did not know what to say next, and yet, she knew miserably, things had to be said.

‘Would you like to see your rooms?’ she asked.

‘We’ll wait,’ pronounced Amanda.

‘Until they come,’ added Dicky.

Sukey still said nothing.

Across the room Jo looked at Abel, and he looked back.

‘Will you all find chairs,’ he told them. ‘There are things to be discussed.’

Now Amanda darted Dicky a triumphant look and he flicked one back. Jo saw the exchange and made her own glance exchange with Abel Passant.

‘They know there’s something,’ her glance told him. ‘Yes,’ he telegraphed back.

When they were all seated, Abel said matter-of-factly: ‘Your father won’t be coming. Nor will Geraldine. Is that what you called her?’

‘We called her nothing yet.’ It was Amanda.

‘When will they come?’ asked Dicky.

Nothing from Sukey.

‘I can’t tell you just now,’ said Abel, ‘it’s one of those things you only understand little by little.’

‘Oh, we understand a lot,’ hinted Amanda.

‘People were whispering outside the stationmaster’s office,’ Dicky explained. ‘People always whisper when they know something that you don’t. It’s called lowering your voice,’ he added.

‘And they brought in cakes,’ said Amanda.

‘And doughnuts,’ said Dicky.

‘And they don’t do that unless there’s something,’ said Amanda.

Sukey spoke for the first time. She said: ‘And they brought in fizz.’

‘So we knew there was something,’ Amanda summed up. ‘What is it?’

‘I just told you,’ reminded Abel, ‘it’s that your father and Geraldine won’t be coming.’

‘So we’re left with you?’

‘For the time being, yes.’

‘How long a time?’ asked Amanda.

‘Until they do come?’ asked Dicky.

‘Was there an accident?’ asked Amanda with interest.

Across the table Jo met Abel’s eyes again. This is it, her eyes said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Abel’s eyes. He said ‘Yes’ too, but aloud, to Amanda’s question.

‘A bad one?’ Dicky.

‘Yes.’

‘A crash?’ Still Dicky.

‘Yes.’

‘No survivors?’ It was Dicky a third time and Jo looked at him, deeply shocked. But Abel Passant’s face did not alter.

‘You’re right,’ he told the boy calmly, ‘none.’ Then waited.

Jo waited with him. Waited for something from them. From any of them. Waited for a sigh, a cry, a protest, a whimper, a tear. She watched for it, watched desperately.

But nothing happened.

‘Would you all like a cup of cocoa?’ she asked. Well, you didn’t give raw spirits to children.

‘No, thank you,’ they said politely.

‘Would you like to go to your rooms?’

‘Sukey goes to bed at seven, Dicky at eight and I go at eight-thirty. It isn’t that yet. It’s too early.’

Dicky asked: ‘Is it daylight saving up here?’ and Abel answered him.

They sat on ... and they sat on. Sometimes they spoke but more often they didn’t, they just sat. They sat for over an hour.

Then at last Abel got up and went and drew the blind. He drew it so closely no light showed through. He went into the bedrooms, and Jo knew he was drawing the blinds there as well.

When he came out again he stood looking at them, then he said firmly: ‘It’s dark now.’

They knew he was cheating them, but they never protested. They followed Jo down the passage and she showed Dicky his bed in the room she had allotted to him, then the girls their beds.

Jo helped unbutton Sukey but received no thanks, then she turned down the bedcovers in readiness.

‘Usually,’ Amanda repeated, ‘I don’t go till eight-thirty.’ Her face was very composed, no telltale crumple. Eyes quite dry.

‘Goodnight, my dears.’ Dare she,
dare
she kiss them? No, she daren’t.

Jo came out and shut the door behind her.

Like a robot she went into the ‘in case’ room. She would sleep there tonight. She knew she would never sleep in the double room. Not with one empty bed. She sat on the spare bed now and stared. Just stared.

An hour later Abel found her there and brought her out again.

‘It’s barely night,’ he objected. ‘You can’t retire yet. Come and make me a meal.’

‘A meal?’

‘A meal. I still have to eat. So do you.’

‘No.’

‘Then I have to, Josephine.’

‘Won’t they expect you at the camp?’

‘I’ve been up and back, so now they don’t expect me. While I was there I put through some more calls.’

‘Yes?’

‘As I thought, the boarding schools have filled the vacancies at once, but they’re not unsympathetic, and will keep the kids in mind.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you, I wonder? No, cancel that. I also quizzed the schools about the children’s father.’

‘Yes?’

‘Payment came regularly, but apart from that they could tell me very little.’

‘What did you particularly want to know?’ Jo asked coldly. Really, he was taking too much on his shoulders!

‘I wanted to find out the money position for you. These children are very young and very dependent. They will have years of dependency, and that must be considered even this early in the piece.’

‘Then don’t worry. Gee indicated that Mark was well off.’

He shrugged non-committally at that. ‘But we still have to know precisely, haven’t we?’

‘Have we? Have you? Have I? I mean, have we to know yet? I really mean can’t all that come later when they’re more—approachable?’ Jo tried to steady herself, then broke down. ‘Oh, it was awful, awful!’ She started to cry.

‘It wasn’t fun,’ Abel Passant agreed.

‘Are they—are they—’ Jo gulped.

‘Callous?’

‘I didn’t want to say that word.’

‘I know, but it has to be considered. The modern nipper is quite marked in his lack of emotion compared to his fund of common sense. Also you have to allow for deep shock. Or’ ... a deliberate pause ... ‘even a possible uninvolvement.’

‘Uninvolvement?’she queried.

‘Look, the children were in boarding school, weren’t they? How long, for example, since they saw their father?’

‘Not long, because he introduced Gee to them. She found them—well—’

‘Yes?’

‘She didn’t expect roses was what she wrote to me,’ Jo blurted out.

‘No, I can well imagine that. But how long? How long, Josephine, before their last meeting with their father? Their last before your sister came on the scene. Then how long since their mother died? Oh, lor’, it would all be hard enough under favourable circumstances, but now it’s the very end.’

He was right, of course, and gratefully Jo said:

‘Thank you, anyway, for helping me. Especially since there is no obligation on you.’

‘Nor on you,’ he said carefully.

She looked at him in surprise. ‘But of course there is now.’

‘Now?’

‘Now that Gee—’ She crumpled again.

‘What difference does that make?’

‘Gee was going to be their mother, so now I have to take her place.’

‘You’re not serious, of course.’

‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.’

‘But that’s quite unpractical of you, unless you’re a secret heiress.’

‘I have nothing,’ she assured him.

‘Then how in heaven can you think in any other terms than letting them go?’

‘There would be money from their father.’

‘Their father might not have been so comfortably off.’

‘But Gee said—’

‘Or Gee guessed? Look, Josephine, you still don’t
know,
do you, and children cost money. They’re the most expensive articles in the world. Anyway,’ drily, ‘they were scarcely eager to throw their arms around you just now.’

‘It’s early yet.’

‘But time creeps on and often things don’t alter. You can’t be sure how things will turn out, and incidentally, you don’t even own the house you’ve bedded them in. I do.’

She was shocked into silence at that. How could he say such a cruel thing? She turned quickly away from him.

‘A meal,’ he reminded her again.

Jo made the meal. She found she was glad to do so. She sliced the ham, she fried some vegetables, she kept herself busy so she could not think.

But very soon she would have to think. The empty room with the empty beds next to her ‘in case’ room would see to that.

Until then, though, Abel Passant kept her on her toes, both physically and mentally. Things to be done. Things to be discussed.

It was nearing midnight before he let her stop. Then he produced a nightcap in the form of a mug of hot milk.

‘Drink it and get to bed,’ he advised. ‘Goodnight, Jo.’

She took the mug into the ‘in case’ room, and did as he said. Not that it would make any difference, she knew she would never sleep.

But she did not even stand at the window after pulling up the blind, something she and Gee had always done. They had always looked out at the stars caught in tatters of banana leaves, it had been another of their special things.

She fell asleep at once, but her last vague thoughts were concerning the milk. Again he had cheated her. Cheated—or spared? For there had been something in that milk.

She could not think what it was. Easier to let sleep take over. She drowsed.

When she awoke the room was bright with morning, and beyond the window the banana palms were shining in the sun.

CHAPTER THREE

When Jo
came out to the kitchen it was to see three children sitting stolidly at the big table and Abel Passant standing stolidly at the big stove.

Abel looked across at Jo and explained shortly: ‘Breakfast.’ He returned his grim attention to the range.

‘We told him he’s wasting his time because we don’t eat breakfast,’ Amanda said coolly.

‘I think you would eat it at school,’ suggested Jo.

‘This isn’t school where we have to.’

‘There are other places where you have to.’ Abel put down a stirring spoon ... what was it he was trying to cook? ... and approached the table to glower down on them.

‘You can’t make us, you’re not our father.’ The two older ones said it together, Sukey coming in later with the echo: ‘Not our father.’

Jo was to find out that Sukey often echoed the last words.

‘No, darlings,’ Jo hastened tenderly to console them, ‘not your father.’ She wanted no emotional scenes.

But she need not have worried.

‘The other wasn’t either,’ Dicky began, and was promptly kicked under the table by Amanda. A hard kick.

‘I mean—’ said Dicky, glancing nervously at Amanda, ‘that is—’ Jo, seeing his unease, tried consolation again.

‘I know how it is,’ she told the trio. ‘Some people like hot breakfasts.’ She nodded to the stove. ‘Some like cold.’ Now she nodded at the table with its usual deep dish of bananas. Aunt Mitchell always had insisted on deep dishes of bananas. But carefully Jo did not look at Abel.

‘I myself,’ she went on, ‘always have cold. Sometimes sliced bananas with cream, sometimes bananas on bread and butter, sometimes mashed up, sometimes eaten as it was good manners to eat them in the ancient Eastern palaces.’

She had their attention, unwilling and rather meagre attention, but having it she did not let it go.

She took up a banana and tore the skin carefully down from the stem into three equal ribbons. ‘As you eat, you tear further,’ she instructed. ‘It was expected of you in an oriental court. It also looks pretty, doesn’t it? Rather like an opening flower. Try.’

Three hands came out.

Bread and butter was included. Milk. When Sukey said: ‘May I leave the table, please, I’m finished,’ Jo answered:

‘You may all leave.’

They rose and left.

‘They’re very polite,’ Jo said to Abel.

‘And currently very unsuitably nourished.’

‘That’s not true,’ Jo said hotly. ‘A banana provides everything a breakfast should.’

‘There speaks a banana-lander,’ he grinned.

‘But it’s true.’

‘Then provide me a couple of fried bananas along with some ham, eggs and tomatoes for my first meal. While on it, provide yourself.’

‘You might have heard me say I don’t eat hot breakfast.’

‘You might have heard me say there are places where you have to, and don’t answer that I’m not your father, because if I was—’

‘Yes?’ She looked challengingly up into his red-tan face and very blue eyes, but for all her challenge it was her own eyes that fell first.

‘Breakfast,’ he prompted her.

He watched her make it.

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ he admired, ‘all I achieved was a burnt mess.’

‘You probably had the pan too dry and you may have let your attention stray from the food.’

She put down two filled plates, but she did not touch hers.

‘Eat,’ he said. ‘You have a long day ahead.’

‘Where?’

‘Right here. You see, you’ll have the children to cope with by yourself. I’m going into town to—well, to—’

She knew that he was looking at her more gently now, even though she did not look back at him to check. She also knew why he was going into town.

‘I have your permission to arrange—things?’ he asked quietly, after a pause.

‘Please.’

‘Good girl. Good girl, too, for eating that much at least. I’ll get going, Josephine, so I can get back before it’s late.’

‘Thank you. Thank you for bothering. There’s no call for you to bother like this.’

He seemed about to say something, but he did not say it after all. He patted her shoulder and went out. Presently she heard his car going down to the highway. She stacked the dishes in the sink but she did not wash them. She went out to look for the children.

They were in the garden. Amanda was desultorily swinging Sukey, and Dicky was desultorily looking on. I wish, thought Jo, that for a while they would be naughty ... throw something ... misbehave ... try running away.

They watched her come up to them.

‘What shall we do?’ Jo had reached them and she asked it brightly ... too brightly.

They didn’t know.

‘Would you like to see the creek? There are tadpoles there. We used to call them pollywogs.’

They did not mind. They went down to the creek, Jo issuing a stick apiece against snakes, as Aunt Mitchell used to do.

‘Snakes will never come out and attack you, though,’ she told them. ‘They’re as afraid of you as you are of them. But if you’re between them and their nest it could be different, and can you blame them? Imagine if there was an enemy between you and your babies.’

‘I don’t have babies,’ Dicky informed her, ‘my wife does.’

‘Well, I’m not having any,’ said Amanda, ‘even if I am a wife, because what’s the use?’

‘Use, darling?’ asked Jo.

Amanda did not answer, but Sukey came in with an echo. ‘Whatseruse?’ She said it futilely, though Jo knew she could not possibly understand, not a tender under-five, that she was only following Amanda.

‘Well,’ said Jo brightly, ‘I think if we make a noise any snakes will go. I don’t suppose in boarding school you ever saw a snake.’

‘Not in boarding school but once at—’ Amanda did not finish it, instead she closed her lips tightly as though she had suddenly remembered something.

It was a glorious way down to the creek, among the subtropical vegetation. Great tree ferns grew from the side of the track, orchids festooned the trees, the mosses were inches deep and spun with spider threads.

But there was something else about this particular part of the country, and Jo told the children proudly. It was what was called one of nature’s phenomena, she related thrillingly.

‘That means wonders. And this is our own special wonder. Through this belt of terrain goes a strange division, left over from millions of years ago. At that time we were a cold-country place, you see. Now, even though it seems impossible, beeches and firs still occasionally occur, and other ‘cold’ trees, but always on that side of the valley.’ Jo pointed. ‘You can look to the left and see a tropical garden. Then you can look to the right and think you’re in Canada. I—well, I thought you might be interested.’ For the trio were standing politely waiting for her to finish.

She did, by pointing down to the gully and saying: ‘There’s the creek.’

They climbed down and looked vaguely around for tadpoles. It proved less than exciting, and even when Amanda found a leech on her that diversion did not help.

‘I think we’ll go back,’ Jo said. She led the way, hoping for a goanna, or a lizard, or something. Anything, she thought, to break up this inertia.

They had lunch, then Jo put them on the verandah with books, ludo and snakes and ladders, and came inside to see to the house. Perhaps they’ll run away, she wished, and we’ll have to find them, and that will burst whatever there is to be burst. One thing, the worry over them had diverted her, and Jo apologised to Gee for this. As she worked she said to her twin: ‘Darling, as you see I’m not crying, but I think you understand, as I understand you now when you said it wouldn’t be roses. Oh, Gee, Gee!’

For a moment it seemed that the tears would start after all, then the telephone pealed and Jo went across.

‘Abel,’ Abel announced.

‘Yes?’

‘How is it?’

‘Well—’

‘I think I understand, Josephine. Well, leave the kids awhile and come back to yourself. Are you listening?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Josephine, it’s not going to help bringing you in here. It’s not going to help the children ... that is, if they need , help.’

‘Oh, they do, they do, but I’m not sure if it’s because of Mark.’

‘All right then, help is needed, but you’re not certain if it’s that kind of help. Now back to what I rang you to say. Having you in for the purpose you would expect, a service, a memorial, would avail you absolutely nothing. Mark and Geraldine are gone, Josephine. You have memories, but the memories are there, not here. I know it’s the conventional thing, the expected and accepted thing, but it will do nothing to help you. It will not help the kids. Are you following me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then do you know what I feel you should do?’

‘No.’

‘I feel you should create your own tribute to Geraldine. To Mark, too. Those children are too young to understand a formal tribute.’

‘And too uninterested?’ Jo said spontaneously.

A pause at the other end, then:

‘You poor kid. It’s been bad, hasn’t it?’

‘It’s all right.’ Abel’s few words had soothed Jo immediately. ‘I’ll do something, of course, Abel. Will you be back?’

‘Not till later. I’m trying to find out something more about the kids. I know you don’t approve of that, but—’

‘Change it,’ broke in Jo, ‘to I didn’t approve. It seemed so early then, so—’

‘Heartless? And now you feel differently?’

‘Yes, a little differently. Though I still don’t think it’s anything to do with you.’

‘You may be surprised. But one thing I am certain of is that it’s something that has to be done. About the other, the little gathering, can you cope?’

‘I can.’

‘Good girl!’ He put his end of the phone down, and after a moment Jo put hers down, too.

She did not go straight out to the children. She stood a while whispering: ‘Help me, Gee.’ Then she straightened her shoulders and crossed to the verandah.

‘Down in the garden,’ she began to the trio (still there and why, oh, why didn’t they go exploring, or hide somewhere as ordinary naughty children do?) ‘once my sister Geraldine and I put up a cross for our little dog who had died and whom we had loved very much. We had a service. Do you know about services?’

‘We had one every morning and every evening,’ said Amanda, ‘at school. Our song went:

‘ “Here in comradeship we stand

Members of a happy band! ” ’

‘Ours was:

‘ “Rise up, go forth and do your best”—and the boys used to finish:

‘“Take speedy mixture for your chest.’” Dicky said it without mirth so that it didn’t matter that no one laughed.

‘Well,’ said Jo bravely, ‘we’re going to have a service for my sister and your father. It’s going to be in the garden because Geraldine loved the garden and because your father must have loved the outdoors. People who fly in the sky must love the wide world.’

No comment.

‘We’ll all think about things for a while, shut our eyes as we do, and after that we’ll sing.’

‘ “Here in comradeship”?’ asked Amanda.

‘Well, I don’t think so. Being a school song it mightn’t be suitable.’

‘Mine wouldn’t be any good,’ said Dicky, ‘because of that line about taking speedy mixture for your chest.’

This was too awful. Abel should never have suggested it. These children were plain savages. They had no feelings at all.

‘Don’t you know any hymns?’ Jo asked chokily.

‘Don’t you?’

‘Yes, but I want us all to sing, all to feel, not just me.’

‘I don’t know any,’ said Amanda.

‘I don’t,’ said Dicky.

‘I know
Hear the pennies dropping
,’ said Sukey.

‘Then,’ said Amanda, ‘that will have to do.’

Before Jo could protest, could lead them to another channel, another song ...
All things bright and beautiful
would have done, even
Bringing in the sheaves
... they broke loudly into Sukey’s pennies dropping.

‘I said after we go into the garden, after we quietly think,’ Jo tried to call out, but they did not hear her. They opened up and sang.

Oh, Gee, Gee darling, forgive, forgive, Jo prayed, forgive this travesty.

Somewhere in the banana palms she could have sworn she heard Gee’s old infectious giggle. Gee had always giggled like that. All at once everything fell into perspective. Surely I can smile here, she told herself, if Gee is laughing in heaven.

She sang, too.

But there was no alchemy. When they went into the house, they were the same drab trio. No, quartet. I, thought Jo, am as dull as they are. She was almost pathetically glad when Abel’s car drew up.

‘Look,’ she indicated, ‘Abel is back.’

‘Yes,’ they agreed.

They went back to what they had been doing before, if it had been anything, but Jo went eagerly to find Abel. He was in the kitchen making a cup of tea.

He smiled across at her and Jo smiled shakily back.

‘You first,’ he said. ‘How did it go?’

‘It didn’t. Well, we did sing
Hear the pennies dropping.
’

‘What? No, never mind. Mine didn’t go, either. I tried to find out more about the children. It was hard.’

‘What eventually you did find out or finding it?’

‘Both,’ he said, and reached for a cup for Jo.

‘No one seems to know about Mark Grant,’ he resumed, ‘and the little I could cajole from the schools and’ ... a pause ... ‘from the aero club makes it rather a hard situation.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

‘At the schools, the children got only a basic education, not one frill extra. There are few pupils, Josephine, who don’t receive some little extra.’

‘Perhaps Mark was one of those men who believed in direct education. I mean, extras are nice, but they are not necessary.’

‘Extras are also expensive,’ Abel pointed out succinctly. ‘That wouldn’t matter.’

‘You believe so?’

‘I know so.’

‘How?’

‘Well, Gee gave the impression that Mark was—well—’

‘Comfortably situated?’

‘Yes.’

‘But we need more than impressions, don’t we?’

‘I suppose so, but it must have been true. I mean, Mark flew his own plane, and men don’t just fly planes like they drive cars. I really mean—’

‘You really mean they have to be endowed with more worldly wealth?’

‘Yes.’

‘I agree. But what when a plane is rented and not owned?’

‘Rented?’ she queried.

‘I said just now an aero club, Josephine, for that’s where the crashed Cherokee came from.’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ said Abel.

He poured the brewed tea into the cups and pushed one to Josephine.

‘The Club was very co-operative. Everyone was very regretful over it all, yet not exactly cast down. Well, after all, they didn’t know Mark Grant, only as a customer, as it were. Again, they were well insured. I spoke to them regarding the payment for the hiring, and they produced the cheque Grant had given them. I noted the bank and after I left I got in touch.’

‘With the bank?’

‘Yes.’

‘Abel, why are you doing all this?’ she asked.

‘Because you have to
know,
don’t you, you have to know whether you can afford these kids or not. That is if you were allowed to keep them.’

‘Of course I’d be allowed.’

‘Well, we’ll come to that later. What is interesting me right now is their financial situation.’

‘It would be all right, and even if it wasn’t the Government would help and I could work.’

‘And support three children? I doubt it. The children are at the growing fast stage and would cost a packet. Anyway, Josephine, you wouldn’t be considered for guardianship. You’re no blood relation.’

‘My sister—’

‘Was no relation, either, and won’t ever be now.’

‘No,’ Jo said.

‘Also, you’re unmarried,’ he reminded her.

‘Not married yet, but—’ But Jo decided not to go on with that.

After a while she asked: ‘What would happen to them if—’

‘When,’ he corrected, ‘not if. Homes, I think you’re meaning. Don’t look so aghast, homes are excellent these days. Actually, given a choice, I doubt if those kids would vote for you before a home.’

‘They wouldn’t vote for anybody or anything,’ corrected Jo. ‘Can’t you understand that that’s why I can’t give up yet? Not until the children come alive.’

‘Aren’t they now?’

‘No.’ She turned her head away, but not before he saw the tears.

He put down the teapot from which he had been about to pour again. Going to the door of Tender Winds, he put two fingers to his mouth and produced an ear-splitting whistle.

‘My proudest accomplishment,’ he grinned at her, ‘and one that’s always won results quick-smart.’

It won results this time, but not quick-smart. The children came wandering in.

‘I’m taking Josephine up to the site where it’s planned to build the house that will replace this one, so you’ll come, too,’ he told them. ‘As we go she will tell us all about the banana, something I don’t know, having been a westerner, and something I don’t believe you know, either.’

‘No, we don’t, but we’re not interested, thank you.’ Amanda.

‘We’ll wait.’ Dicky.

‘Wait.’ Sukey.

‘You didn’t hear me properly,’ said Abel. ‘I said you will come too, not will you come. Now about turn and off we go—’

‘Walking?’

‘Well, we won’t be driving up a cliff.’

‘How far?’

‘As far as the flying fox. Then we’ll snitch a ride up with the bananas.’ If Abel expected more enthusiasm at that announcement he was disappointed.

The children did not even nod. They simply turned round as bidden and marched out like small automatons. Catching back a sigh, Jo followed them.

The path up to where the flying fox operated was a flattish track, but when they reached the fox and climbed giddily on to its surrounding platform, the going was directly, steeply up. Pickers would have had no hope of getting their crops to the top without the fox.

Jo had hoped that Dicky would find a mechanical interest in the fox, as most boys would, but after a quick examination he simply sat on a box like the rest of them and watched the scenery slide past.

And what scenery! Green, green, green. Great green shining banana palm leaves below, beside and above them as the cliff soared and the bananas on the cliff soared with it. Such dense green that nothing else could be seen, except, upon occasion, the blue plastic of the covers enclosing the maturing fruit.

‘Josephine,’ prompted Abel, ‘tell us about the bananas.’ He should have said me, not us, for the children’s hunched shoulders and averted faces made it very clear that they were not the slightest bit interested. Nonetheless, Jo tried.

‘Bananas,’ she said, ‘are the oldest fruit in the world.’

‘Apples are,’ corrected Amanda—so at least, Jo congratulated herself, the girl had heard.

‘Some say that, but many in tropic climes say bananas. They say Eve tempted Adam with a banana, not an apple. Oh, dear!’ She looked apologetically at Abel.

‘Go on,’ he assured her, ‘I think they’re following you.’

‘But are you approving?’

‘If they are following, Jo, I am even applauding.’

If the children were, as he had suggested, they still did not look it.

‘Well,’ sighed Jo, ‘I’ve told you how to eat bananas, so now I’ll tell you about bananas. They belong to the family of
Musaceae,
and they are one of the most productive plants known. You find them in Brazil, India, Mexico, Canary Islands as well as all our own surrounding islands, and, as you see, right here. The annual crops indeed are over twelve million tons.’

‘And that,’ came in Abel helpfully, ‘is a lot of bananas.’

The children still said nothing.

‘The plants,’ persisted Jo, ‘as you see consist of great stems with giant leaves and big flowering branches, and the branches of fruit can grow very very large.

‘Mostly, as they approach maturity, the branches are safeguarded by plastic covers. This also helps the fruit to ripen. Again there are banana ovens to do the trick. But once away from the plantations the escaped bananas just grow and ripen as they please, and we ... my sister and I ... used to say they were the best bananas of all.’ All at once Jo could not go on. Oh, Gee, she was thinking, is it all finished?
can
it be finished? She felt Abel’s hand briefly on her shoulder and was glad of it. The flying fox came to a halt on the top.

They examined the new home site, which Jo did not comment on, for she could not see it through her blur of tears. She was grateful that Abel now was showing the children an honesty box on the cliff road where the flying fox delivered its load to the fruit trucks. For twenty cents a motorist could choose a hand of bananas and be on his way.

Jo had recovered by the time the children and Abel returned. This time they came down in the fox without Jo reciting any more facts about the banana, something she would have preferred to do if only to take her attention off the giddy descent. The flying fox literally came straight down the cliff and even now she still had not grown to like it.

Down at the bottom once more, they walked slowly back to the house.

‘Thank you for the discourse,’ Abel said. ‘I needed it. All I knew about bananas before was that you didn’t eat the skin.’

‘And yet you took bananas on?’

‘I told you why. I didn’t want to take on a wife.’

‘Yet if I remember rightly you asked me to put down your name in my little black book.’ Jo added daringly: ‘With V to M.’

‘You remember rightly,’ he assured her.

‘Then?’ she asked.

‘
Then
?’ He had stopped suddenly, stopping her with him. The children now were well ahead. ‘Then, Josephine?’

‘Nothing,’ Jo said shortly, and began moving forward again. After a moment he caught up with her.

They walked in silence for the rest of the way. It was not until they rounded the corner to Tender Winds that Jo caught her breath in surprise and pleasure.

There were two cars pulled up at the house now, Abel’s ... and another she knew very well.

She should, she thought, hurrying forward. It was Gavin’s.

‘Gavin!’ she called, and the man who had just stepped out of the car turned round and held out his hand to her.

‘My dear,’ he said.