Bride in Flight (15 page)

“Well, can I have two eggs tomorrow, one with a wombat and one with a kangaroo?”

“Yes, or if you think the novelty will have worn off as Becky’s got the wombat today, I’ll do an emu instead. Or a two-headed snake.”

“Gee wallopers ... a two-headed snake! Are there any? No kidding?”

“No kidding. A two-headed Black Tiger Snake from Chappell Island in Tasmania. Now hurry up. Get your teeth done, and put that rubber in your school bag.”

As Geordie went out of the door he said, “Couldn’t we have those eggs for dinner tonight?”

“Oh, no,” said Kirsty. “Don’t you remember your uncle’s lectures on a balanced diet? We’re having mutton and vegetables and rice.”

“Ugh!” said Geordie. “I never eat rice. And I hate vegetables. Except lettuce salad.”

Kirsty’s tone was suspiciously sweet. “All right, Geordie, it shall be salad for you. I’ll make it specially.”

The preparation of the despised meal took Kirsty some time. Lexie spent the afternoon helping her and they giggled as they worked.

“I’m so glad you asked us in for the meal tonight,” said Lexie. “This looks so delectable I’d have asked myself, if you hadn’t. But gosh, imagine if we spent this long every day on preparing dinner!”

“Yes, I’d never be able to keep it up, but it’s worth a try-out in the faint hope that Geordie will suddenly capitulate to decoration and find eating can be fun. He’s a tinker. Anything he can take in his hand like apples and sandwiches or a pie or sausage-roll, or sweet corn on the cob, or legs of chicken, and go rambling round with, he’s all right. He finds sitting to a meal a beastly bore.”

Lexie’s eyes were slits of mirth. “Perhaps we could mash his vegetables and serve them to him in ice-cream cones if all else fails!”

“I think you’ve got something there. It will be wonderful just what we’ll think up. Wasn’t it a blessing that vegetable man had all that fancy stuff? He hardly ever has.” The children had gone to play at Merrills’ after school and Mark and Chris were having a nap.

Mac arrived in, viewed the festive-looking dinner table, dashed over to his own house, showered, and changed into open necked sports shirt and clean khaki drill slacks. It was hot enough for shorts, but they left too tempting an expanse of skin for the sandflies.

The girls had decorated the table with bush ferns and pale wild flowers, and as Becky and Geordie came in they eyed it appreciatively.

“Is it a party?” asked Geordie.

“No, just that we’re having company. Mark and Chris are asleep and we want them to stay that way, so just wash your hands at the sink and come to the table. Geordie, your plate of salad is on the bench. Bring it over.” She added to Mac, “We’re just having mutton and vegies and rice, but Geordie doesn’t care for them, so I made him a salad.”

Mac, unsuspecting, said, “My word, you’re in a fair way to being spoilt, young man.”

Geordie said nonchalantly, in the generous tone of the victor, “Well, it’s no good eating stuff you don’t like, is it? I just, told Kirsty I—”

His conversation was cut off abruptly as his eye fell on what Kirsty was bringing from the oven. Then, “What’s that?” he demanded.

“Our mutton and veggies and rice,” she said innocently. “I’m fond of it.”

She bore a huge dish to the table completely bordered with fluffy white rice, and in the middle, arranged like a wheel, were deliciously tender mutton knuckles, sprinkled lavishly with a barbecue sauce compounded of tomato puree, Worcester sauce, chopped bacon and brown sugar and goodness knows what else. The rice in turn was bordered with a strip of diced mixed vegetables, green and gold with sweet com and peas, and the crowning
glory,
was a fleet of war canoes, laboriously carved out of uniformly sized carrots, gently steamed and filled with tomato pulp, cheese, breadcrumbs and parsley.

Mac and the children were speechless. Geordie said, mouth watering, “I don’t think I’ll bother with this salad. That looks good.”

Kirsty said hastily, “Oh, I can’t let you waste the good salad, Geordie, I made it specially. After all, this
is
only vegetables and rice. You won’t like it.”

Mac shot the two girls a suspicious look and a muscle at the corner of his mouth began to quiver.

Geordie sat looking the picture of woe and Kirsty began dishing out the servings. He sighed.

“Gee willikins, though, those canoes sure do look good.”

Lexie said, “If only I’d known I’d have done one for you, too, Geordie, but I didn’t want to do more than one each, they take so long.” Her tone was so innocent.

Geordie said quickly, “But there are five! Look! Look, Lexie ... one, two, three, four, five!”

Her surprise was well done. “Well, I’m blest! So there are. But I was never good at arithmetic. Still, it isn’t for me to say. Kirsty went to an awful lot of trouble over that salad to give you exactly what you like, so...”

Kirsty appeared to deliberate. “Well, just this once. Only I can’t make a habit of cooking what you want and then wasting it, Geordie. It wouldn’t be fair to your uncle. How about having half the salad and the carrot canoe?” Geordie gulped, his eyes on that barbecue sauce, the brightly decorated rice. “I—couldn’t I have some—meat and vegies too? I could eat the salad tomorrow, eh?”

Kirsty gave in, with the air of doing it against her will. Geordie had two helpings.

At one moment she caught Becky’s bright knowing glance and hastily averted her eyes.

As she tucked Becky in, after hearing her prayers, Becky said solemnly, “I promise not to give you away, Kirsty, isn’t it fun?”

“And don’t tell any of the other children either, pet.” Nevertheless, young Geordie had his suspicions something was being put over him. On the Saturday, preparing lunch, Kirsty found him at her elbow.

“Yes, Geordie?”

“Having anything exciting for lunch?”

“Only spinach and poached eggs.”

“Sounds horrible. I’ll have mine fried.”

“That’s all right by me. I’ll call you when it’s ready.” Geordie sat down to his plain fried eggs while the rest of them had birds’ nests made of browned potato and parsley, filled with chopped spinach and neatly topped with a perfectly poached egg.

He didn’t like apple pudding, he said, and gloomily ate jelly while the others had apple life-belts, done in pale brown batter and sugared and spiced. He had potatoes done as chips and tried not to lick his lips as they sat down to jacket potatoes filled with a savoury concoction of salmon, cheese and chives.

Geordie capitulated. “I find I have developed a liking for other things,” he said. “I’ll just have what’s going.”

Kirsty didn’t make the mistake of appearing impressed. “It’s not much good, of course, if you only, like them when they’re all flossed up in their party clothes. I haven’t always time for this. If you can eat vegetables when I put them in a pie-crust you can eat them when I’ve only time for plain boiled.”

“Okay ... but you’ll often have time to do ’em fancy, won’t you, Kirsty?”

“I think so. Now be off with you and let me try to remember some more novelty ways of cooking.”

She was glad when Simon, returning on the Wednesday, made no comment on the way Geordie mopped up his roast beef and perfectly ordinary baked vegetables. It was best to simply accept it.

But she had reckoned without Geordie. He was bursting with virtue and wasn’t going to let it go unremarked.

As Simon, with a sigh of repletion, pushed his plate away, Geordie came round to lean against his knee.

“Did you notice how I mopped up my dinner, Uncle Simon?”

“I did. Good for you. Suddenly decided you like pumpkin and parsnip, eh?”

“Not just those. I’ve eaten cabbage, silver beet, onions, carrots, rice, spinach, poached eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, tapioca and semolina!”

Simon was most amazed. “Honest Injun? You aren’t just kidding?”

“No, sir, I ate the lot. Ask Kirsty.” He went out of the door and along to Merrills’, whistling.

Simon stared after him. “Well, I’ll be stumped! My talks on the science of eating must’ve done some good, after all!” He looked immensely gratified. “I reckon I could qualify for a diploma in fathercraft. Perhaps I should write an, article on it ... ‘Getting your child to eat ... turn it over to Father’. Wait till I see Lars Jansen, him and his talk about theories! This one worked!”

Kirsty felt the giggles coming on. She got up, murmured something about tea-towels on the line and dashed out into the back garden.

Becky followed her at a rush. They dived round behind the kowhai trees, flung themselves down on a fallen log, and gave way to helpless mirth.

As their laughs subsided Becky said in a grown-up tone “Men! Aren’t they wonderful!”

“Science!” said Kirsty scathingly.

“Hiawatha eggs,” giggled Becky.

“Onions stuffed with sausage-meat,” reminded Kirsty. “Pumpkin pie!”

“Barbecue sauce to get the rice down!”

“Stuffed red and green peppers!”

“Cabbage leaves filled with minced ham and sage stuffing!”

“Carrot canoes ... Hawaiian steak with pineapple rings ... parsnip fritters ... oh dear, oh dear. And Simon says science!”

They mopped at their eyes and suddenly became aware that Simon was standing over them, bewildered, unbelieving, rueful.

“Oh, dear,” said Kirsty, subduing an aftermath of minor giggles. “We hadn’t meant to tell you. But if ever you tell your sister, Simon, I’ll never forgive you. She’d think me smug and superior. She can just think Geordie suddenly got over it.”

Simon joined in their mirth.

“It’s just as well the child capitulated when he did,” admitted Kirsty. “I couldn’t get to sleep at nights for trying to think up things. I’m fair exhausted. I never want to see fancy cooking in my life again.”

“It’s just as well I’m back,” said Simon.

Kirsty shied away from the knowledge of how much she had missed him. The days had seemed incredibly long, she had caught herself listening for the sound of his step, his voice. He would often be away, on long treks into the dense bush, climbing dangerous heights, bivouacking in country that carried a thousand hazards, where streams could flood in an hour, cutting off return, where there was constant danger of slips and falls. Where often they were soaked for days at a time. They were tough, hard men, these, but appreciative of domestic comforts when they came home at nightfall.

It turned cold that night, after a glorious day, with a sou’west change coming in from the sea, hinting at autumn days nearing, carrying with it the bite of the South Pole, down below the fiords. Simon lit the fire, pulled up the two old rattan chairs. Kirsty picked up some mending.

Nan was progressing as well as could be expected, but it was not going to be a speedy convalescence.

“She’s immensely grateful for that sort of daily diary letter you do for her, Kirsty, though where you find the time beats me. She edits their sayings and doings and puts it in her letter to Morris, and she says he’ll never be able to tell they’re not with her. Says she feels a deceiver, but it’s in a very good cause as his peace of mind while studying is so important.”

Kirsty said slowly: “Then you do think the end can justify the means—sometimes? I mean that sometimes to know all is to excuse all.”

Simon looked at her curiously. “You say that as if it really mattered to you. Something worrying you?”

“No-o. Only sometimes men have so rigid a code of honor—and at times women do deceive them—for their peace of mind.”

“You mean as Nan is doing ... for Morris’s?”

“Ye—es.”

“That’s a mild form of deceit, isn’t it? There could be less admirable intrigues. Sometimes one deceives oneself into thinking one’s motives are of the purest.”

“Yes.” She sighed deeply.

He put his pipe down, held out his hand to her across the space between their chairs.

“Something
is
troubling you, Kirsten. Something niggling at your conscience?”

She nodded. How hard it was to be open and frank once you’d embarked on the tortuous ways of building up a mock past for yourself. She was afraid to tell, not for herself, but for the children, who needed her.

He tugged the shirt she was mending away from her, possessed himself of her hand.

“Kirsten, I know what it is. Sometimes death distorts things for us. We know remorse. We think if only our lost one were still here, how different we would be, how much more understanding, how much more loving and patient. We think back to old quarrels, to faults now revealed, wish so much unsaid. It’s not particularly healthy—or logical. You probably feel you failed your Gilbert somewhere, sometime. No doubt if the positions were reversed he would feel he had failed you sometimes. And I can’t imagine you other than sweet and loving and entirely selfless. But we all have flashes of temper, get overtired, misunderstand. Don’t look back, look forward.”

She said a little unsteadily, “Thank you, Simon. That’s sound advice.”

“And you’ll try to follow it?”

“Yes. I’ll look forward, not back.”

It was borne in on her strongly how little she wanted to look back. No nostalgia ever swept her now for Gilbert’s smile, his touch, for the sort of life she would have lived with him up there in the sugar-cane. It had died, her feeling for him, when she had heard his voice and Dallas’s.