Ron followed Es into the kitchen, fondly patting her on the bottom. "Cripes, no! She'd look down that long bloody nose of hers and come out with a string of words I didn't understand, and a man would end up feeling pretty flaming silly."
"I wish God had rationed out the brains a bit more fairly between our kids, Ron, love," Es sighed as she put the kettle on to boil. "If He'd split them down the middle they'd both be all right."
"No use crying over spilt milk, old girl. Got any cake?"
"Fruit or seed?"
"Seed, love."
They sat down on either side of the kitchen table and polished off half a seed cake and six cups of tea between them.
Eight
Self-discipline carried Mary Horton through the week at Constable Steel & Mining as if Tim Melville had not even entered her life. She doffed her clothes before using the lavatory as usual, ran Archie Johnson as well as ever and chewed out a total of seventeen typists, office boys, and clerks. But at home each night she found her books unenticing and spent the time in the kitchen instead, reading recipe books and experimenting with cakes, sauces, and puddings. Judicious pumping of Emily Parker had given her a better idea of Tim's taste in goodies; she wanted to have a varied selection for him when Saturday came.
During one lunch hour she went to a north Sydney interior decorator and bought a very expensive ruby glass coffee table, then found an ottoman in matching ruby crushed velvet. The touch of deep, vibrant color disturbed her at first, but after she got used to it she had to admit that it improved her glacial living room. The bare, pearl-gray walls suddenly looked warmer, and she found herself wondering if Tim, like so many naturals, had an instinctive eye for art. Perhaps one day she could take him around the galleries with her, and see what his eye discovered.
She went to bed very late on Friday night, expecting a phone call any minute from Tim's father to say he didn't want his son hiring himself out as a gardener on precious weekends. But the call never came, and promptly at seven the next morning she was roused from a deep sleep by the sound of Tim's knock. This time she brought him inside immediately, and asked him if he wanted a cup of tea while she dressed.
"No thanks, I'm all right," he replied, blue eyes shining.
"Then you can use the little toilet off the laundry to change while I get dressed. I want^o show you how to do the front garden."
She returned to the kitchen a short time later, cat-footed as always. He did not hear her come in, so she stood silently in the doorway watching him, struck anew by the absoluteness of his beauty. How terrible, how unjust it was, she thought, that such a wonderful shell should house such an unworthy occupant; then she was ashamed. Perhaps that was the raison d'etre of his beauty, that his progress toward sin and dishonor had been arrested in the innocence of early childhood. Had he matured normally he might have looked quite different, truly a Botticelli then, smugly smiling, with a knowing look lurking behind those clear blue eyes. Tim was not a member of the adult human race at all, except on the sketchiest of premises.
"Come along, Tim, let me show-you what's to be done out front," she said at last, breaking the spell.
The cicadas were shrieking and screaming from every bush and tree; Mary put her hands over her ears, grimaced at Tim and then went to her only weapon, the hose.
'This is the worst year for cicadas I can ever remember," she said when the din had subsided somewhat and the heavy oleanders dripped steadily onto the path.
"Breeeek!" gurgled the basso profundo choirmaster, after all the others had ceased.
"There he goes, the old twirp!" Mary went over to the oleander nearest her front door, parting its soggy branches and peering futilely into the cathedral-like recesses of its interior. "I can never find him," she explained, squatting on her haunches and turning her head to smile at Tim, who stood behind her.
"Do you want him?" Tim asked seriously.
"I most certainly do! He starts the whole lot of them off; without him they seem to be dumb."
"I'll get him for you."
He slipped his bare torso in among the leaves and branches easily, disappearing from sight above the waist. He was not wearing boots or socks this morning, since there was no concrete to blister and crack his skin, and wet humus from the grass clung to his legs.
"Breeeeek!" boomed the cicada, drying off enough to begin testing.
"Gotcha!" shouted Tim, scrambling out again with his right hand closed around something.
Mary had never actually seen more of a cicada than its cast-off brown armor in the grass and thus edged up a little fearfully, for like most women she was frightened of spiders and beetles and crawly, cold-blooded things.
"There he is, look at him!" Tim said proudly, opening his fingers gingerly until the cicada was fully exposed, tethered only by Tim's left index finger and thumb on his wing tips.
"Ugh!" Mary shuddered, backing away without really looking.
"Oh, don't be afraid of him, Mary," Tim begged, smiling up at her and stroking the cicada softly. "Look, isn't he lovely, all green and pretty like a butterfly?"
The golden head was bent over the cicada; Mary stared down at them both in sudden, blinding pity. Tim seemed to have some kind of rapport with the creature, for it lay on his palm without panic or fear, and it was indeed beautiful, once one forgot its Martian antennae and lobsterish carapace. It had a fat, bright green body about two inches long, tinted with a powdering of real gold, and its eyes glittered and sparkled like two big topazes. Over its back the delicate, transparent wings were folded still, veined like a leaf with bright yellow gold and shimmering with every color of the rainbow. And above it crouched Tim, just as alien and just as beautiful, as alive and gleaming.
"You don't really want me to kill him, do you?" Tim pleaded, gazing up at her in sudden sadness.
"No," she replied, turning away. "Put him back in his bush, Tim."
By lunchtime he had finished the front lawn. Mary gave him two hamburgers and a heaping pile of chips, then filled his empty corners with a hot steamed jam pudding smothered in hot banana custard.
"I think I'm finished, Mary," Tim said as he drank his third cup of tea. "Gee, but I'm sorry it wasn't a longer job, though." The wide eyes surveyed her mistily. "I like you, Mary," he began. "I like you better than Mick or Harry or Jim or Bill or Curly or Dave, I like you better than anyone except Pop and Mum and my Dawnie."
She patted his hand and smiled at him lovingly. "It's very sweet of you to say that, Tim, but I don't really think it's true, you haven't known me long enough."
"There's no more grass to mow," he sighed, ignoring her refusal to accept the compliment.
"Grass grows again, Tim."
"Eh?" That little interrogative sound was his signal to go slow, that something had been done or said beyond his understanding.
"Can you weed garden beds as well as you can mow a lawn?"
"I reckon I can. I do it for Pop all the time."
"Then would you like to come every Saturday and look after my garden altogether, mow the grass when it needs it, plant seedlings and weed the flower beds, spray the bushes and trim the pathways and put down fertilizer?"
He grasped her hand and shook it, smiling broadly. "Oh, Mary, I do like you! I'll come every Saturday and I'll look after your garden, I promise I'll look after your garden!"
There were thirty dollars in his envelope when he left that afternoon.
Nine
Tim had been coming for five weeks before Mary Horton phoned his father late on Thursday night. Ron answered the phone himself. "Yeah?" he asked it.
"Good evening, Mr. Melville. This is Mary Horton, Tim's Saturday friend."
Ron pricked up his ears immediately, beckoning Es to join him for a listen. "Oh, nice to hear from you, Miss Horton. How's Tim doing, all right?"
"He's a pleasure to have around, Mr. Melville. I do enjoy his company."
Ron chuckled self-consciously. "From the tales he brings home, I gather he's eating youse out of house and ho
me, Miss Horton."
"No, not at all. It's a pleasure to see him eat, Mr. Melville."
There was an awkward pause, until Ron broke it to say, "What's the matter, Miss Horton? Tim not wanted this week?"
"Well, he is and he isn't, Mr. Melville. The fact of the matter is, I have to go up to Gosford this weekend to see how my summer cottage is getting on. I've neglected it sadly so far, concentrated on the garden at home. Anyway, I was wondering if you'd object to my taking Tim with me, to help me? I could do with some help, and Tim is terrific. It's very quiet out where I am, and I give you my word he wouldn't be subjected to strangers or undue stress or anything like that. He told me he loved to fish, and the cottage is situated right in the middle of the best fishing for miles around, so I thought perhaps-perhaps he might enjoy it. He seems to like coming to me, and I certainly like his company."
Ron squiggled his eyebrows at Es, who nodded vigorously and took the receiver.
"Hullo, Miss Horton, this is Tim's mother here. . . Yes, I'm very well, thank you, how are you? . . . Oh, that's nice to hear . . . Miss Horton, it's very thoughtful of you to think of inviting Tim to go with you this weekend . . . Yes, he is a bit lonely, it's hard for a poor chap like him, you know . . . I really can't see any reason why Tim couldn't go with you, I think the change would do him good . . . Yes, he does like you an awful lot . . . Let me hand you back to my husband, Miss Horton, and thank you very, very much."
"Miss Horton?" Ron asked, snatching the receiver from his wife. "Well, you heard the Old Woman, it's all right with her, and if it's all right with her it had better be all right with me, ha-ha-ha! Yeah, right you are! Okay, I'll see he packs a bag and gets to your place by seven on this Sat-iddy morning . . . Right, Miss Horton, thank you very much . . . Bye bye now, and ta again."
Mary had planned the sixty-mile trip as a picnic, and had jammed the back of the car with provisions, diversions, and comforts she thought the summer cottage might lack. Tim arrived promptly at seven on Saturday morning. The day was fine and clear, the second weekend in a row that it had not threatened rain, and Mary shepherded Tim out to the garage immediately.
"Hop in, Tim, and make yourself comfortable. Are you all right?"
"All right," he answered.
"My house is not in Gosford itself," she said as the car headed out along the Pacific highway in the direction of Newcastle. "Living and working in the city, I didn't want to have a holiday cottage right in the middle of another crowd of people, so I bought a property quite a way out, on the Hawkes-bury near Broken Bay. We have to go into Gosford because the only road to my place starts there, you see.
"My word, how Gosford has grown! I remember it when it used to consist of a pub, a garage, two men, and a dog; now it's jammed with commuters and vacationers, there must be sixty thousand of them at least, it seems. ..."
She trailed off nervously, glancing sidelong at him in sudden embarrassment. There she was, trying to make conversation with him as though he was somewhat like the person she imagined his mother might be. In his turn he was trying to be an interested auditor, snatching his fascinated glance away from the passing landscape every so often to fix his bright, loving eyes on her profile.
"Poor Tim," she sighed. "Don't take any notice of me, just relax and look out the window."
For a long time after that there was silence. Tim was obviously enjoying the journey, turned side on with his nose almost against the window, not missing a thing, and it made her wonder just how much variety there was in his life, how often he was lifted out of what must be a very humdrum existence.
"Does your father have a car, Tim?"
He didn't bother to turn and face her this time, but continued to look out the window. "No, he says it's a waste of time and money in the city. He says it's much healthier to walk, and much less trouble to catch the bus when you need to ride in something."
"Does anyone ever take you out for a drive?"
"Not very often, I get carsick."
She turned her head to stare at him, alarmed. "How do you feel now? Do you feel sick?"
"No, I feel good. This car doesn't bump me up and down like most cars, and anyway, I'm in the front not the back, so it doesn't bump as much, does it?"
"Very good, Tim! That's quite right. If you should feel sick you'll tell me in plenty of time, though, won't you? It isn't very nice if you make a mess in the car."
"I promise I'll tell you, Mary, because you never yell at me or get cranky."
She laughed. "Now, Tim! Don't be martyrish! I'm quite sure no one yells at you or gets cranky with you very often, and only then if you deserve it."
"Well, yes," he grinned. "But Mum gets real mad if I'm sick all over everything."
"I don't blame her in the least. I'd get real mad too, so you must be sure to tell me if you ever feel sick, and then hang on until you get outside. All right?"
"All right, Mary."
After a little while Mary cleared her throat and spoke again. "Have you ever been out of the city, Tim?"
He shook his head.
"Why not?"
"I dunno. I don't think there was anything Mum and Pop wanted to see outside the city."
"And Dawnie?"
"My Dawnie goes all over the place, she's even been to England." He made it sound as though England were just around the corner.
"What about holidays, when you were a little boy?"
"We always stayed at home. Mum and Pop don't like the bush, they only like the city."
"Well, Tim, I come down to my cottage very often, and you can always come too. Perhaps later on I can take you to the desert or the Great Barrier Reef for a real holiday."
But he wasn't paying any attention to her, for they were coming down to the Hawkesbury River, and the view was magnificent.
"Oh, isn't it lovely?" he exclaimed, wriggling on the seat and gripping his hands together convulsively the way he always did when he was moved or upset.
Mary was oblivious of everything except a sudden pain, a pain so new and alien that she had no real idea why she should feel it. The poor, sad fellow! Somehow events had conspired to stunt his every avenue of expansion and mental growth. His parents cared for him very much, but their lives were narrow and their horizons restricted to the Sydney skyline. In all justice she could not find it in her heart to blame them for not realizing that Tim could never hope to get as much out of their kind of life as they did themselves. It had simply never occurred to them to wonder whether he was truly happy or not, because he was happy. But could he perhaps be happier still? What would he be like if he were freed from the chain of their routine, permitted to stretch his legs a little?
It was so difficult to draw all the threads of her feeling for him together: one moment she thought of him as a small child, the next moment his physical magnificence would remind her that he was a man grown. And it was so hard for her to feel at all, when it was so long since she had done more than merely exist. She possessed no built-in emotional gauge whereby she could distinguish pity from love, anger from protectiveness. She and Tim were like a wierdly juxtaposed Svengali and Trilby: the mindless it was that mesmerized the mind.
Since first seeing Tim all those weeks ago she had confined herself to action, had kept herself mentally out and about, doing things. She had never allowed herself to sit in the quiet withdrawal of private contemplation, for by nature she was not given to probing how and why and what she felt. Even now she would not do it, would not pull herself far enough away from the center of her pain to come to grips with the cause of it.
The cottage had no neighbors closer than two miles, for the area was not yet "developed." The only road was atrocious, no more than an earthen track through the eucalyptus forest; when it rained mud made it impassable and when it didn't rain the dust rose in vast, billowing clouds that settled on the vegetation nearest to the road, petrifying it into spindling brown skeletons. The ruts, ridges, and potholes in the road itself imperiled the stoutest car so severely that there were fe
w people willing to risk the inconvenience and discomfort for the sake of isolation.
Mary's property was quite large for the area, some twenty acres; she had bought it with an eye toward the future, knowing that the cancerous encroachment of the city would eventually lead to development and fantastic profits. Until such time, it suited her love of solitude very well.
A track diving into the trees indicated the beginning of Mary's land; she swung the car off the road and put it over the track, which continued for about a half a mile through the beautiful, aromatic bush, virgin and unspoiled. At the end of the track lay a big clearing which opened on its far side into a tiny beach; beyond it, still salty and tidal here, the Hawkesbury River twisted and turned its wide way through the towering sandstone landscape. Mary's beach was no more than a hundred yards long, and was flanked at each end by soaring yellow cliffs.
The cottage was unpretentious, a square little frame structure with a corrugated iron roof and a wide, open veranda running all the way around it. Mary kept it painted because she could not abide disorder or neglect, but the drab brownish color she had chosen did not improve the appearance of the house. Two huge galvanized iron water tanks stood on high towers at one end of the rear of the house, which faced the track. Trees had been planted at intervals in the clearing, and were at last growing large enough to take some of the bareness away. She had made no attempt at a garden and the grass grew long, but in spite of everything the place had a certain indefinable charm about it.
Mary had spent a considerable amount of money on the cottage since buying the property fifteen years before. The massive water tanks, to have enough fresh water for modern plumbing; electricity, to avoid lanterns and fuel fires. Mary saw no allure in open fires, candlelight, or outhouses; they meant extra work and inconvenience.
From the approaching car the house showed to worst advantage, but Tim was enthralled. Mary pried him out of his seat with some difficulty, and coaxed him through the back door.