Jacaranda Blue (8 page)

Martin wandered in later, a carton of milk in his hand. Minutes passed before he tracked the muffled beeping to the hall, and to the dangling telephone. He shrugged, placed it on the cradle. So there had been another call. Juvenile delinquents, with nothing better to do than to play pranks on busy people.

‘Daughter?' he called at the stairs.

There was no answer. He walked to her door, stood a moment, knocked three times then coughed. The door wouldn't open. She had obviously placed a chair behind it. He knocked again. ‘Daughter. Are you all right?'

‘Go away, Father. Just leave me alone, please.'

It was a reply that had plagued the years of his wedded life, and one he hadn't missed. Always more confident preaching to the masses than communicating with individuals, he stood shaking his head, his mind forming questions he might ask.

It appears that something has seriously upset you, Daughter, he might say, or perhaps, What is it that has caused this upset, Daughter? Let us talk it out, and see if we can find a solution. No, he decided. Least said, sooner mended. She had asked to be left alone, so he would respect her wishes. He stepped back.

Her mother had been a highly strung woman, who had not enjoyed the duties of a wife, nor had she accepted the responsibilities of motherhood as he might have hoped. Was his daughter now going down the same path of melancholia? Anger for breakfast, silence for lunch, recriminations for tea. Martin shuddered. Having been through it once, he had no desire for a repeat performance.

Storms pass, he thought. Stella has always been a sensible girl. She will weather this storm far better alone. She's had one of those damnable phone calls. Never a worldly girl, it has upset her, and rightly so. That and the virus. Yes. He nodded, and took three more steps towards the stairs.

There was much on his mind today. The telephone had not stopped its ringing while Stella was out. Barely had he placed it down when the damnable thing would call him from his work again. But he'd been pleased to take the final call. It was from one of the few men he had, in his life, named friend.

Martin and Patrick O'Sullivan, a Catholic priest, had weathered the war together in Africa and France. They had travelled home on the same boat when the war was won, and they still kept in touch. Patrick had telephoned this afternoon from Sydney. He'd spoken for twenty minutes, attempting to persuade Martin to fill a gap on a planned tour of their former battle-grounds. Patrick had the persuasive tongue of the Irish.

It was a fully guided tour, he'd said. No luggage to handle, no stress. Quality hotels all the way. They would be picked up each morning at the hotel door, and dropped off there each night. Comfortable airconditioned buses all the way.

And France. To see Paris again. Martin loved the French – loved anything French. Hadn't he intended returning to France after the war, and to the young French lass who had initiated him into a more giving love than he had known with Angel?

And London. Wonderful London. The tour would take in Churchill's bunker, left as it was on the day the war ended. Untouched. A small segment of trapped time – and trapped from a time Martin had understood. He was out of touch with the nineties.

Africa? Well, he could take that or leave it, but it certainly would be an experience. The tour was also taking in Germany – only the edge, but quite enough.

‘And a weekend of sightseeing in Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland. It is certainly tempting,' he said to the stair rail, neither up nor down. His thoughts silenced, he listened again. At least there was no uncontrolled weeping coming from his daughter's room. His wife had frequently shaken the very foundations of the house with the intensity of her weeping.

What age is Stella now? Forty – . He did some mental additions. Angel had been forty-seven when Stella was born. ‘Forty-four last January,' he said.

Middle age could be a difficult time for a childless woman. I could not leave her alone in this state, of course. Still, it may be a temporary upset, and probably is. She may be fine in the morning. It would do no harm to call the tour organiser, sound him out. No harm at all.

The tour, then only an idea, had been suggested to Martin in October. He'd given the embryonic plan careful consideration, but when it came time to pay his deposit, he'd decided against it. After all, at his age, anything could happen in six months.

‘As indeed it has. As indeed it has,' he muttered.

According to Patrick, things had altered considerably in six months, and for the better. Harold Smithton, a pernicious little pustule, had passed on, and a second member, Matthews, a know-all ferret of a man, with whom Martin had no patience at all, had been struck down by a stroke. The possibility of ending up in a twin room with either one of these in the other bed had caused the hackles to rise on the back of Martin's neck.

‘However,' he said, ‘it is sad of course for their families, but death comes to us all.'

Patrick had mentioned that the organisers were eager to fill these two vacancies, and at a possible discount to the latecomers. If the vacancies could not be filled, the cost to other members would be increased, which was possibly – probably – one of the reasons Patrick called him, pressured him to go. Martin was aware of that.

‘However . . . ' he said, one finger raised.

It was a trip he had fought against taking, convincing himself he was beyond the age of travel, that he could not take the chance of striking bad weather, could not leave his church – and Stella – for three weeks. The other considerations, the ferret, the pustule – ‘No longer considerations,' he said, smiling broadly.

The cost of the trip was of no real concern. Although he was not personally a rich man, he was comfortable. The house willed by Randall De Vere to Angel now belonged to Stella. Martin had supervised the drawing up of his wife's will, signed only months before she died. Doctor Parsons and Miss Moreland had witnessed it. This left Martin, to all intents and purposes, dependent on his daughter for shelter.

Over a period of time, as his own investments came due, he transferred them to his daughter's name, until by his seventy-seventh birthday, he had been able to collect a full pension, and had been living well on it for the past eight years, supplemented, of course, by a small allowance and other extras from the church.

Martin still managed his daughter's money, still looked after her investments. During the years of high interest, he had doubled her holdings, and when the bottom fell out of interest, he'd considered himself lucky to have seen it coming. All available cash had been locked in to long-term bonds which were still paying well, the only annoyance being Stella's tax bill that crept higher each year.

She knew nothing about her money. She had no experience in handling money. Finances were, after all, a male domain, and all letters with windows were placed on the hall table for Martin to open. Like her mother before her, Stella signed where he placed his small pencilled cross.

The money for the tour would come from her accounts.

‘Perhaps a little out of each,' he said.

The discomfort of the twenty-odd hour plane trip could be his greatest concern now. Seats were not built for one of his stature. Also, Martin had a fear of enclosed spaces, specifically if those enclosed spaces enclosed others; he disliked the idea of breathing the recycled air of unknown parties. After all, too little was known yet about the transmitting of these new diseases, he thought, and the physical discomfort of remaining a virtual prisoner of one small seat for those twenty-odd hours would play havoc with his bones.

Never a small man, he had spread in the latter years of his life, until seats in public places, bus seats, even toilets seats, had become minor embarrassments. The world was fitted out for the average, and Martin was anything bar average. However, he argued silently with the stair rail, what is a little discomfort compared to the delights of meeting with old friends, of three weeks of freedom from clerical duties? And France. Wonderful France.

He silenced his thoughts and listened, one hand to his ear.

Stella was a strong girl, and capable. He respected these traits in his daughter. Even during the worst years of his dear Angel's . . . illness, Stella had not succumbed to tears. Always a courageous infant. A pity she did not marry. A great pity, he thought. Women need children – most women need children, he corrected mentally. He had once had dreams of a grandson; but if it was not meant to be, then it was not meant to be.

The silence of the house, without the movement of Stella, unnerved him. In truth, the trip was looking better by the minute, the discomforts shrinking in importance. Perhaps I should consider going. Perhaps I owe it to myself, and to Stella. It would give the girl some time alone. Perhaps that is all she needs. Time alone to come to terms with whatever is troubling her.

During his wife's frequent bouts of melancholia, he had found it safer to walk away. At times, in the early years of their marriage, she had seemed the better for the time alone.

As he stood, motionless, halfway up the stairs, he heard Stella cough. Heard movement in her room. He waited for her door to open. It remained closed.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Yes. Far better for her to work it out herself.' And he tiptoed ponderously down to the telephone.

He'd scribbled the number of the tour organisers on a pad beside the phone. It was a Sydney number. He dialled it and waited for the voice to reply.

‘Good afternoon. Martin Templeton speaking . . . Yes. I have spoken to you before I believe . . . Yes. The Reverend Martin Templeton. From Maidenville. I am calling STD, so we will keep this as brief as possible.' He took up his pen, opened a new page on the notepad. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘That is so. Now, it has been brought to my attention that you have had two recent cancellations on the tour . . . Yes . . . Yes, of course. The tour. Europe . . . battle-grounds. Yes.' He drew small boxes on the pad, interlinking them. Boxes, within boxes, within larger boxes. He turned the boxes into cubes.

‘It does appear that I am now able to get away . . . Yes. Very interested. No. No. Not a problem . . . Health? Not a problem. I am as healthy as the proverbial horse. A widower . . . Sadly, yes.' He found a W amid the boxes, darkened it.

‘Passport? No. I have not had the need in recent years. Can you perhaps look after that small detail . . .? Yes . . . Yes. Having served my country, I should think so.' The small page of the notepad was filling with his doodling. He wrote
photograph
at the bottom of the page, and
Chemist
beside it. Then a question mark. He darkened the question mark. Turned it into a face, drew stick arms on the question mark's line, lengthened it, drew feet with large box boots.

‘Of course. Now, just one or two questions, if I may. The tour is fully catered? All meals. Wonderful. Except for one free day in Paris . . . Ah yes.' And he wrote
Paris!
‘Just the one free day . . . I had hoped . . . Yes. I had hoped for more time in France.' He underlined
Paris!
, circled it.

‘Right. We will of course have breakfast and the evening meal on that day – . Excellent. Now this business of shared rooms. No. No. No. Allow me to put this to you, if I may. I assume, as I am to be, more or less, filling a vacancy, that there will be a reduction in the overall cost. Yes?' The pen returned to a box. He drew small dots within it, continued the dots.

‘No? I was led to believe . . . Yes. By Patrick O'Sullivan . . . Yes. That there may be as much as a six hundred dollar discount. Yes. The deposit paid by the deceased was not refunded, according to Patrick – . To be sure. To be sure. I am of course a pensioner, and on a limited income you understand, and as a widower, I have grown accustomed to my privacy . . . Yes. My own room. Yes. Having lost two of your party, I would assume that you now have one room freed. Yes. I certainly would.' His eyes on the pad, he frowned at it, then removed the page. The pressure of his pen had driven deep into the page beneath it, so he removed it too, then a third page.

‘That sounds fair. Of course I would expect to pay extra for my privacy . . . which will no doubt be covered by the six hundred dollar discount. Yes?

‘Then I look forward to meeting with you also . . . The cheque will be in the mail this evening . . . Passport forms at the post office. A photograph. Yes. And you will send me the itinerary . . . Thank you. And you, sir. Goodbye.'

He looked at his watch. It had taken almost fifteen minutes on normal daily rates. Still, the church paid his phone bill. He placed the telephone down, and with a weighty skip, walked to the kitchen and tossed his doodling in the waste bin. He picked up his keys from the dresser, flung the flywire door back to slam against the brickwork, and he made his way through the garden to the true love of his life. The flywire door jammed open.

The Packard had thirty-seven thousand miles on the clock. It had never spent a night out of doors, and it could, with near honesty, claim it had only been driven to church on Sundays – although, not in the past twenty years. It was Martin's pride and joy. He kept it in immaculate mechanical condition.