Robyn Donald – Iceberg (9 page)

Later that evening, as she brushed her hair before sleeping, she wondered why Justin's blunt announcement that

Bronwyn would not need the flat for much longer had affected her so strongly. It was tantamount to saying that

their marriage was fairly close; the reason she felt so concerned about that was that she worried about Sarah, of

course.’ An odd tiling, the maternal instinct For Sarah's sake she wished rather fervently that Bronwyn would

develop it.

The child arrived immediately after breakfast the next day, half apologetic, half defiant, but when Linnet treated

the incident with casual unconcern she dropped her uneasy belligerence and followed suit.

'I'm sorry,' she said, squeezing her companion's hand, 'but I couldn't sleep, and I got to thinking about you, and I

just got all silly and upset. Linnet, did you mean it when you said you wouldn't go?'

'Yes. Bronwyn has agreed that I can stay here with her."

As always when the older girl's name was mentioned, Sarah's expressive countenance registered sullen

resignation. But after a moment she said, "That's nice. When, will you know if you've got your job?'

'In a week or so."

'Good; then we've got a week together.' 'She was jubilant, making suggestions about ways to spend the week,

some ridiculous, some interesting. Then a strange expression crossed her face; she chuckled suddenly, but when

Linnet asked her what was up she shook her head, smiling mysteriously.

'Wait and see,' she teased. 'Linnet, do you want to write?'

Bemused by this sudden change of attitude, for Sarah had always seemed a little jealous of her writing, she said,

'Yes, I do.'

'Then you sit down and write," Sarah told her graciously. 'I'll just pop up to the house.'

Once writing time was forgotten; it was late in the afternoon when she surfaced, hungry, thirsty and surprised at

being left alone for so long.

Sarah had still not appeared when Bronwyn came home, but within a few minutes she was down and with her

came her father, looking distinctly grim and unapproachable in the warm spring sunlight.

'What on earth------?' Bronwyn looked startled, but there was no sign of it when she opened the door to Justin

and his daughter.

Like a coward Linnet stayed in the kitchen where she supervised dinner, but Sarah said imperiously, 'Come on,

Linnet, we need you too.’

Once in the sitting room Justin refused Bronwyn's offer of a drink and began, 'Sarah tells me that you have a

week in hand before you know about this library job. Is that so?'

For all the world as if she was a recalcitrant pupil and he a stem headmaster. Stifling the desire to answer pertly,

Linnet said, 'Yes, about a week.'

He nodded, 'In that case, would you like to go with Sarah to our house on Kawau Island, up the Gulf?'

Momentarily his glance rested on the small silver head of his daughter, then flicked across to catch and hold

Linnet's. 'She thinks—and I agree—that a week in the sun will benefit her. Anna is too busy to take her. If you

agree I'll - be very grateful.'

Sarah must have been warned against being importunate, but those pale eyes so like her father's grew enormous

with the strain of staying silent.

Linnet dithered. She wanted to go—Auckland had suddenly become stifling to her—but the thought of being

beholden in any way to Justin was galling.

Then Bronwyn said, amusement colouring her words, 'Of course she'll go, Justin. She's dying to say yes.'

'Linnet?'

She nodded. At once Sarah squealed with delight, flung her arms around her father's waist and hugged him

hard, then danced across the room and fastened herself on to Linnet's hand.

'I knew you would,' she stated with enormous contentment.

They left from Mechanic's Bay in the heart of Auckland, flying in a seaplane which took the three
of
them—for

Justin accompanied them—and the pilot, but only just.

It was, Linnet decided, quite the smallest seaplane in the world. As her Only previous experience of flight had

been in the enormous jets which spanned the Tasman Sea—and they terrified her—she was convinced that

she ,was going to be dead of fright before they reached the island.

But the pilot seemed quite happy, Sarah was ecstatic and Justin—well, it would be a very foolhardy plane which

would let Justin Doyle down!

He was sitting now between them both, so that they could see through the windows. The warmth and hardness

of his arm was against her shoulder, and she was acutely aware of the faint masculine scent of him. Something

close to a panic drove her to peer intently out of the window at the enormous oil tanks on the shore.

'We're, away!' the pilot shouted, and the note of the engines changed as the plane surged across the quiet waters

of the bay. Within a few seconds another change in the engine noise revealed that they were airborne.

Linnet forgot the size of the plane, forgot everything but the beauty of the scene below, the harbour glinting and

sparkling in the sun, the islands spread Eke emeralds of differing shades scattered across the water and the

darker, deeper colour of the outer Gulf sheltered by the length
of
Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel

.Peninsular from the limitless Pacific Ocean.

A ship made its way up
As
channel between the North Shore and the somber bulk of Rangitoto Island, the most

recent volcano in all of that volcanic area.

'It's only dormant, like all of the others,' Justin said into her ear. 'It erupted about nine hundred years ago. That's

weathered lava, the dark rock it's composed of.’

She nodded, conscious dial he had bent closer to her in order to make himself heard above the plane's engines. It

was a relief when Sarah claimed his attention.

In all too short a time the shape of Kawau Island, almost bisected by Bon Accord harbour, appeared, the white

coves and beaches glistening in the sun.

'Nearly there,' the pilot informed them unnecessarily over his shoulder. 'Seat belts tight? O.K., then down we

go.'

They landed on the calm waters of the harbour, taxied across to a bay protected from the south by a small

promontory covered in pines. About half way down was a wharf, long and slender, from which a launch was

leaving.

'There's Mr McCarthy,' Sarah shrilled, 'Look, Linnet, there's the house!'

'Where?'

Laughing, over-excited, Sarah leaned across her, father and grabbed Linnet's hands just as she freed herself

from her safety belt. Giving them an enormous tug, she half hauled Linnet across Justin's lap, so that she was

sprawled rather inelegantly over his knees, her head against his shoulder. Beneath her ear she could hear the

muted thunder of his heart. Then, with a grip which was far from gentle, he set her back in her place and began

to scold Sarah for her impetuosity.

'I'm sorry,' said Sarah, laughing. 'You should have seen your face, Linnet! You looked as if Daddy was a
shark

or something!'

'Hardly,' Linnet protested, acutely conscious of hair dishevelled by contact with his shoulder.

'Oh, yes, you did. And Daddy looked shocked!'

Justin lifted his brows at his unrepentant daughter, but the anger had gone from his expression, to be replaced

by wry amusement. 'You're an imaginative child,' he said mildly. 'Come on now, here's Mr McCarthy.'

Who turned out to be a tall, bearded young man, clad in shorts and nothing else, who received Sarah's greeting

with a gentle smile, helped Linnet into the launch and took the suitcases as the pilot passed them out, talking

quietly to Justin as he stowed them below in the cabin.

They looked an oddly incongruous pair, Justin in trousers and shirt which, although casual, were beautifully cut,

and the extremely casual, very tanned young man who must be the caretaker, but it was quite apparent that they

were friends. Reluctantly once more Linnet had to revise her opinion of Justin. He could not be as stuffily

superior as she had thought him if he had found friendship with Mr McCarthy.

'There's the house,' said Sarah, all at once very quiet, 'See, Linnet?'

And this time Linnet saw it, a long building of stained wood, inconspicuous against the wooded hillsides of the

promontory, surrounded by greenery. Unconsciously she sighed, caught by the beauty of the scene, the tightness

of the house in its old, sleepy setting.

Then the launch nosed up against the wharf, and Sarah was dragging at her hand, her moments of quietness

gone. 'Come ok, Linnet! Let's go up and see Cherry;’

‘No, we'll help with the luggage first.'

But Justin said from behind, 'You go on ahead, Rob and I will bring up the bags.'

Their feet made a satisfactory slap, slap along the timbers, of the wharf, a sound which changed to a crunch as

they came off on to a path of broken shells worn smooth and round by the sea. The spicy, aromatic scent of

manuka was strengthened by the balsam of the pines and along the white beach a pohutukawa leaned out across

the water, its first flowers dark scarlet amongst the green and silver of the foliage.

It was very quiet. The sea-plane had taken off while they were in the launch and was now a faint hum on the

edge of hearing. There was no other sound ,but the soft hush of the waves against the huge wooden piles of the

wharf. Even Sarah was silent, her expression absorbed in a kind of near-ecstasy.

Then, as if on cue, a dog barked, at
first
up by the house,1 but it came closer rapidly.

'It's all right, it's only Goori,' Sarah explained kindly. 'He sounds fierce, but he's really gentle as a lamb.'

The oddly named Goori was an enormous creature, part German shepherd, part Labrador, Linnet guessed, and

another part which was plain mongrel. He looked as though he ate babies for breakfast, but his tail wagged hard

enough to belie his appearance, and when Sarah introduced Linnet he sniffed her proffered hand delicately

before giving it an enthusiastic lick.

'There, he knows you,' Sarah said happily.

From behind her father added, a note of mockery in his voice, 'Theoretically he's a watchdog—or so Rob

assures me.' .

And Rob McCarthy laughed. 'Of course he's a watchdog. He barks, even if he doesn't attack. Nobody gets far on

to Good's patch without him letting us know.'

All very chummy, Linnet decided as she and the child preceded them up the narrow path towards the house

Justin Doyle was a complex man with many sides to his character; it might pay to remember that she didn't

know him very well.

The house was another surprise. It was not new, being at least forty years old, built in the days when beach

houses had not yet become a status symbol. But it was comfortable, stylish in its very simplicity and well cared

for.

Cherry McCarthy was a large-boned woman, younger than Rob with enormous brown eyes, a wicked smile and

her husband's bone-deep suntan. She too greeted Justin with pleasure, quite unmixed with awe, smiled the smile

of an old friend at Sarah, and was introduced to Linnet. Her expression was interested but not curious; she was

not the curious type. Even if she-had been she would have learned little, for Justin did not say anything about

Bronwyn being her sister. He did, however, tell Cherry that he would be leaving early the next morning, which

was a relief. Ever since the seaplane had left them Linnet had wondered how long he intended to stay.

It was i very quiet day. The rest
of
the morning was spent being shown over the property by Sarah while Justin

was closeted in an office with Rob, then came a swim before lunch and the meal itself, eaten on the beach

beneath the umbrella of the pohutuka was.

After lunch Sarah went to sleep in a lounger, Justin retired to the house, and Linnet followed Sarah's-example,

lulled to rest by the quiet warmth of the air. It was as though all of the traumas of the past weeks had caught up

with her at once, from her mother's wedding to the battles she had had with Justin, and the fact that she hadn't

slept very well the night before, no doubt because she wasn't accustomed to being hustled as Justin had hustled

her.

Scarcely had she agreed, to go with Sarah man he had stated that there was no reason why they shouldn't leave

the next day. Half an hour after he and Sarah had left to go back to the big house he had rung to tell her that all

was arranged. '

'When Justin wants things done, they get done,' Bronwyn had said, almost proudly.

She never spoke a truer word.

The impatient 'pink-pink' of some small bird woke her. A swift glance at her watch revealed that she had slept

for an hour or so. Sarah was still asleep, sprawled with the unconscious grace of childhood on the lounger, one

small hand clenched beneath her chin. A kind of yearning clutched at Linnet's heart; the child was so vulnerable

in her innocence and youth. She wished she could keep her from all pain and grief, even as the sensible part of

her brain told her that pain and grief were two of the things which helped any character to mature.

Some instinct told her that she was being watched. Very slowly she moved her head, met Justin Doyle’s

sardonic glance and felt the tell-tale heat of a blush across her skin.

He was sitting on the overhanging limb of the tree, one leg dangling, his elbow on the other knee, his hand

supporting his chin. Clad in shorts and a tee-shirt he looked very much younger than me Justin Doyle she knew,