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‘No.’ He grimaced and shrugged.

‘Short for Kipling?’

‘Yes. My mother was keen on poetry and Kipling was her favourite poet. Thank heaven I took after my father, he had a mathematical brain. Poetry doesn’t feed you but figures do.’

‘So prosaic. I, too, love Kipling. And I thought you would have, Kip. Kipling was very much the man.’

‘So am I,’ said Kip, and he drew her close.

When she returned to the house in the afternoon, Magnus David was there. She hadn’t seen him all the week and he startled her with his sudden appearance. She had walked back slowly, savouring the day, and ... yes, savouring the thought of Kip. So handsome and so in love with her. It was a nice feeling to have someone so nice as Kip in love with you. Paddy felt for and took out the stopwatch. How absurd he was giving her this!

‘Miss Travis! ’

Paddy actually jumped and only kept the stopwatch in her hand by a distinct effort.

‘What on earth are you carrying round?’ he asked irritably. ‘A bird’s nest? Or have you struck gold?’

‘Neither.’

‘That I can’t believe, you have something jealously locked away in those clenched hands.’

‘Nothing,’ she insisted.

‘I could open them, you know.’

‘As boss you can do anything,’ she agreed too smoothly.

‘I thought not seeing you for a while might have improved you, but it hasn’t.’ He stepped back for her to pass him.

‘Did you want me?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘But you said my name.’

‘I just wanted to see if you still answered to it.’

‘You’re being ridiculous!’

‘No, factual. You could have been married during this last week.’

‘I was not married,’ she shrugged.

‘Nor engaged?’

At once Paddy thought of the grass stone that had been held to her appropriate finger, that Kip had taken with him to be set... then inscribed.

‘No.’ But she did not say it promptly, and he noticed that.

‘So! ’ he said.

‘Is that all?’

‘Certainly. Take yourself ... and your bird’s nest or egg or what-have-you ... into your own unit.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Paddy went.

But when she got to her room she unclenched the stopwatch with distaste. Stupid thing, it could have got her into trouble. She found a handkerchief and wrapped it loosely in it and put it in a drawer.

The next day Magnus appeared to have forgotten the episode. He called in after the boys and Mrs Dermott had left.

‘Ever been to the races?’ he asked.

‘No.’

Then you’re going now.’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, nothing grand, just some picnic races. As a matter of fact I’m giving Into the Light his first try. I’m not expecting anything, and I’m certainly not pushing for anything. It will be a pleasant outing, and I think you’ll like it. Can you be ready in half an hour?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Paddy eagerly. She had never attended any kind of race meeting, country, picnic or big stuff, and was excited.

She hurried to her room, stood a moment considering the subject of dress, then took out a faithful shirtwaister. Shirtwaisters were trim and neat and generally acceptable anywhere, she thought.

She brushed her hair ... not far from the colour of Into the Light’s acorn ... put on a very pink lipstick and that was that.

When she came out Magnus said: ‘It’s good to see one girl instead of five boys for a change.’ She knew he meant her skirts. She always wore jeans around the house.

He paused, rummaged in his pocket, then brought out some banknotes and gave them to her.

‘What’s this for?’

‘What do you think?’

‘To get in?’

‘No, I’m a member, of course. But you don’t go to races and just look into distance, Miss Travis.’

‘Oh, but I want to look,’ she insisted. ‘I’ll be most interested.’

‘You’ll be expected to be more than interested, you’ll be expected to participate. The bookies who fly up only do so in the assurance that it will be worth their while.’

‘You mean—bet with this?’

‘You’re catching on! ’ he drawled.

Paddy asked, ‘Shall I put it all on Into the Light?’

‘No, I don’t recommend that, unless you place him. The feller’s not quite ready yet. Now if you’re ready ’

‘Oh, I am.’

The small racecourse was on the plateau. There was also a larger one, Magnus said, for the annual Cup and Plate. It must be a bigger plateau than she had thought, Paddy remarked as they drove along, to boast two.

‘Big enough,’ he agreed. ‘Four valleys reach up here and form a fair-sized table top. Here’s the minor course now, nothing elaborate, but quite pleasing. You’ll see a lot of faces you saw at the club.’ He broke off sharply, and Paddy knew he was thinking, as she was, of Kip Norris.

They entered, and Magnus found the members’ special parking section for his car.

‘I’ll go round and check up on our boy,’ he said. ‘You can mooch around, find something to stop you from being bored, have a bite in the tea tent before the crowd begins. Events don’t start for an hour.’

Magnus need not have worried about the bored bit, Paddy smiled later; she had never been more entertained in her life.

She passed through a row of bookmakers’ stands and had a wager on something called Fiddlesticks because the name amused her. Then she settled herself by the parade ring and enjoyed the silks and satins and glowing colours, but most of all the shining horses.

She decided on tea before all the tables were taken. After that she heard the warning for the first race. It was all wonderful and she would not have missed it for the world. The attendance, though comparatively small when you considered city meetings, let out a deep-throated roar as the horses went by.

‘Why, I’ve won! ’ Paddy laughed.

Somebody laughed with her. Kip did.

‘It’s all right,’ he said at her look of concern, ‘we’re as concealed in this push as we would be in the middle of a maze. What brought you here?’

‘Who,' she corrected. ‘Mr David.'

‘Oh. Where is he?’

‘In Into the Light’s box.'

‘Yes, the boyo’s entered for the Sun Up, isn't he? It’s not an important race, I mean no big stakes, but it’s considered a forerunner of the Plate, and that really is something. Good prizes, and an influx from Sydney. Staged at the big ring, incidentally. I suppose this is more or less a tryout for the white hope?’

‘Yes ... I suppose it is.'

‘How’s he been doing?’ asked Kip.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t know? What did I give you a stopwatch for? There’ ... at a look on Paddy’s face ... ‘I’m joking, of course. But you must have some idea. For instance, did David have a pleased look or not?’

‘Just the same look.’

‘Did he tell you anything?’

‘Like what?’ she queried.

‘Like whether to back him or not. I know you’re betting, because you just won.’

‘Kip, why are you so interested?’ she asked.

‘Darling, I’d just like to win myself some pocket-money, the same as you.'

‘Of course,' Paddy agreed. ‘For a moment I thought ’

‘Yes?’

'That you were interested in more than that.’

‘Not me. And yet in a way that’s untrue. I’d like to get enough money to have a stable of my own, not manage it for someone else. Somewhere away from here, but’... taking her hand... ‘never away from you.’

‘But I love this place.’

‘I love
you,
and whither I go you should come.’

‘Kip, you’re the very end!’ Paddy had to laugh. ‘You don’t, you simply don’t, say things like that at races.’

‘I do and I have. Well, what did His Nibs advise regarding Into the Light for the Sun Up?’

‘A place only.’

‘Good. Go ahead and do it, then come back here.’

‘Is it—I mean ’

‘Is it safe?’ he interpreted. That had been the word she had wanted, but she had felt cheap using it. ‘Of course it’s safe, Miss Caution. Always pick a crowd. Now hurry away, then hurry back, I want to show you all the finer points of racing.’

But it was Magnus who did that, not Kip. Magnus met her as she was crossing the courtyard, and he got into step beside her, evidently intending to spend the rest of the day instructing her. There was no chance of alerting Kip, but Kip, Paddy half-smiled, would never need alerting. She did not see him for the rest of the afternoon.

Standing by the rails Paddy heard herself cheering Into the Light from the rear, where he found himself, to third place. When there was a bunch-up once she cried out in dismay, but when he moved up on the inside and Magnus told her there were only five furlongs to go, she shouted with the rest. She only stopped when it was all over and Magnus stood grinning down at her.

‘Well, House-mother,’ he laughed, ‘a little bit different from Brandy Flambe, isn’t it? Let’s get your winnings and hit home before the crowd. It mightn’t be a Melbourne Cup crowd, but after all, we’ve only one road.’

He was a different Magnus all the way back. He teased her, he recommended all sorts of extravagant things to buy with her small winnings, he was ... he was even boyish.

They parted on a happy note, which made the next meeting, exactly five minutes afterwards, all the bigger shock.

Paddy had only put her things down, had not even changed out of her dress. She had stood wondering a moment at the drawer in her cupboard, she had not remembered leaving it open.

But she had little time to wonder. Without any warning and certainly no knock, Magnus came striding in.

‘What’s the explanation of this?’ he demanded.

She stood without comprehension for quite a while, then her glance dropped to what he held out at her. It had been Kip’s, but now it was hers. It was the stopwatch.

‘It’s a stopwatch,’ she said dully.

‘I know what it is, but I want the explanation. For instance, how do you happen to have it? Why?’

But Paddy was puzzling why
he
had it. She had wrapped it up in a handkerchief, put it in a drawer, she was sure she had.—A drawer?

Now she was remembering. Just as she was leaving, Richard had come from the stud with the request of all humble things of a safety pin.

‘A safety pin?’ she had said, ‘but surely you’d have one.’ Then she had recalled his sex, a sex more given to rivets and valves poked into pockets, and had tossed:

‘Look for yourself, dear. It’ll be in one of my drawers.’

Whether he had found the safety pin she did not know, but he had found a stopwatch. He shouldn’t have
taken it, but probably he’d only borrowed it to try out something, a boy would do that. And now Magnus had seen him.

‘Richard?’ she asked.

‘Yes. He was bringing it back, and I must say he didn’t carry it as secretively as you carried that bird’s egg.’ Magnus laughed without mirth. ‘All right, I’m waiting.’

‘It’s nothing, of course,’ Paddy began. ‘We all get these stopwatches.’

‘You surprise me. Tell me more. Do you time the kids’ waking up?’

‘No, but Closer Families had this outdoor physical activity thing as well as its other functions. Some of us’ ... Paddy drew a breath ... ‘were interested in athletics and bought ourselves these watches.’

‘You said before you got them.’

‘Yes. At a sports shop.’

‘And when you did, you bought the very best,’ he said drily. He handed the stopwatch across.

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ How could she,
how could she,
Paddy thought, keep lying like this ?

‘Short of ringing up Mr Aston, which I won’t do, I’ll have to, won’t I ? No, I’ll believe you, but’ ... a flick of his eyes ... ‘many wouldn’t.’

He turned on his heel without another word, and Paddy finished changing her clothes.

The fun had gone, the excitement had gone, and she wished very much that the stopwatch had gone. Perhaps if she left it around ... But no, that was an important lesson in the Manual. Never put temptation on display.

It’s my fault, she knew, I never should have accepted it, or if I did I should have been honest about it. How many lies have I told now ? What did Kip say ?

‘Padua, you’re already deep in lies. What’s another?’

But to me, Paddy thought miserably, this one is just the last straw. Where is the girl who ran along the sands with Jerry at Pelican Beach one long September ago ?

It’s September again now, a September Jerry’s brother said to me: ‘My God, you
will
remember.’ And though I don’t blame him, not in this web I’ve spun, I still wish he’d forget, and that I’d never started to deceive.

There
was a subtle difference in Magnus after that. He was neither openly critical nor frankly antagonistic any more, instead he controlled, if thinly, his undoubted dislike of her. Also, he was withdrawn.

He was something else as well, something Paddy found very distasteful. He was watchful—she felt sure of it. Watchful of whom ? It would have to be her, of course, but why ? And watchful for what reason?

It all made no sense, but it did make Paddy very miserable. Rightly or wrongly she became obsessed with the stopwatch. She entirely blamed the stopwatch. Before the stopwatch affair he hadn’t been like this. He had been an enemy, yes, but occasionally a tolerant one. Now

She would simply have to return the thing to Kip, make him take it. If he wouldn’t, she would throw it away. The existence of the wretched instrument was getting her down. She could have gladly put it on the floor and jumped on it.

She looked for an opportunity to take a walk again in the Standen Stud vicinity, but always Magnus seemed to appear just as she was about to leave. She almost began to think of herself as a prisoner.

Then Magnus announced one evening that he was going down to Sydney. He said it in that unrevealing way he had adopted of late.

‘On important business, extremely important to me.’

‘I know it,’ Paddy heard herself saying piteously to him, ‘it’s the wretched stopwatch. You’re going to ask Mr Aston if I was telling the truth when I said it was advised that we equip ourselves with them. Very well then, Mr David, I now intend to ’