He thought about it for another two seconds. ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘Let Charlotte take my place.’
‘Charlotte wants to stay here.’
‘Does she?’
‘She’s one mixed-up lady,’ Amy whispered. ‘Just like me.’
‘Do you feel like kicking this louse?’ he asked curiously, and she thought about it.
‘No,’ she said after a long time. ‘For one thing, he’s already kicked himself harder than I ever could. For another…’ She hesitated. ‘He’s not so bad.’
‘He two-timed you.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But what?’
‘But maybe I would have gone mad without him.’ She looked up at Joss and her eyes were bleak. ‘You think that sounds soft. Maybe it is. But four years ago, when I knew I had to come back here, I felt I was living in a nightmare. Malcolm was my friend. He coped with all the paperwork-he made it possible for this place to be built-he was here for me.’
‘He was here for Charlotte as well.’
‘No, that came later.’ She sighed. ‘Charlotte is very…honest. She’s explained everything to me. She met Malcolm a couple of years back and they started a friendship-which turned into a relationship. After all, what Malcolm had with me was a weekend once a fortnight.’
‘And the promise of a fortune.’
‘Maybe.’ She was watching Malcolm’s face. He was deeply asleep, his chest rising and falling in a regular rhythm, his body sleeping off the battering shock it had received. ‘Charlotte said that wasn’t the only reason he wanted to keep the engagement going. Why he wanted to marry me. She said he was worried about me.’
‘And you believe that?’
‘Maybe I do.’ She met his look, and her eyes were challenging. ‘Maybe I need to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he was all I had.’ She swallowed. ‘He was a future. A husband. Babies. A semblance of normality.’
‘You’re not thinking of still going through with it?’ he demanded, and she shook her head.
‘Of course not. Charlotte’s had his baby. Regardless of what Malcolm wants, as far as I’m concerned our relationship is over.’ She tugged at the engagement ring on her third finger until it came off. Then she stood staring down at the diamond glistening in her palm. ‘The helicopter’s here,’ she said bleakly. ‘You can go. You can all go.’
‘Do you love him?’ Joss asked, watching her bleak face.
‘I…’
‘Amy?’
‘Leave it,’ she whispered and turned and walked out the door.
Should he go to Sydney?
Joss rang Jeff who said, yes, the chopper was here, the machine could fit four passengers and they were prepared to take him as well as Malcolm. He was bringing the van to the hospital now to collect anyone who wanted to go.
Could he be ready himself?
No.
Malcolm was as ready as he ever would be. Joss wrote up a patient history ready for handover and then walked out to the living room.
Lionel was there, cutting a vast ream of yellow fabric into kite pieces. He’d lost his favourite kite and another one had to be made pronto to take its place. Heaven forbid that there ever be spare space in the living room!
‘More kites?’
‘There are never enough kites,’ Lionel told him, and Joss nodded in full agreement. No. There were never enough kites. He looked around at the jumble of crazy constructions that Amy put up with and he wondered how many nursing-home managers would have allowed it.
There were never enough kites.
There was never enough…joy?
‘You should sell them,’ Joss said, more for something to say than anything else. ‘You make great kites. You could make some money from them.’
‘Not here I couldn’t,’ Lionel said morosely. ‘When I retired I thought I’d set up a little shop here and sell them to kids coming to the beach. That’s a joke. Even if kids came-which they don’t-the only place I could sell them now is from the nursing home. Who comes to a nursing home looking for a kite?’
‘Why could you sell them from a nursing home and nowhere else?’ Joss said slowly, thinking it through. Lionel was a bit confused. Was this just another example of his confusion? ‘Why not out of your garage?’
But Lionel wasn’t confused about this. ‘There are caveats on every other damned place,’ he said. ‘There’s one quarter-acre block zoned for commercial use for the post office and general store and that’s it. The rest of the district is zoned purely residential to perpetuity and use for commercial purposes is banned. Except this place. But I can’t see me sticking up “Kites for Sale” above the nursing-home sign. Can you?’
‘I guess not,’ Joss said, but his brain was beginning to tick over.
An idea was stirring at the back of his mind. It probably wouldn’t have a hope of working. There probably wasn’t a loophole.
But if he was right…well, why not?
Did she still love Malcolm? That was the last unanswered question.
The helicopter team arrived and together they organised Malcolm for the long flight to Sydney. Joss helped immobilise his leg, administered more painkiller and sedative to help him with the flight and then stood back as Malcolm said his farewell to Amy. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen.
‘I’m sorry, Amy,’ Malcolm told her as they lifted his stretcher into the police van. He took her hand and she submitted to his urgent grip. ‘Listen, Charlotte and I…’ He was speaking urgently. ‘I don’t…’
‘You don’t have to tell me that what’s between us is over.’ She smiled down at him and there was the trace of affection in her voice. ‘You needn’t bother. I know. It is over.’
‘Charlotte wants to stay here.’
She was deliberately misunderstanding what he was trying to say. ‘That’s OK. We’ll look after her for you.’
The conversation wasn’t going the way Malcolm had planned but his head was too fuzzy to do anything about it.
‘Amy…’
‘I’ll give your engagement ring to your father,’ she told him. ‘I’d give it to you now but it may get lost. Or would you like me to give it straight to Charlotte?’
‘No! Amy!’
But she was shaking her head and she even had a rueful smile on her face. ‘Maybe you’re right. That would be bad taste. Almost as bad taste as fathering a child while you’re engaged to someone else.’ She hesitated and then stooped and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
‘Goodbye, Malcolm,’ she said and stood back to let him go.
She was…crying?
Joss turned to find there were tears welling in Amy’s eyes.
Damn the man. He was so angry he felt like following the van, stopping it and dislocating the other hip.
Had he been mistaken in telling her about Malcolm’s infidelity? Or in forcing Charlotte to tell her?
He thought about it. Maybe Malcolm could have convinced Charlotte to keep quiet. Maybe Amy would still have married him, had a couple of kids, been happy with her weekend husband until her six years were done.
What else was there for her?
Anything, he thought angrily. There had to be a life for this woman-a life that she wanted rather than the one dictated by the despotic old fool, her stepfather.
He scowled at the retreating back of the police van and then looked up to find Amy watching him.
‘Why didn’t you go when you had the chance?’ she asked. ‘You could have escaped.’
Was that what he wanted? To escape? He thought about it and looked at her pale face and thought about it some more.
‘I talked to Jeff,’ he told her at last. ‘He reckons if the rain doesn’t start again they’ll have a ferry lined up by tomorrow. Bertram and I can drive out of here under our own steam.’
Her face closed in pain-but he wasn’t sure. Was it pain for him-or pain for Malcolm?
Maybe even she didn’t know.
‘Bully for you,’ she said, and turned and walked into the nursing home without another word.