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Instead, as they leaned side by side on the wide rail of the veranda, both dressed in jeans and woollens after a walk on the windblown beach, she looked out at the sunlight dying on the sea and said, ‘Let me know if you need me, darling. You know I’ll always come.’
Tansy turned and gave her a hug. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
Fler thought that was all she was going to say, but she leaned back against the rail and, with her head bent, said almost inaudibly, ‘You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Well, I s’pose I am,’ Tansy muttered. ‘But...you don’t understand what it’s like!’
Fler debated inwardly for a second. ‘I have been in love, you know,’ she said mildly.
‘Not like this!’
The intensity of the statement startled Fler. But she supposed at eighteen she’d been equally intense, and just as convinced that no one else had ever felt as deeply as she did. Banishing a natural impatience at the arrogance of youth, she said, ‘I suppose everyone’s experience of love is unique. Especially first love.’
‘Was Daddy your first love?’
‘Well...yes.’ The couple of crushes she’d had in early puberty didn’t count.
‘And you’ve never looked at anyone else since you broke up with him, have you?’
There hadn’t been that many for her to look at, Fler thought, apart from the fact that she’d been rather soured on men and relationships after the divorce. She certainly hadn’t been looking for a new mate. ‘Not really,’ she agreed cautiously.
Tansy moved again, turning with a hand on the post at the top of the steps, gazing at the first bright cold stars appearing between streaky winter clouds. ‘Do you remember the first time you and Daddy kissed?’ she asked dreamily.
‘Yes, I do.’ Her own voice softened. It was one of her better memories. Rick had been her only lover. She hadn’t been aware then that not only was she not the first for him, but she wasn’t to be the last, either. That kiss had melted her bones, brought her budding womanhood into full flower, made her aware of the power and pleasure of sex. Rick had been no novice, and he’d enjoyed teaching her.
Tansy said, ‘I thought I’d die, the first time Kyle kissed me. I really thought...I’d die, it was so...wonderful.’ She shivered—Fler saw it even under the bulky woollen sweater—and then wrapped her arms about herself. ‘He was so gentle with me, always,’ she murmured. ‘Then and...and later. Of course, he knew I was a virgin, that’s why.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Men can tell, can’t they? If they’re...you know, experienced. I think it sort of frightened him, almost. Wasn’t that sweet? I told him he didn’t have to worry about it. It’s not really a problem, these days.’
Fler firmly clamped her teeth together until her jaw ached. Her mouth felt dry. Her mind was filled with murder. ‘Did he—’ her voice sounded hoarse ‘—hurt you?’
‘No.’ Tansy turned round to face her, but in the dusky gloom cast by the shadow of the veranda her face was just a pale blur. ‘Have I shocked you?’
‘I’m not shocked.’ A lie. She felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach. ‘I’ve always said, there’s nothing you can’t tell me, Tansy. If you want to.’ She took a deep, quick breath and asked, ‘Darling, you’re not pregnant, are you?’
For a moment she almost thought she’d shocked Tansy. There was a silence, finally broken by a blessed, normal, youthful, astonished laugh, like the old Tansy who’d had not a care in the world. ‘Oh, Mum!’ she said, giving Fler another quick hug. ‘Is that what you’ve been worrying about? No, I’m not. Definitely. And there’s no danger, I promise. I do know how to take care of myself.’
Fler bit back a retort. She didn’t want to start sounding old and fussy and change Tansy’s confiding mood.
But apparently the confidences were over, anyway. Tansy shivered again, with cold this time, and said, ‘Let’s go in. I need an early night.’
* * *
‘I’ll have to get down to Auckland more often,’ Fler said, sharing a cup of tea in the big kitchen with Rae after putting Tansy on the bus in Whangarei. ‘I’m so afraid for her. It’s going to take her some time to get over that wretched man. Maybe I should have moved when she started at university. Bought a place in Auckland so she could live at home. She’s so young to be on her own.’
‘You went over all that last year,’ Rae reminded her. ‘What happened to letting her find her feet, spreading her wings, leaving the nest, et cetera?’
Fler laughed. ‘Did I really inflict all those clichés on you?’
Rae patted her hand. ‘You were right when you said those things. Sure she’ll make mistakes, and get her heart broken once or twice. And of course you’ll cry for her. But we can’t keep our kids from being hurt forever. Like when they were little and learning to walk, we didn’t hold their hands every minute, just picked them up when they fell over and gave them a kiss.’
‘Yes.’ Fler smiled. Rae was right. She’d made the decision not to move for just those reasons. Being a solo mother with an only child, she’d been aware of the danger of stifling Tansy’s independence. She had to learn to let go, yet be there when she was needed. It was a difficult balancing act.
‘By the way,’ Rae told her, changing the subject, ‘the University Extension people phoned while you were out, to confirm their dates for the summer school next year. I’ve put them in the book.’
‘Oh, good.’ With a deliberate effort, Fler wrenched her mind around to business. For the past few years the university in conjunction with local groups had run a three-week summer school from the end of January into February, based at Hurumoana.
Some tutors were local, but others from the university staff stayed at the guest house, and the motor camp just five minutes’ walk away accommodated many of the students. It meant the guest house was fully booked when the peak holiday season was just declining.
* * *
It wasn’t always easy to get to Auckland but Fler made sure she visited Tansy several times in the following months. To her relief, the girl seemed to be working hard—too hard? Fler wondered anxiously, noting her thinness and hollow eyes.
When Fler tentatively asked if she had seen Kyle Ranburn, Tansy gave her a rather peculiar look and said, ‘I’m in his class on social factors in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Of course I see him. But I don’t embarrass him. I know he’d hate that.’
‘Well, good,’ Fler murmured rather uncertainly. It galled her that Tansy was still more concerned about that unscrupulous exploitative male than about her own feelings. But clearly she would brook no criticism of her idol.
Tansy said, ‘I had a talk with Kyle. He was very understanding. Those pills, you know...it was just a way of getting attention. Nothing like that will happen again. From now on I’m going to be an adult.’
Fler didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But she supposed that was good news. She hoped Tansy was able to live up to her resolution.
* * *
Exam time came and then Tansy was home for the long Christmas holidays. She looked tired and pale and slept a lot the first few days, but said it was just the stress of examinations. She helped out around the guest house when the usual holiday influx arrived and, as she had for the last few years, Fler put her on the payroll.
‘But I can’t stay through until February,’ Tansy told her. ‘I’ve put my name down for an archaeology dig in the South Island. Someone found a pioneer village buried in the bush down there, from the days of the Otago gold rush. They need students to help, and it’d be good for my course credits.’
Swallowing disappointment, Fler said, ‘It sounds fun. Will they pay you?’
‘Uh-uh. But it’s experience. And...well, I want to go. You don’t mind, do you?’
Of course she didn’t mind, Fler assured her. ‘If you need some money for expenses, I could help out with a small loan.’
‘Thanks.’ Tansy gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘My courses are costing you enough as it is. I’ll try to do without a subsidy for this.’
She didn’t mention Kyle Ranburn all the time she was home, and Fler thought, That must be all over, thank goodness. When Fler saw her off in time for the South Island trip, Tansy looked almost glowing with anticipation.
‘Will you miss me?’ she teased as Fler kissed her goodbye.
‘Of course I will.’ Fler smiled back at her and touched a fingertip to her nose as she used to when Tansy was a little girl. ‘You behave, now.’
Tansy laughed as she clambered aboard the bus lugging a bulging red pack. It was good to see her so happy, Fler thought. Quite her old self again.
* * *
The next week was a busy period for the guest house. As visitors moved out the rooms had to be prepared for those shortly moving in. The local organiser of the summer school who liaised with the university course co-ordinator was continually checking on this detail or that.
Rae and Fler allotted rooms for the tutors and the course co-ordinator. There was to be a creative writing course and one on European influences in the Pacific, as well as a geology group, print-making, a marine biology class and a course in video filming, all taught by visiting tutors from the university. Advanced pottery and two art classes were being conducted by local and visiting artists, and a saturation course in spoken Maori was to be centred on the nearby marae.
The course co-ordinator, a smartly dressed young woman with an air of brisk efficiency, arrived driving a van full of assorted teaching materials. She was followed within minutes by four of the tutors sharing a car. Fler was ushering the co-ordinator into her room while Rae did the same for the others, when they heard another car draw up in the courtyard outside.
The young woman peered out the window and said, ‘That’ll be the other tutor arriving now. Oh, by the way, you’ll have Mr Hathaway down for a room, but unfortunately he couldn’t make it after all. He made sure we got a very good replacement for European influences in the Pacific, though. It won’t make any difference to you, anyway, will it?’
‘None at all,’ Fler assured her, as the bell at the reception desk rang. ‘If you have everything you need...?’
‘I’m fine.’ The young woman put a bag on the bed and looked about. ‘I’m dying to use the loo, though. Will you tell him, please, that we’re all going to meet in the lounge in half an hour?’
‘Yes, I will. There’s a coffee machine there. I’ll make sure it’s refilled before then.’
‘That would be lovely. Thanks.’
The bell pealed again. Along the hall, Rae was still talking to one of the tutors who was asking where the nearest pub was.
Fler made for the stairs, and turned at the bottom to cross to the desk at one side of the entrance hall.
The man who had been lounging against the counter, idly studying one of the guest house’s address cards that he’d picked up from there, turned to face her as she approached. For a moment his expression was blank, then his hazel eyes suddenly darkened with shock and he straightened abruptly. ‘I don’t believe it!’ he said in stunned tones. ‘What in hell are you doing here?’
CHAPTER FOUR
FLER blinked. She felt pretty much the same way, herself. ‘I’m the proprietor,’ she said. ‘If you’re looking for Tansy, Mr Ranburn, she isn’t here.’ It gave her some satisfaction to be able to tell him that. Tansy might have been pleased to think of him coming after her, but Fler was convinced this man was nothing but bad news for her daughter.
‘Tansy?’ he said blankly, as though he’d forgotten who that was, and Fler immediately wanted to hit him. She’d like nothing more than for him to stay well away from Tansy, but he didn’t have to make it so obvious that he didn’t really give a damn.
Before she could say anything he glanced again at the card in his hand. ‘”F.H. Daniels, proprietor”,’ he read aloud. ‘I thought you were Mrs Hewson.’
‘I answer to my ex-husband’s name sometimes,’ she told him. ‘Especially in matters concerning Tansy. It saves explanations.’
He was still looking at her as though hoping she was going to disappear in a puff of smoke. The feeling was mutual, she wanted to assure him. Instead she said crisply, with only the forlornest hope that it wasn’t true, ‘If you’re not here to see Tansy, I presume you’re one of the tutors for the summer school. The others arrived ten minutes ago.’
‘Well, good,’ he said absently, looking as though he was trying to think of an excuse to leave. She wished he would.
‘Do you need any help with bags?’ she asked him.
‘Ah...no. No, I’ll manage. Thank you,’ he added, belatedly. ‘Tansy—’
‘She’s in the South Island,’ she told him. ‘Until the end of February. If you’re ready, I’ll take you to your room. You can sign the book later.’
She didn’t want to discuss Tansy with him. Didn’t want to discuss anything with him. Didn’t know how she was going to bear being in the same house with the man for the next three weeks. But she could hardly throw him out without explanation, and explanations would be humiliating for Tansy. The story would be bound to get back to the university.
‘This way,’ she said coldly, and led him up the stairs.
* * *
The only bright spot, Fler told herself later, filling the coffee machine, checking the sugar bowls and placing milk and cream on the lace-covered table, was that Tansy wasn’t here. At least she’d have had a three-month respite from his pernicious influence before she saw Kyle Ranburn again.
She opened up the wide doors that let in the sea breeze, and plumped some of the pastel-patterned cushions on the cane sofas and chairs around the room. It was quite hot. Iced water might be preferred by some of the guests to coffee.
She went to the kitchen to fill a jug, and also fetched a packet of biscuits and a plate. Perhaps it was the crackle of the packet as she opened it, pouring the biscuits expertly in overlapping circles on to the plate, that prevented her from hearing Kyle Ranburn come into the room.
When she turned and found him beside her, she jumped.
‘Sorry,’ he said. He’d been reaching for a cup, but now he stepped back. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’ He was staring a little, but she supposed she was too. He looked different, from when they’d first met at the hospital. It was probably the casual clothes he wore, jeans and a denim bomber-style jacket over a dark T-shirt.
What the well-dressed lecturer wears when catering to the country masses, she thought nastily. This man would look good in anything. He actually looked sexier now than in the suit she’d seen him in before.
Dismissing the thought, she turned away from him, but looked back when he said abruptly, ‘You’re alike, aren’t you—you and your daughter?’
‘What?’ Could he have picked up that wayward thought? Her eyes sparked with chagrin.
‘Hasn’t anyone commented on it before? For a second, as I came in, I thought you were her.’
‘Oh.’ Fool, of course he hadn’t meant that! Fler swallowed. ‘Yes, actually they have.’ Her voice sounded stiff, reluctant. She made to walk round him, get out of the room. No one else had come down yet.
Surprisingly, he caught at her arm as she went to pass him, not hard but firmly. ‘Just a minute!’
Fler pulled away from him almost violently. ‘Don’t you touch me!’ All her nerve-ends were tingling, the fine hairs on her skin prickling up with antagonism.
‘I’m not going to assault you,’ he said shortly, looking thoroughly fed up. Also rather disconcerted, as though he’d just suffered a small shock. ‘I only wanted to say...’ He stopped to frame the words.
‘Say what?’
‘It looks as though we’re stuck with each other for several weeks. If I’d known—but I didn’t, and it’s too late now for me to back out. I wouldn’t want the others to—’
Contempt for him almost choked her. But she said, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Ranburn. I’m not likely to start telling all and sundry my daughter’s private business. You’re quite safe.’
He closed his eyes momentarily, saying something under his breath, then opened them again. They were like a wintry sea, a deep anger in them. ‘Look, I—’
He was interrupted by the course co-ordinator coming into the room. ‘Mr Ranburn?’ she said, advancing with her hand held out as he turned to her. ‘I’m Devina Roache. I don’t believe we’ve met.’
Her eyes discreetly signalled that she was awfully glad to remedy that. She was tall, and her sleek dark hair framed a smooth-skinned, perfectly oval face that had everything in the right places, as did her figure, shown off by a brief skirt and even briefer top that she’d changed into.
Fler didn’t fail to notice the flicker of appreciation in Kyle Ranburn’s eyes as he clasped the proffered hand in his. Obviously not one to miss any opportunity, she thought. She thanked God again that Tansy wasn’t here to be hurt all over again. And was suddenly conscious of being on the wrong side of thirty-five, and that the comfortable cotton trousers and big shirt which she’d considered perfectly suitable this morning for the casual, relaxed atmosphere that the guests enjoyed were neither smart nor particularly feminine.
They hardly noticed, she was persuaded, when she muttered an excuse and left them to it. The other tutors were coming down the stairs now, talking companionably. One of the men smiled at her absently as they swept into the lounge.
He was tall with curly dark hair and blue eyes, and objectively was better looking than Kyle Ranburn. But he didn’t have that indefinable aura the other man had, the pull of attraction that had brought that inviting light to Devina Roache’s eyes, that had seduced poor Tansy. And—
Fler crossed the empty dining-room and viciously pushed open the saloon-type doors to the kitchen. Cut that out! she told herself. The man’s an unscrupulous opportunist. A sexual gourmet in the same mould as Rick Hewson. Worse. He preyed on girls who held him in awe because he was their teacher.
* * *
In the dining-room that evening the long table was the centre of happy chatter and a good deal of laughter. Manaaki wasn’t licensed, but some of the guests brought their own wine to the table, and the atmosphere was relaxed.
As usual they were a friendly lot. A couple of them had been involved in the summer schools before. They joked with the young Maori waitresses and chatted to Fler who supervised and unobtrusively helped to serve when it was needed. She noticed that Devina Roache was seated next to Kyle Ranburn, but although the young woman was sparkling he appeared slightly preoccupied, smiling absentmindedly rather than joining in the laughter about him.
After dinner they spent an hour or so in the lounge discussing their programme, and some lingered on, helping themselves to coffee. It was quite late when Fler, finding the room empty at last, stacked the dirty cups on to a tray and crossed the room to close the glass doors before carrying the dishes to the kitchen.
A man standing on the veranda outside turned from his contemplation of the night and the intermittent moonlit ripples on the sea. It was dark and she couldn’t see his face.
