Dear Deceiver(18)

'Well, when my mother died, ages ago, I don't remember her, I was a  baby, he couldn't look after me so I had to go and live with the  Crabtrees. There were a lot of us there and they were all right, I  think, but I was always afraid...' He stopped.

'Yes?' Haidee prompted gently.

'I don't know exactly. 'Spose that he mightn't mean it about taking me  back. He used to have me sometimes to the flat for a weekend, but it  wasn't much fun. I always got sick before he came and then-I don't  know-I don't think he liked me much. I used to want it to be Sunday  afternoon, that's when he took me back to the Crabtrees, but when he did  and it was over...' he paused again.                       
       
           



       

'You felt sorry?'

'I used to bawl my head off. Would you believe it? Of course I was  terribly small.' He looked at Haidee quite fiercely. 'Only about four or  five. So anyway, in the end, he took me for good. He said okay, it was  sink or swim, but I'd have to toe the line. He had a sort of research  job then in Surrey. That's in England. It was a bit grotty, but when we  came here, I think it was three years ago, it was smashing.'

Hardly a tender saga. And how crude the ultimatum: 'Sink or swim, but  you'll have to toe the line.' It posed the inevitable question: Whose  fault had the break-up been? Had Suzanne been goaded beyond endurance?

The village of Glenglass was small with a pub called The Winding Horn and a row of coloured cottages.

'Do you see that shop?' Toby pointed it out. 'That used to be my  grandfather's. They lived over it. They had a bicycle with a basket on  the front and their name under the crossbar. I don't think you can get  them now.'

The school was up a lane. 'He won't let us take the car up,' was the  next confidence. Toby never used proper names, but his pronouns needed  no identification. 'It's bad for the springs.'

On the pavement he halted as though struck by a thought.

'What about dinner tonight?'

'Are you asking me? That's kind,' Haidee replied solemnly.

She repented when she saw a slight flicker of puzzlement, but Toby was not his father's son for nothing.

'Yes, I am asking you!' he shouted back. 'To cook it! She's rotten.'

The road back from the village gave a clear view. Glenglass had been  formed in the Glacial period by a torrent of melting ice which had  gouged out a channel in the hills. Above it now, at its southern mouth,  the broad arrowhead of the forest pushed up to quartzite cap and  brilliant blue sky. Whether, in years to come, even more of the scree  and scrubland would be reclaimed and have its bristle of little conifers  was something to be battled out with nature and the conservationists.  Rory had said last night that Wicklow's afforestation rate was sixth in  the top ten counties.

Haidee had always had a good bump of direction and she thanked her stars  for it. The village was now secure in her mind and the surrounding  terrain was falling in as well. Glenglass seemed to lie somewhere  between the back end of Powerscourt and the village of Roundwood.

This time the gateless entrance did not take her by surprise and once in  State Forest precincts she drove slowly marking the stands of birch  brooms which would be used as beaters in a fire. The house towered  abruptly among the trees and on the forecourt Rory's stolid form, its  dark trousers tucked into rolled-down boots, was apparently waiting for  someone. Thoughts that it might have been herself were dispelled when  another form appeared at the top of the steps. Green trousers this time  and a black leather jacket trimmed with light-coloured fur. So Jennie  had emerged again. Haidee braked, shut off the engine and let down the  window. She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw the black jacket  lean poetically across the iron handrail and still less could she  believe them when Rory went over, doffed his hat, and stood gazing  upwards.

Ears, too, could only be playing her false, for what was he saying?



'Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear



That tops with silver all these fruit-tree tops.'



Jennie had dropped her hand and he was actually fondling it. And now,  gushing like a gay little stream, her voice came, taking its cue:



'O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,

That monthly changes in her circled orb,



Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.'



Here male eloquence seemed to have expired. Rory laughed and tugged the  hand so that its owner must needs go the rest of the way. They were both  laughing as they approached the car; Jennie's eyes were bright almonds  and Rory still had her hand. He dropped it to lay possessive hold on the  handle of the car door.

'I hope you didn't go up the lane. I forgot to warn you about the surface.'

Enough to incense a saint, and Haidee, slipping her trousered leg on to the tarmac, was not that. Resentment made her daring.                       
       
           



       

'You seem to think I'm a stranger.'

'The school-' he began in his lordly way.

It pushed her into further assertion. 'I know the school.' For a moment  there seemed to be something peculiar about the silence. She could even  have fancied that the dark eyes went in supplication to the sky. It  passed. 'Of course,' Rory said smoothly. 'Mea culpa. You'll have read it  in the papers. We raised four thousand for that school. It was only  opened this year.'

The morning's programme had been planned. 'We thought you might fancy a walk, with Jennie that is. I'm on my way to work.'

'Work', it seemed, had to do with supervising the construction of a new  fire line on the far side of the wood, and Jennie's suggestion that they  should walk along with him to that point was put to Haidee with her  usual exemplary manners. 'Unless you have a preference, that is. When  you lived here which was your favourite walk?'

'Yes, Johnny.' It was surely no imagination that Rory's eyes had a sudden gloating look. 'Which was it? I forget.'

'It didn't exist,' Haidee said shortly. 'I loved all Glenglass. Before you blotted it out with telegraph poles!'

It was a strange thing, but she could have sworn that a certain  approbation flashed through the eyes regarding her. 'You remember your  lines very well,' the forester said. 'But you're not word-perfect. The  softwoods are our friends. Your stepfather knew that. If he'd had his  way in the beginning things could have been very different for your  family.' Conifers, he went on to explain, were a valuable cash crop.  They thrived on poor land, they made far less demand on the soil than  the favoured oak and beech, and they grew so quickly that in twelve or  fifteen years they were saleable either as wood pulp or for posts and  rails. The Forest Service, he continued, as Suzanne did not 'need to be  told', had acquired its first two hundred and fifty acres of Glenglass  fifteen years ago. The remainder had come gradually. In those years had  been written a tale of progress, planning research, experimenting-and  preservation. 'This, for instance. Virtually untouched. Even you can't  deny that.' They were walking on a floor of wood rush, past oaks which  he stated were a hundred and fifty years old. Growing with them were  holly, rowan and hazel.

If he only knew, Haidee thought sheepishly, how much she did need to be  told and how enthralling she found the telling. The herring gull and the  Norway geese on the North Bull had not been her refuge by chance.  They'd answered an innate longing, a longing for the things Suzanne had  been born to and had thrown away. Meantime, for a brief spell, a  freakish fate had made them hers to enjoy. She would do so greedily. If  she had to leave Glenglass that afternoon she would take with her every  moment of this walk.

There was lichen looking like a green stain on the rock outcrop. There  was the red of the birch bark in shade. There was Jennie diving to pick  something from the carpet of needle fall, and casting her head back to  gaze. Haidee saw thin trunks, their crowns swaying in the breeze.

'We've still got the red squirrels,' Rory filled in. 'As I suppose you've noticed.'

Jennie showed the cone in her hand. Sharp teeth had scaled it smooth.

'Witness what can happen to my trees when they get to pole stage,' Rory  observed ominously. 'And it's no use looking like that,' he added. 'We  conserve what we can, but we're not in it for the good of our health.'

It was dangerous ground. 'Nor for the good of the squirrels' health!' Haidee thrust passionately.

'The squirrels do all right,' he countered. 'The Glenglass ones do  anyway. And so far they've done no serious damage, so we'll cross that  bridge when it comes. Okay?'

'But you will cross it?'

'Assuredly.'

'It's horrible.' Scots pine thickly grown helped to contribute to the  dank shade of the path. The rest of the coldness came from inside her.

Rory, by contrast, was beginning to lose his cool. 'Horrible my foot! It's life, not Disneyland as you appear to think.'