Julia simmered down and laughed. ‘That’s a chef for you, we’re volatile by nature. But I think it’s only fair that you should say what’s on your mind. Otherwise how can you expect people to understand your point of view? It’s no good bottling it up and then getting mad when nobody takes any notice.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Hugh Walton excused himself smoothly, ‘but I must beg off any further philosophising. If I’m to get any work done I’ll have to start before the horde descends.’
‘You’re going to stay!’ Julia stared at his calmness.
‘I don’t seem to have much choice.’ That was a lie. He was the kind of man who provides his own choices.
‘B-but, Richard said you’d …’
‘I can imagine. But Richard is prone to exaggeration. My attic is very private. It only has one door and entry is by invitation, as my family well knows. I shall survive a few hours of their company each day. I may even thrive on it, who knows?’
Julia certainly didn’t. Was he being sarcastic? How stiff he sounded, standing there, coolly disposing of the family that had adopted him. Had he been too old when he came to them, to be influenced by his adoptive parents’ enthusiasm for life? What had made him so mountainously placid? It had to be unhealthy— everyone needed outlets for their human emotions. She shivered. Perhaps it was just as well; in a rage Hugh Walton would be magnificently terrifying. But what of the softer passions?
‘When is everybody due?’ he asked, turning at the door.
‘Any day now,’ said Julia, unable to resist a probe: ‘Aren’t you even the teeniest bit annoyed?’
‘I’m furious,’ he said, with a calm sincerity that spoke volumes. ‘But since there’s nothing I can do …’ He spread his large palms. From across the room Julia could see the fascinating life and head-lines deeply etched into the pale skin.
‘Why don’t you scream?’ she asked. ‘It might make you feel better.’
‘I’d rather work, it’s much more productive.’
Julia stared after him thoughtfully. Work. Is that where all his vitality went? Was there nothing left over for himself? Everything about him seemed grey and dull. Yet, she reminded herself, an uncut diamond was dull to the eye … all its beauty and fire locked inside, waiting to be released by the skilled hands of a craftsman. Julia was no diamond-cutter, but she was interested in people, and this man intrigued her by his very blandness. What was he like underneath? What made him the way he was? What thoughts and feelings did he conceal behind that poker face? Would she ever learn to read it?
I’ll work you out, G. B. H. Walton, before I leave, she vowed silently. I might even get you to smile at me. That would be an achievement indeed!
CHAPTER FOUR
JULIA’S first week at Craemar was chaotic, but by the middle of the second she had established a satisfactory routine, and was beginning to enjoy herself.
Fortunately she had got her VW back within a few days, and the bill had not been severe, although the garage man had tsk-tsked over the car’s general condition. As she lit the range on a freezing Thursday morning, pumping energetically on the bellows until the flames began to roar, Julia decided that she wouldn’t report the accident to the insurance company after all. It wasn’t worth it, since she would lose the excess on her policy, which was more than the price of the repairs. She’d have to discuss it with Hugh, though, if she got the chance. He was sticking rigidly to his word, appearing at dinner only and Julia couldn’t help worrying over his eating habits. She could only guess that he had squirrelled away some provisions up there.
Kidneys in cream sauce and soft scrambled eggs: Julia skidded around the kitchen in her thick yellow socks, dancing to keep warm and singing along with the radio.
Michael Marlow seemed to be the only other one up. He had already been in for a cup of Julia’s special Mexican coffee, and a chat, and was now at work in the downstairs study. He was a real darling. Thin, blue-eyed and fine-featured, he had a beautiful creamy voice that could rise to a parade-ground bawl when he lost his temper. Fortunately no one took his temper seriously, since it followed closely the progress of his play.
Richard, of course, had been the first arrival at the house, slinking in the kitchen door and throwing himself on Julia’s mercy with a mumbled story about a long-lost school chum whom he had dropped in to see and couldn’t, just couldn’t, turn down the offer of a weekend’s reminiscence. Julia didn’t even ask what gender the ‘chum’ was. She must have made him feel doubly guilty, for now Richard was keeping her almost constant company, dogging her footsteps in the kitchen and generally making a nuisance of himself.
Watching Hugh take the wind out of his brother’s sails had been reward enough. Richard was completely baffled and disgusted by the pleasant welcome Hugh gave each arriving member of the family. Not even his most outrageous baiting disturbed Hugh’s calm and for days Julia was nagged about it.
‘He must have said something, darling. He can’t have swallowed it without a comment or two. If only I’d been here.’
Remembering why he hadn’t, Julia had enjoyed putting on her dumb-blonde act and watching him gnash his teeth.
It was lovely to see everyone again. Olivia and Rosalind were as irrepressible as ever, short-cropped Olivia the slightly more serious of the two. Charley, topping Julia by almost a foot, voice long broken, was beginning to shrug off his former shyness and emerge as a person in his own right.
Only Steve struck a sour note. Listless, sullen and uncommunicative, he was obviously wrestling with a personal problem, determinedly rejecting all family overtures. Only with Julia did he seem to relax fractionally, possibly because she made no demands on him, held no expectations. He kept out of the way during the day, but often, later at night, he would sit at the bare, scrubbed table in the kitchen and watch Julia prepare the food for the next day. She didn’t question him, but rambled on in her own, cheerful fashion during his long silences and listened curiously to his equally long, erratic, oddly detached monologues about pollution, nuclear warships and other blights on modern civilisation. He didn’t pick at the food, as Richard did, just drank glass after glass of water. More often than not he was still there, staring into his glass, when Julia went off to bed. She longed to help in some way, but knew that pressure from her was the last thing he needed at the moment.
Breakfast was the one meal of the day that Julia liked to eat alone, in peace, and she was finishing off a leftover portion of kidney, dreamily gazing out of the window at the delicate wreaths of morning mist that lingered in the encircling bush, when her reveries were rudely interrupted.
It was Hugh, with a brusque request for morning tea to be served in the courtyard by the small swimming pool. A colleague, on her way back to Auckland from Tauranga, was stopping by to pick up part of Hugh’s manuscript.
Some detour! ‘Who is she?’ popped out before Julia could stop it.
On the point of leaving Hugh raised a thick eyebrow. ‘Does it make a difference?’
‘If she’s Indian or Chinese I might whip up something ethnic,’ said Julia, cunningly, widening her eyes innocently.