Blind Man's Buff Read online

  ‘Oh, leave it, Valerie,’ Ran replied wearily. ‘And I’d suggest you watch your tongue when speaking of the locals. The world doesn’t start and end within the boundaries of Sydney, in case you’ve forgotten. I imagine most of the people here are justly proud of their community, however small.’

  ‘Well, I can’t imagine why. Frankly I think you’re lucky not to have to see it, Randall. Not that there’s very much to see, in any event. I have just spent the most incredibly boring evening waiting for you to get this over with.’

  ‘Bored? You?’ Ran’s voice held tones of sarcastic disbelief. ‘What did you do, go back to the flat and sit down with a book or something?’

  ‘Certainly not! I’ve been closeted in a pub with all sorts of weird people, listening to some rather good jazz.’

  ‘What’s boring about that? I’d have thought you’d be enjoying yourself; you’ve always loved jazz.’

  ‘Oh, the music was quite good, at least for such a tiny, provincial little town. But the people! You simply wouldn’t believe them, Randall. Most were dressed in the most outrageous clothing ... not a tie amongst them. It was all terribly ...’

  ‘Casual, I presume,’ he interjected. ‘Which is hardly surprising. And from my own viewpoint, quite refreshing,’

  ‘Yes ... well, that’s your viewpoint. I found it quite unimpressive. But enough of that. Come along and I’ll guide you down these frightful stairs and out to the car.’

  ‘The hell you will!’ he snarled, and Rena found herself wide-eyed at the anger in his voice. ‘Just get the lights and I’ll guide you down the steps. I judged from the last person who tried them in the dark that they’re a bit tricky.’

  ‘They’re downright dangerous,’ snapped the woman. ‘And frankly I think you should complain to the college authorities. I mean, what if you were to fall and injure yourself? And for what? Surely you’re not expecting to find much budding talent among the people here?’

  ‘You’re a snob, Valerie.’ He said it mildly, entirely without rancour. ‘Sometimes I wonder why you came with me.’

  ‘Why, to take care of you, of course,’ was the unsurprising reply, couched — to Rena’s ears — in layers of velvet over steel.

  The two conversationalists were at the bottom of the steps now, so close Rena could almost have reached out and touched them. Valerie Dunn had her arm linked through Ran’s in a manner that was more possessive than helpful, and Rena found herself thinking how obvious it all was.

  Power! This woman, clearly, had Ran in her power. And more, she was enjoying it, really enjoying it. Rena felt sick. Even hating Ran as she did, it was somehow ... indecent to think of him at the mercy of this ... this creature.

  She found herself watching in helpless rage as the woman handed Ran into the passenger seat of the Jaguar, then lithely stalked around the car to seat herself behind the wheel. Like some prowling jungle cat, Rena thought. Some predator with a helpless victim at its mercy.

  Just before the door closed, she saw in the car’s interior lights the woman’s gloating expression, and something inside Rena went out to Ran, sympathy overriding pain and hatred.

  She heard Ran asking if Valerie Dunn had been able to find out ... something! But the answer was lost in the purring acceleration as the car moved off.

  Rena waited for several minutes before she, too, left the shadows to walk hastily along Walker Street to where her car now sat alone in the huge, empty college parking area.

  There was little traffic on the long drive home, which was perhaps just as well, she thought, considering the trouble she had keeping her mind on her driving. But her elderly, almost matronly Holden station sedan—Matilda, she’d named it—seemed to know the route without Rena’s guidance, and before she realised it the vehicle was turning into the driveway of Rena’s home at The Oaks.

  Her flat was the second storey of quite a large house on the esplanade near the Oaks beach, a man-made, narrow gut of sand gouged out from the rubble of black volcanic boulders that formed most of the coastline. The house itself belonged to a Sydney businessman who used the lower floor only during his annual winter holiday, and Rena’s role as caretaker kept the rent barely within her budget.

  On most evenings she would sit on the high veranda outside her lounge room and bedroom, luxuriating in the cool sea breezes and watching the occasional huge ship as it wended its way through Burnett Heads to the Bundaberg Port.

  But tonight there were only the flashing lights of the river entrance, lights that seemed to mock her every attempt at lucid thought.

  It just didn’t seem possible for Ran to be teaching in Bundaberg. Much less blind! The very thought sent shivers through her.

  And for her, of all people, to wander so unwittingly into his class! That was simply pushing coincidence too far.

  And why Bundaberg, of all possible places? Could it be that he had somehow remembered her saying she had been born there, brought up there? It didn’t seem likely; she certainly didn’t remember ever mentioning it. Even if she had, why should he now choose to seek her out?

  It was two long years since he had walked out of her life without a single word. Walked out and stayed out, with plenty of assistance from his haughty secretary Valerie Dunn.

  Suddenly the sea breeze took on an ominous chill, cooler than usual despite the mid-winter expectations of near-tropical Queensland. Rena shivered and went inside, closing the sliding aluminium windows against the worst of the breeze.

  But she couldn’t turn off her mind, even when she had got ready for bed and snuggled down beneath her eiderdown quilt. Ran Logan. The name swirled over and over, round and round in her mind like some evil chant, a litany of deceit and despair.

  She wouldn’t return to his class, of course. She told herself that during the long hours before sleep finally came, and repeated the statement next morning over her coffee and toast. And again that night and on Friday morning, and Friday night and Saturday morning.

  But over the weekend she wrote a poem. Not for his class; that would have been senseless. It was, she decided, for her and her alone. One day, perhaps, she would put it to music, adding it to her repertoire. But Randall Logan would never hear it.

  Her usual Monday night singing engagement at one of the pubs in town had gradually become a highlight of Rena’s lonely life since returning to Bundaberg, but on this Monday evening it was sheer torture.

  She found it impossible to concentrate; her eyes kept straying towards the door, her heart leapt like that of a startled wild animal with each new arrival.

  It was ridiculous, she thought. How could Ran Logan possibly turn up? Except by accident, of course. Certainly it could only be by accident that he had chosen to visit Bundaberg in his attempted escape from the rigours of city living.

  He simply couldn’t have knowingly followed her. Not after all this time. And he wouldn’t have reason to do so in the first place, not after the way he had so casually broken off their Sydney affair.

  In Rena’s troubled state of mind, the evening passed slowly and in a strange, melancholy, almost mystical fashion. She couldn’t, for the first time in her memory, seem to reach her audience. Her songs were haunting, all the old ballads, the sad songs and the music of tortured souls. It was almost as if she sang only to herself and for herself; there was no applause, no indication that anyone was even listening.

  It was so bad, indeed, that during the final break the pub’s manager came over to enquire if she was deliberately trying to drive off his clientele.

  ‘Personally, I quite like that type of music, Rena,’ he said sympathetically. ‘But not as a businessman. It’s the wrong night for it and the wrong crowd. This lot won’t drink more because you make them feel sad; they just go some place less depressing.’

  ‘I’m sorry ... really I am,’ she replied. "And it is my fault; I just can’t seem to get my act together.’

  ‘That’s obvious,’ he grinned, ‘so why not call it a night and come have a quiet drink? If there’s anything
I can do?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid there isn’t,’ Rena was forced to reply. ‘It’s just one of those nights, I’m afraid. I’ll do better next week, for sure.’

  ‘Of course you will. And if you can’t come up more cheerful, maybe we’ll get some rain for a change. People love sad songs in the rain, so long as it isn’t a drought-breaker.’

  She joined him and his wife for a drink, then pleaded a headache and left early. It wasn’t a lie; she did have a raging headache. But it mysteriously disappeared as soon as she was no longer under pressure to try and maintain a mood she didn’t feel.

  Nonetheless, she slept badly, and found Tuesday’s workload at the solicitors’ office where she worked was almost too much for her weary intellect to cope with. It was all Ran’s fault, damn his soul, she thought. Why had he come to Bundaberg? Why couldn’t he simply have stayed out of her life?

  She skipped dinner entirely on Tuesday night, a bad habit she had almost given up trying to break despite the certain knowledge that she was far too thin. Instead, she washed her mane of dark hair, gave serious if fleeting thought to having it cut next day, and without conscious thought found herself reworking her weekend poem.

  By ten o’clock it was as perfect as she could make it and her eyes felt incredibly heavy, but something inside her forced her to bring out fresh paper and begin transforming the poem to prose, chopping and changing and muttering under her breath as she attempted to weave the essence of the poem into a short story.

  Not for Ran’s class, of course. She was determined there, even when she flounced muzzily from her bed next morning after only a few hours’ sleep. Her resolve lasted until nearly eleven, when she had to walk through the city area to deliver some papers and almost crashed head-on into Ran Logan as she scurried out of one of the arcades.

  She stopped, shocked by the closeness of the encounter but even more so by the fact that he seemed to be looking straight into her eyes. The sensation was so vivid that she spoke before realising it was only an illusion of his reflective glasses.

  ‘Why, good morning, Mr Logan.’

  Her words seemed to startle him, and Rena realised that he had no idea at all how close he had come to being physically run down by her hurrying figure.

  ‘It’s ... Rena, isn’t it?’ he asked slowly, then reached out as if to shake her hand. Without thinking, she placed her fingers in his, half expecting something like an electric shock and almost disappointed when she encountered only human flesh.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, then giggled. ‘You weren’t kidding about being a quick study on voices, were you?’

  His own laugh revealed white, even teeth. ‘That depends on whether you call eight hours a day for seven days a quick study,’ he replied. ‘And I’ll be more honest if you’ll promise to keep it to yourself; it was the perfume as much as the voice.’

  The perfume! Rena almost gasped aloud. Her mind raced vainly as she tried to remember, then she smothered a sigh of relief. Since returning to Queensland’s subtropical climate and a much more casual lifestyle, she had changed to a softer, more subdued perfume. He couldn’t possibly make the connection that way!

  ‘Still, it’s very impressive,’ she said, half of her mind demanding that she flee; the other half mesmerised, wanting only to prolong the encounter.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve time for a coffee?’ he asked then, and the mesmerised section leapt into dictatorial control.

  ‘I think I could manage a quick one,’ she found herself saying. ‘The Elite Cafe is only just a few steps away.’

  She made as if to take his arm, then immediately thought better of it and found herself standing in a somewhat confused silence. Should she guide him? Or would he be put off by any attempt at help? She didn’t know what to do.

  Ran solved the problem for her, reaching out his arm so as to link it with hers if she desired. ‘I think you’d better aim me in the right direction, at least,’ he said wryly. ‘I still don’t know the town quite well enough to have individual shops orientated. The pubs, yes, but then almost all of them are on comers and they all have a slightly individual sound to them as well.’

  Rena didn’t reply until they were inside the milk bar and seated at one of the small tables. ‘You seem to be adapting marvellously well,’ she said. ‘I must admit, I wouldn’t have expected to find you roaming about downtown on your own.’

  Ran shrugged. ‘I get by. Not much more than that, I sometimes think, but it’s better than nothing.’ He paused only slightly before changing the subject.

  ‘Have you done your homework for tonight?’ he asked as the waitress arrived with their coffee.

  Rena hedged. ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘I’m working on two different approaches at the moment and I’m not entirely sure where I’ll end up.’

  Why she couldn’t just come out and admit she wouldn’t be returning to class, she didn’t know herself, but something in Ran’s attitude kept her from such disclosure.

  ‘It doesn’t matter which approach you wind up with, just so long as you finish one or the other,’ he said. ‘One of the biggest dangers for a writer starting off is to keep chopping and changing so much that nothing ever gets finished. Could I trouble you for the sugar, please?’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, and almost asked if he’d like her to sugar his coffee for him. But no, let him work that out for himself, she thought, and was only mildly surprised to find that was exactly what he had had in mind.

  He managed it quite skilfully, using his agile fingers to locate the sugar bowl in correct juxtaposition to his cup and then ladle in two spoons of sugar without spilling a grain.

  ‘What made you decide to take on this course?’ he asked abruptly, and Rena had to spend a moment marshalling her thoughts before she could find the right words.’

  ‘I’ve ... written a bit of poetry,’ she replied. ‘And I rather thought I’d like to try prose. Really it was just a spur-of-the-moment sort of decision. I saw the advertisement in last week’s paper and made up my mind quite quickly. Not very exciting, I’m afraid. But what made you decide to teach it? I’d have thought...’ She trailed off, unable to put in words her feelings that he would have more logically hidden behind his blindness instead of forcing himself to new challenges when he had enough already.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to try teaching,’ he replied. ‘I knew the bloke who taught the course last semester and he mentioned it so I thought I’d give it a go.’

  ‘I have the feeling it’s going to mean a great deal of work for you,’ said Rena. ‘It must be difficult enough to cope with your own writing, much less that of a bunch of rank amateurs.’

  He laughed, then, and it was something of the Ran Logan laugh that Rena remembered. Alive and vivid and wholehearted ... vibrant with the sheer vitality of the man.

  ‘Do you know the very best thing about being blind?’ he asked, voice still throaty with laughter. He didn’t wait for her to reply. ‘It’s that I seem to need so much less sleep. I’ve done more work in the past two years than I think I managed at any time before in my life, because I don’t have the sun or the clock to tell me I should be tired.’

  Rena shuddered. ‘You make it sound almost pleasant,’ she retorted, and her feelings must have been evident in her voice.

  ‘Hardly pleasant; merely productive,’ he grunted, and she was startled to see the pain on his face. Pain ... and bitterness. Randall Logan might be more productive, but it was obvious he didn’t consider that much reward for the loss of his sight.

  Suddenly he gulped down the remainder of his coffee and rose to his feet. ‘I’ve taken enough of your time, I think,’ he said. ‘If you’d be kind enough to guide me out to the street again, I’ll let you get back to work, as I must.’

  Reaching into his pocket, he extracted sufficient notes to cover the coffees twice over, but obviously couldn’t be bothered waiting for the change.

  ‘Thank you for the coffee,’ Rena said when they once again reached the footpath.
/>   ‘And you for the company; I quite enjoyed it,’ he replied with a grin. ‘I’m sorry I got a bit short in there, but sometimes I find myself a victim of a sort of ... claustrophobia, I guess you’d call it. It’s one aspect of this damned blindness I’m still having a great deal of trouble adjusting to.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Rena, and then found herself quite at a loss for words to continue. Anything that left her mind seemed patronising by the time it reached her lips, so she stood in embarrassed silence until Ran finally made his farewell.

  She stood and watched as he moved lithely down the footpath, using the white cane as if he had been blind all his life, then tears blurred her vision and she had to turn away.

  All prior resolutions were swept aside when her lunch break came, and she drove back to the college to formally enrol for the creative writing course.

  Only one single barrier loomed up during that exercise: the enrolment form that demanded her full name and address. Dared she write: Catherine Conley Everett? She debated the question so long that she looked up to find the clerk regarding her quite strangely.

  Ran couldn’t read it. She knew that. But if it were read to him ... oh, no! Even blind, he couldn’t fail to pick up the name Catherine Conley. Finally Rena decided; she simply put down Rena Everett. And to hell with the bureaucracy, she thought.

  She had second thoughts about it all during the afternoon, and again when she slipped home after work for a quick, light meal, a change to more casual clothing, and both the poem and first-draft short story. Even further second thoughts filled her mind as she drove back in the early midwinter darkness and found herself the first to arrive for that evening’s class.

  She arrived even before Ran himself, and found herself huddling low in the seat of her station sedan when a glance in her rear-view mirror showed Ran’s gleaming Jaguar, with Valerie Dunn at the wheel, quietly halt in front of the staff house.

  How ludicrous it seemed! Valerie Dunn had never seen Rena, wouldn’t know her from a bar of soap. Indeed, as the Jaguar spun away from the kerb after Ran’s silent departure from the car, its driver never so much as glanced towards the elderly vehicle with Rena in it.