The Blue Mountains of Kabuta Read Online Free

often invited out.’
    â€˜Are you married?’ Jon asked—and then wondered what had made her ask such a silly question, for she was not the slightest bit interested.
    â€˜Not yet.’ Alex gave her a quick amused look. ‘So far I’ve managed to steer clear of that hazard.’
    He led the way to the kitchen. It was clean and neat with a huge fridge with its deep freeze. There was a double sink and many cupboards.
    â€˜Why didn’t Uncle Ned marry?’ Jon asked, thinking this did not look like a bachelor’s home.
    Alex gave her a strange look as he followed her through the kitchen door and they stood on the concrete paving in the hot sunshine. On one side were several white buildings and Jon could hear the sound of music coming from one of them.
    â€˜Don’t you know?’ Alex asked her.
    Jon looked up at him. What a strangely ugly face, she thought again, and looked for the word to describe it. Craggy? He had a biggish nose and a square chin and that dark sun-tan. And those strange green eyes you rarely saw, for most of the time his eyes were half closed.
    â€˜No, I don’t know,’ she said.
    Alex looked down at her. ‘He loved your mother.’
    Jon’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, no! Poor Uncle Ned! But when . . . He’d gone away when Mum met Daddy.’
    â€˜When your grandparents died and he went over to help you out. Your mother had been a widow for nine years, but she made it very plain that she still hated the sight of your uncle.’
    â€˜Poor Uncle Ned! How wonderful if . . .’
    Alex shrugged. ‘I doubt if it would have worked. It’s no good forgiving if you can’t forget. It wasn’t to be, so . . .’
    Impulsively Jon caught hold of his arm. ‘If he loved her, why did he leave everything to me?’
    Looking grave, Alex Roe told her, ‘He was afraid that your mother, in her bitterness, might refuse to accept it and that would have hurt you. He wanted you to have it because he knew you loved him.’
    â€˜I see . . .’ Jon said thoughtfully, thinking of the long years Uncle Ned had lived there alone, remembering the woman he loved who could never forgive him for something that was not his fault.
    â€˜We’d better get cracking,’ Alex said curtly. ‘I haven’t time to waste.’
    â€˜I’m ready,’ she said at once, frowning because he had implied that she was wasting his time and actually he had been the one doing most of the talking.
    The walk round was quick, and although Jon tried to look intelligent and as if she understood everything Alex said, most of the time she was completely lost. Never before had she seen pineapples growing, but here they were, acres and acres of them, stretching away as far as the eyes could see.
    Had she been asked, she might have said she thought they grew on trees like coconuts. Someone, hearing Jon had inherited a farm of pineapples, had told her seriously that they grew in the ground like carrots!
    But they didn’t. They grew on plants which were about two to three feet tall. The plants had long pointed spiky leaves, and had thorns with the fruit half-hidden.
    â€˜It takes two years after planting to bear fruit,’ Alex was saying curtly as he strode along rapidly, Jon almost breathless but managing to keep up with him. ‘You then get fruit every year. However, after five years, you have to uproot the plants, plough the land and plant again.’
    He showed her the compound where the workers lived, showed her some women picking pineapples. All the time he talked brusquely, mostly over his shoulder as she tagged breathlessly behind him, and often she was lost, but somehow didn’t like to ask him to explain more slowly in case he looked upon her as ‘a dumb brunette’.
    The dogs had gone with them, and were leaping over the pineapples, chasing the birds that came down to tease them by swooping low and then rising up