The Tropical Issue: Dolly and the Bird of Paradise

by Dorothy Dunnett

I swallowed it because the rope had gone slack. Losing power, I had crashed over sideways and was sinking.

  I came up, choking, coughing and swearing, with the tow rope still in my grasp, and cursing the boatman for stopping.

  Shaking the sea from my face, I saw the launch hadn’t stopped.

  On the contrary, the launch was now leaping off into the distance. Having cast off its end of the tow rope. And leaving me alone, in deep water, beside Dolly’s heaving white beam, with the companionway glittering on it.

  It was too neat by far.

  I thought of the long swim to the beach of Camara de Lobos, and the dripping ride back in some taxi.

  I thought, Sod you, whoever you are. You got me here. You can get me back to the villa in comfort. After I’ve seen your bloody yacht.

  I grabbed the companionway and heaved myself on to it, and up three grained rubber steps, and on to a golden deck varnished like satin.

  On the satin, someone was waiting for me.

  ‘Miss Geddes. Please come aboard,’ said the yellow-haired man from the fire escape; and clicked the bar of the bulwark behind me.

  I said, ‘If this bloody toy has a telephone, you can tell Mrs Sheridan her skis are here, and I expect to be brought back to the villa pronto.’

  The guy looked down at me.

  This time, he was stripped to the waist, and there was a lot of him. In the sun, his hair was blond and frizzed like crimped crepe, as I’d seen it earlier that day in the car, and under the light, outside Johnson’s flat. On his chest, the fuzz looked nearly white over the KM-4 Pinked Tan.

  He looked hard and stringy-fit, with a freckled, banged-about face, and the sort of big hands you see in films, closed round a rifle, or giving someone a knuckle sandwich. Instead of black he was wearing white espadrilles and beach shorts and an identity bracelet, I suppose in case anyone blew him up.

  I went on blowing him up. I said, ‘Was that your boat that dropped me just now? And nearly drowned me?’

  I leaned my hand on the rail, while I glared at him. A foot away was the catch for the bar. Even if I didn’t reach that, I could always flip over the rail. It was a long swim to the beach, but not a hopeless one.

  He raised his eyebrows, which were as light as his hair. His lashes were white, and his eyes were resting on my wandering arm. He said, ‘It was Dolly’s launch, yes. How lucky you managed to come aboard. I thought I was going to have to help you in with a boathook.’

  I didn’t want to be speared with a boathook. I shifted my arm off the rail. I said, ‘I spoke to plenty of people on the ski stage. The villa knows where I went. I have an appointment at five with Mrs Sheridan. If you want something, say so. I haven’t all bloody day.’ After the long ski, I could feel my legs trembling, and I hoped he didn’t think he had frightened me.

  Which he had.

  He said, ‘Dry yourself,’ shortly, and scooped up and flung me a towel. It was thick and Turkish and blue, and had JJ embroidered on one corner. As I hugged myself in it, I had a sudden affectionate feeling for Natalie Sheridan. Somehow, she’d been conned, too.

  Then he said, ‘You remember me?’

  There seemed no point in denying it.

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ I said. ‘If you run about under lights, and talk and smoke in a non-smoker’s bedroom? That’s dumb. That way, you’ll never get picked to hand out the jotters.’

  He had the same accent as Johnson. The accent my aunt would jump through hoops for. He said, ‘I was trying to persuade him to throw you out.’

  And that rang true enough. Flowers have nothing on humans. Give me a perverted gloxinia any day.

  ‘You mean,’ I said, ‘you think we should get a divorce? And put the children in care?’

  From under my feet, a peaceful voice floated up through a hatchway.

  ‘Miss Geddes? You are Raymond’s personal Everest, and he resents you. Don’t push him too far. He’ll just go away and come back with Sherpas.’

  I couldn’t remember what Sherpas were, but I didn’t think I wanted Raymond to come back with them.

  Raymond. A hell of a name. I looked at him and he said, scowling, ‘You’re to come down. To the saloon. Get a move on.’

  ‘That was Mr Johnson,’ I said. I said it with a slight question. So far as I knew, Pal Johnson, on sticks, was at Reid’s in residence. On the other hand, he might have a twin brother.

  Raymond said, ‘Who else did you expect?’ and I cancelled the twin brother and reinstated the Gay Club. Floating. Full of Portuguese skiing instructors.

  I followed the unpleasant Raymond along the cabin-side deck, and down into the cockpit, and down again into a sunlit saloon full of pipe smoke and panelling.

  The man leaning against the panelling and smoking the pipe proved to be Johnson Johnson.

  He said, ‘Raymond? I think we can do without you.’

  Quite calmly. His glasses shone, mild as milk.

  Raymond said, ‘I don’t think so.’

  Johnson looked at him. ‘You don’t?’ he said. ‘What a pity. Then in that case, I go back, and you stay.’

  Raymond hesitated. Outside, a distant roar got suddenly louder, and the floor rocked beneath us, and there was a light bump, while the roar dropped to a grumble.

  Johnson added, ‘If the fenders will stand it,’ and after lingering a moment longer, the yellow-haired man turned on his heel and ran up the steps and disappeared.

  He must have been in his mid-twenties. I’ve seen Commandos in training who looked like that. I said, ‘I don’t think much of your friends.’

  The yacht swayed, and Johnson swayed with it, without moving. There was no sign of his stick. He said, ‘You should see my enemies. Come and sit down. He won’t hurt you, and neither will I.’

  ‘You promise?’ I said; and he laughed.

  ‘As if we could. Of course. I beg your pardon.’ He left the wall, and sat himself down on the long cushioned settee under the windows. He waved the stem of his pipe at the shore.

  ‘Nice place. Lenny saw you climbing with Ferdy. What was it? A hunt for Eduardo?’

  A few moments ago, I would have said, ‘What’s that to you?’ but I was getting over my fright.

  I was still annoyed at his Owner behaviour. I was bloody furious at this stupid kidnap. And no way would I risk being alone with Boy Raymond, ever again, here or anywhere else.

  But I wanted to know what he was up to. And now I was here, I might as well try to find out before I fell out with him.

  I said, ‘You didn’t need to bloody kidnap me to ask about Eduardo. What about a nice telephone call from Reid’s?’

  The bifocals flashed. ‘But I thought you wanted to see Dolly? Would you like tea? Or something stronger?’ Johnson said.

  I seemed to be in the way standing up, so I sat down at the other end of Johnson’s settee. I must have agreed to tea too, because it came, served by the little guy who’d driven the Daimler. Lenny somebody.

  Without his peaked cap, he had brown hair streaked over his scalp, and a weathered face wrinkled by wind, and big ears. He was nippy, and wee, and not at all pleased to be serving me.

  The Connie Margate, it would seem, of the Dolly. At least, the tea was great, and I would swear the scones were home-baked, and even the jam sponge. He noticed when the sugar bowl was empty as well, and went off to get more without telling.

  The tea set was bone china too, but plain except for a thin band of blue, and the yacht’s name was on everything. I said, ‘Is it your boat?’

  ‘My design?’ he said. ‘Only partly. But she was built for me.’

  Christ.

  He could read minds, like Natalie. ‘You trained as an artist,’ he said. ‘I liked the sketches of Natalie. Do me one of Eduardo.’

  There was a sketchpad at his hand, with a 6b pencil. He flipped them both on to the table.

  I remembered the sketches of Natalie, wearing a similar towel but no bathing suit. I took up his pencil and let my own towel drop a bit, in case he thought I minded the
comparison.

  I didn’t, actually. I never do. On things to do with beauty, it’s my job to be realistic. I’m not jealous. Of other people’s faces and bodies, anyway.

  I wasn’t afraid of doing a duff sketch either. I was as good as he was, I was bloody sure, at a likeness.

  He looked at my face of Eduardo, and the outline sketch I’d done of his figure, with his sledgeman’s hat and white shirt and trousers. He said, ‘You think it wasn’t an accident?’ My drawing style, it seemed, was beneath comment.

  ‘Well, my God,’ I said. ‘Your bananas pal threatens me and Kim-Jim, and next day, Kim-Jim and I are just about killed in the street. How could it not not be an accident?’

  He appeared to get it. Lenny came to take away the tea, since I seemed to have finished it, and I hooked the towel up again. Johnson said, ‘I told you I didn’t know van Diemen all that well. Anyway he had left the airport just before you did. How could he have had time to have a sledge doctored? How could he know you’d go to the sledge run?’

  His voice had that patient touch I can never stand. I said, ‘He could have seen Eduardo change hats with me from his window. He could have paid Eduardo to find and chat me up in the first place.’

  ‘And getting the right sledge to you at the right time? How did he do that?’ Johnson said. ‘If, as I understand it, Eduardo wasn’t there at the time of the race?’

  Which of course was the snag. I’d swear the two guys who pushed us off were as amazed when the rope broke as we were. I’d found that anyone could shine up the runners and put in old rope. I hadn’t found out who had actually put that sledge first in the queue.

  Since he was waiting, I admitted all that. I added, none the less, that it seemed very funny that Eduardo had disappeared so completely. From his wife’s home. From his in-laws. And the in-laws, I had thought, were distinctly against visits by strangers.

  I could tell Johnson was going to disagree, and he did.

  ‘I should have thought,’ he said, ‘a mark in their favour. Guilty, they’d be keen for you to meet Eduardo, and prove he was just a randy father of five who happened to have a perfect alibi for all the times he could have fixed up that sledge.’

  I said, ‘Then why not let us in anyway?’

  His bifocals tilted upwards.

  I said, ‘Your Mrs Margate did.’

  ‘The security men didn’t,’ Johnson said.

  I said, ‘It’s pretty small, to hold that against me.’

  ‘I don’t. Nosiness gets all it deserves,’ Johnson said. ‘Would you like another dry towel?’

  I have seldom met anyone I disliked more. I said, ‘So you think it was an accident as well.’

  ‘What else?’ said Johnson. ‘I think we should all forget it. Your unfortunate attacker is safely out of the country, nursing his septic hand and scarred face. Mrs Sheridan’s reputation is unblemished. Mr Braithwaite can get on with his brothanical snaps and his girlfriend. And Mr Curtis can foster the romantic attachment which, I suppose, is the mainspring of your touching anxiety. Why not go on back to Troon, and set up house with him?’ said Johnson Johnson.

  Under the towel, I suddenly felt rather queasy. I looked at his glasses, but the orange glare from my hair hid his eyes.

  ‘You are a friend of Roger van Diemen,’ I said.

  He studied me, with his pipe in his mouth. Then he took it out.

  ‘But for Lenny and me, you would have been killed,’ he said.

  ‘And your pal arrested for murder. You didn’t want that,’ I said. ‘But O.K., what if he does it again? To someone else? You don’t know what addicts are like, or you don’t care?’

  ‘You think he’s an addict? Of what?’ Johnson said. Not excited.

  I said, ‘Nothing slight. It looked like heroin. That’s what Mrs Sheridan’s covering up, more than her love life I should think. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.’

  ‘I won’t, in that case,’ said Johnson. ‘It didn’t occur to you that Mrs Sheridan might be arranging for a cure in Frankfurt?’

  I sat up. ‘Is she?’

  ‘Ask her, if you think it’s any of your business,’ Johnson said. ‘I’m just pointing out that the affair does involve a number of fairly well-known grown-ups with big, important jobs who may even be capable of arranging their own affairs, if left to get on with it.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ I said, ‘I’m the one who got roughed up and tipped down a hillside. Excuse me if I complain.’

  There was a silence, during which smoke filled the space between us, and thickened.

  ‘All right. You’ve complained. You don’t like being roughed up,’ said Johnson. ‘So why not go back where you came from and leave them to it? If it’s revenge you want, you’ve made them all dance quite a bit. Nothing more’s going to happen now. How can it?’

  I won’t say I had never considered going back home. Or leaving Natalie and going somewhere that wasn’t even home, such as that place in the sun with Kim-Jim. Where there would be enough work to keep both of us.

  I still thought it would be nice.

  But not yet, oh brother not yet; until I’d got my own back on Mr Roger van Diemen and pals.

  And superior pals, especially Mr Owner Damn Johnson.

  Just a few weeks ago, he’d been a rich bedridden crock I’d been cooking for. I didn’t know how I’d got to be scared of him.

  I wasn’t scared of him.

  I said, baldly, ‘I’ll stay if I want to.’

  The smoke developed a hole, because he had exhaled sharply into it.

  He took a fresh breath.

  ‘Miss Geddes,’ said Johnson. ‘In a world full of contented, consenting subordinates, how is it that you and the blue-arsed fly have survived?’

  ‘I have no more to say. Lenny will assist you to leave. Unless you specially want it, I should like the towel back. It is one of a set.’

  I suppose he thought he’d had the last word.

  They sent me back to Funchal in the Avenger, with Lenny at the wheel. The man on the ski platform didn’t seem at all surprised to find the launch under different management, and lost all his grasp of English the minute I began asking questions.

  I got my things and left him, to find a cab to take me back in time for Natalie’s next beauty fix.

  But for that, I could have stayed away all night, for all anyone at the villa seemed to have noticed. The Hon. Maggie had appeared to patch things up with Ferdy and was in the workroom, Aurelio said, helping Mr Braithwaite with his flowers.

  I bet.

  The other thing that had happened was a hand-delivery of handsome thick envelopes from Reid’s Palace Hotel. There was one for each of us, including me but excluding the help and the parrot.

  Each contained an elegant summons to a dinner party being held by Mr Johnson Johnson in a private room at Reid’s the following evening.

  And that, one and all, was an invitation it was going to give me the greatest joy to refuse.

  The funny thing was that it was Kim-Jim, whom the Owner had sneered at, who was cross, and wanted me to go to the party.

  He wasn’t going himself. Since he told Natalie about his retirement, he took, I saw, a fairly wicked pleasure in excusing himself from things that didn’t interest him, and sending me in his place, if he could get away with it.

  We spent that evening, he and I, with the video, since Ferdy and Natalie were at the Sheraton, cutting up Josephine over dinner with the money-man.

  Between films, Kim-Jim kept coming back to the invitation; kept insisting that big dinner parties could teach me a thing or two.

  I had already recited to both Kim-Jim and Ferdy how I’d been hang-shied by Ferdy’s pal Johnson, and bloody ticked off for annoying the grown-ups.

  Ferdy, who was on Johnson’s side anyway, just jangled with laughter, and said that after buggering up his morning’s photography for nothing, I ought to concede that Pal Johnson was right. Ferdy was satisfied, he said, that the Great Group Jeopardy Plot was just a figment of my i
magination.

  Which just meant that, now Maggie was back, he didn’t intend to waste time Hemlock Chauffeuring. And that he liked to please Natalie, anyway.

  Kim-Jim was gentler. But with van Diemen gone, he couldn’t really believe there was any danger. Or that when van Diemen was here, his threats had been due to more than a fit of jealousy, heightened, poor guy, by drugs, and probably already regretted.

  I could see that each of them, in his way, was quite impressed with the way Johnson had handled young Rita. I could see the ‘young’ attached to my name like a feeder.

  The talk with Kim-Jim got so fraught in the end that I told him I would go to Reid’s, just to content him. I even let him write the letter of acceptance, and discuss what clothes I’d wear.

  The parrot kept saying ‘Oh Cathy! Cathy!’ all evening, and attacking my ear. Kim-Jim eventually chained it to its perch, not liking to put it out on the terrace, where it would miss all the films.

  We saw the last of the ones I’d brought, and a new one of his, and talked into the small hours.

  About work. Sometimes I thought he was going to talk about something else, and then it seemed as if he stopped himself, because it wasn’t time yet.

  As long as he didn’t plan to leave yet, there was no hurry.

  Dodo came in once, without knocking, and it wasn’t hard to guess what she hoped she would see. The movie we had on, as it happened, wasn’t even blue, so it must have been an all-round disappointment.

  It was irritating, but nothing more. When I went to bed, I slept like a log.

  I was busy the next day.

  Natalie had a lot of dictating to do, which she did at a desk in her bedroom, into a tape recorder. Then an English Agency girl from Funchal came and audio typed the letters and memos. Meanwhile I sat and worked, with Kim-Jim’s help, in the study.

  The phone rang a lot. I taped the messages that came in, and she told me later what to do about them. A lot of it had to do with the Josephine film.

  Just before noon she rang down, through the ceiling, to tell me that I’d worked hard, and could have a swim before lunch if I wanted.

  I had a swim, while Kim-Jim lay by the pool on an airbed and watched me. I was still there when the Hon. Maggie arrived, in a towelling robe and a shoe-string bikini, on Ferdy’s invitation.