by Jane Arbor
‘Where are you bound?’ he asked.
‘To Cloud’s Nest bay for a swim.’
‘Alone?’
‘I’ve got a book and a picnic lunch.’
He nodded and she rode away, revelling in the sun, the warm wind in her face, and, at the back of her mind, in the quiet confidence that already she was getting on top of the job, loving its novelty and its challenge to her skills. How many days had she been working for Craig Napier? Only five?. And already she knew she was going to hate having to hand over to anyone else when the time came—as she supposed it must.
She was remembering her small shock at Barbara’s question as to whether she was going to like Craig. Not ready to answer it, she had turned her reply, and even now ‘like’ didn’t seem quite the right word.
Respect? Admire? No, they weren’t right either. Revere, then? Heavens, that was much too worshipful! So from like, where did one go next? Fleetingly her thought suggested love, and at that she threw back her head and laughed aloud. That would be the cardinal error—to flatter the man’s ego as those other misguided females had done! Certainly he had agreed that she wasn’t likely to commit it. But she could still recall his caustic exit-line of that first night—‘Remember, won’t you, that you’ve been warned?’
She found the wide crescent of the bay deserted, but for a group of Creole boys playing at the edge of the surf, far down the beach, from where their raised voices barely reached her. She parked her scooter in the shade of some trees on the dunes above the beach, slipped out of the dress under which she wore her one-piece suit, kicked off her sandals and ran down to the water’s edge.
She swam, floated, did some porpoise dives and rode the occasional long roller which came in. Then, hungry for her lunch, she collected it from her scooter and settled to eat it under a big tree, wind-slanted towards the sea, which bore a scatter of fruits of the greenish-gold of a pippin. Afterwards, because she was in danger of drowsing into sleep, she swam again, calculating that when she came out, there would be to spare about the half-hour she would need for getting back to the office.
She walked up the beach, so dazzled by the sun that she did not notice someone was sitting near her towel and sandals. Closer she recognised Luke Donat, whose arrival she was not at all disposed to welcome.
‘Hi!’ he greeted her, without rising.
‘Hallo,’ she said, picking up her towel and beginning to dry her legs.
‘Surprised to see me?’
‘Yes.’
‘You haven’t felt you should make up to me for the way you dismissed me the other night? And you give me no credit for troubling to find out where I could see you again, and when?’
‘Credit? I certainly don’t know why you bothered, but I think I can bear not to know,’ she said indifferently.
‘Though I daresay you can guess. Tina told me, of course, and believe it or not, I’ve been down here every day this week without success until now.’
‘Really?’ In putting on one sandal she nearly overbalanced, and was able to make little resistance when he pulled her down beside him.
‘Sit for that,’ he advised. ‘It’s easier than playing heron.’
With both sandals on, she said, ‘I must go now,’ and made to get up. But he pinioned her wrist while his bold eyes looked her figure over.
‘You can’t go yet. You’re still wet,’ he said.
‘By the time I’ve collected my things, I shall be dry enough to put on my dress over my suit.’
‘Things? What things? Where did you leave them?’
‘My book and my lunch-box. I ate my lunch under that tree—’ She pointed back to it, and he turned.
‘That one? The manchineel? Well, I hope you didn’t play Eve and help yourself to one of the fruits for dessert? But obviously not, or you wouldn’t have been mermaiding since.’
Intrigued against her will, she knelt up, looking at the tree. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she asked.
‘Rank poison. Leaves, bark, fruit—the lot. One bite, and your throat swells up; one touch of the leaves and your hands are a mass of blisters. When they cut one of them down, they have to burn the juice from the bark first, or it can blind.’
‘And it’s a—what? A manchineel? But why are they allowed to grow at all? Why aren’t they all cut down?’
‘The wood is too valuable; it takes a high polish. And now, in return for that piece of nature lore, you are going to stay for a while, aren’t you?’
‘No, I can’t. I must go, or I shall be late.’
He followed her up the beach and over the sand-hummocks to where she had left the scooter. His car stood out on the road, but the scooter wasn’t there.
She turned to him. ‘It’s gone! It’s been stolen!’ she gasped.
She was puzzled by his smile. ‘Not stolen,’ he said. ‘Just—lent. For a joy-ride. You’ll get it back. In fact, it just could be back at your Belle Rose office by now. Or not—depending how long the joy-ride may have taken.’
‘Wh-what do you mean?’ Hope was stammering with rage. ‘You lent it to someone? To prevent my getting back on it myself?’
Luke nodded. ‘To one of them,’ he gestured down the beach towards the group of boys. ‘They’re field lads from Planchet, having a day off. Money passed, and I gave him an hour in which to have a ride around and deliver the thing back in good order. Back on Belle Rose; not back here. Fair enough, I argued, to give us time to play a bit—because I’m prepared to swim too—and afterwards I’d take you back by car, and no harm done.’
‘No harm? Don’t you realise that I’m almost late already? And if you think I’d accept a lift from you after this!’ she stormed.
‘And what alternative have you, milady?’
‘I’ll walk.’
‘Go ahead. It’s all of twelve kilometres.’
‘I’ll hitch a lift—’
‘You’ll be lucky—in mid-afternoon, when all good Madeninans sleep. Now be sensible. Get into the car, and I’ll drive you back—when I’m so disposed.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘You’ll go now!’
‘And who’s going to make me?’ Luke dangled his car-keys at her. ‘We’ll go when I say so, not before.’
She got in and he took the driver’s seat. They sat in stony silence while the precious minutes ticked by. At last he said, ‘So—forfeit paid for the moment. Let’s go.’ On the way Hope debated what chance she had of getting to her desk without Craig’s learning how late she was. But almost at once she despised such a ruse. She wanted to justify herself to him; she wanted him to hear of Luke’s low trick. So when they arrived she was not too sorry to see his car outside the office and her scooter near by. For that meant he must have learned part of the story, if not all.
As soon as the car stopped she was out of it. Luke Donat called after her, ‘I’ll stick around. Call me if you need help, won’t you?’ Whereat she turned on him.
‘You’ll not stick around. You’ll scram, do you hear?’ she ordered. ‘And don’t try anything of the sort again with me—ever!’
He laughed unpleasantly. ‘Why, you don’t think I was really after the company of a prude like you?’ he jeered. ‘You must think we’ve a famine in girls around here, and we haven’t. But once a snooty like you tries to come the heavy aunt and dictate my duty to me, she’s likely to get the same treatment—or worse. So good luck to you with your boss. You’ll probably need it. He has the reputation of eating secretaries for breakfast and there’s no reason that I can see why he shouldn’t fry you!’
Furious to the point of having no retort ready, Hope left him to drive away. When she went through to the office Craig was moving to his desk from the window, and she realised he must have witnessed the scene outside.
She put a hand to her flushed cheek, then brushed back her wild hair. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but it wasn’t my—’
She stopped, daunted by the expression on Craig’s face. Seated at his desk now, he looked up at her, through her.
‘You realise, I hope, that it’s Thursday, and you haven’t done the pay-slips yet?’ he said.
‘Yes, of course. I’ll do them and finish them before I go—’
‘You certainly will.’
‘Yes, but—Look, you must let me explain first why I’m late—’
His brows drew together. ‘ “Must”—when I know most of it already? That you had a date to keep, and kept it, after lying to me that you would be spending the time alone. That when you’d taken more time than you were entitled to, you or Donat sent your machine back by the lad, knowing that Donat could get you back quicker in his car, when you were able to tear yourself away. Well, anything you want to add to that? Or subtract from it, if I haven’t got all the details right?’
Hope had to swallow hard on the constriction in her throat. Of all wrongs she could bear injustice the least, and that he should dare to prejudge her was too much!
‘Details?’ she echoed thickly. ‘You haven’t got any of it right. It wasn’t like that at all!—’
‘Oh, come!’ he urged.
‘No! For one thing, I didn’t lie to you. I was going alone, and I didn’t expect—that is, I hadn’t any rendezvous planned with Luke Donat. He—’
‘Just turned up by mere chance? But knowing where to find you, no doubt?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Then need we belabour the thing any more? He persuaded you to overstay your time, and you stayed. What’s more, you didn’t noticeably hurry your leavetakings when you did part from the fellow. Meanwhile, I’m not interested in the embroidery of the affair, and I’d be grateful now if you’d get down to your job.’
But that she could not do in dumb obedience to his say-so. How dared he dismiss her explanations almost as if she hadn’t spoken? Well, she would speak now, and he was going to listen, if not to any further attempts to justify herself, at least to some home-truths which it was high time he heard!
Gathering her forces, she said, ‘No. If you still wish it, I’ll get down to my job when I’ve said this, and not before. This being that I consider your attitude unjust and autocratic and totally unfair in the circumstances. And though I’ve no intention of urging any more “embroidery” upon you, I think you should know just how well I’m beginning to understand my cousin’s estimate of you as a—a tyrant whom she could never manage to please. And furthermore—’ she hesitated, despising an increasing quiver in her voice, but plunging on regardless—‘furthermore, if you treated any of your earlier secretaries like this, I simply can’t credit that they could have imagined themselves in love with you, as you claim. They must have been out of their minds, or you must have been mistaken!’
She had gone too far, and she knew it. These were gutter tactics, but the words were out; she couldn’t recall them, and her heart was thumping furiously as she forced her eyes to meet the cold pebble-green of his. The blackness behind the green flecks was unfathomable.
‘Have you finished?’ he asked.
On an already dying defiance, ‘Isn’t that enough?’ she retorted.
‘Entirely. A great deal too much, as I think you must know. And all of it a pettiness which I’m not going to answer. And so—’
With what seemed like a single stride he was on her side of his desk again, and his hand, vice-like in its grip, was on her shoulder, thrusting her towards her own desk and holding her down in her chair when she half-attempted to rise. ‘And so now you will get on with your work until you have finished it And no—hot and dishevelled you may be from heaven knows what erotic acrobatics you and your boy-friend may have been indulging in, but you will refrain from going to the cloakroom to repair the ravages until after you’ve finished here. Then, and only then, we’ll consider the incident of your lateness closed. Understood?’ he demanded savagely.
She had to obey. Back at his desk now, working at his papers, he did not once glance her way. He might have been alone in the room, and when he went out once, he did not, as usual, tell her where he could be found if he were wanted.
She felt ostracised—for the comparatively simple fault of being late on duty. She had been taking his dictation most of the morning; he knew she had the pay-slips to do, and he must knew he could trust her to finish them before she went home. He didn’t have to make a threat of it! As she worked, her sense of frustration and grievance rose. And yet, oddly, she felt less aggrieved with Craig than with herself. She should have seen that he couldn’t possibly think her as irresponsible as Tina; she should have convinced him that she wouldn’t stoop to hiding behind a lie. Didn’t she convey any candour in her face, in her voice? And though her reason argued, ‘You’ve only been working for the man a week. How can you expect him to know you for what you really are?’ she was still aware of the nag of this illogical self-blame for having failed to show him what she was. For having failed him...
Before she had finished the pay-slips she heard the other clerks leave the building and flutter away. She was punching the completed pile when Craig returned and, remembering her last Thursday’s errand, she asked, ‘Shall I take them down to the boucan now?’
‘No. The bank will have closed by the time Winston will have checked them. He can have them in the morning. That’s all, then. Goodnight.’
It was a dismissal of her which daunted any further attempt to put herself right with him, so she merely returned his goodnight and left him.
On the ride home she contrasted her low spirits with her sunny mood of the morning, her one consolation being that at least she could hope for Barbara’s sympathetic ear for the truth of her story. It was not until she was putting her scooter away that she knew she wasn’t going to mention the incident to Barbara. For Barbara might want to plead her case with Craig, and Hope’s pride wasn’t having that. She would fight her own battles with him without even Barbara’s help.
Even if she had not so decided, she would have been daunted by Barbara’s mood that evening. Usually she greeted Hope sunnily and had a long, cold drink ready for her. But tonight she called from her room to ask Hope to pour her own, and at supper she was obviously tense and so withdrawn that Hope asked if she were not well.
Barbara said, ‘It’s nothing. Just a slight headache, that’s all, and I’m not used to them.’ But instead of joining Hope on the verandah when they had cleared the meal, she went to the telephone and came back to suggest diffidently that as Craig was coming over and they had some private business, perhaps when he came, Hope wouldn’t mind leaving them alone.
Hope agreed readily to go to her room and hastened to absent herself before Craig arrived. But after she knew he had come, she felt tempted by the velvet dusk to go for a walk. She could leave by a side door and could get back to her room by the same way if he were still there when she returned.
She walked down the road in the opposite direction from which his car had come. On either side sandy paths led away into low-growing scrub and, following one of them, she was grateful for the solitude of the Madenina countryside at night. She had learned from Barbara that, except on party or carnival evenings, most of the islanders kept the early hours which their ancestors had done—at both ends of the day. In the country, very few people were , abroad much later than an hour after the sun had gone down, so that for anyone walking alone there was no need to listen for the sinister following footsteps or see a threat in a shadow behind a tree. And the silence was broken by little other than the chirrup of the tree-frogs and the rustle of the wind in bamboo and the high palms.
On Madenina the dark never came down as suddenly as Hope’s reading and hearsay had led her to expect. To her, the sinking ball of the sun seemed to take a great while over its going, and for a long time afterwards left the sky streaked with crimson and gold which only slowly turned to grey and then to night She remembered asking Barbara about the elusive green ray which was supposed to appear at the very last instant of the tropical sun’s sinking. ‘Have you ever seen it?’ she had queried.
‘Of course,’ Barbara had said, addin
g with what sounded to Hope like inconsequence, ‘I am a Madeninan.’
‘What has that to do with the green ray?’ Hope had puzzled.
‘Oh—’ Barbara had laughed. ‘Well, it’s said that you can’t count yourself as a true Madeninan until you have seen it, though, believe it or not, I know people who never have. Victoire de Faye, for one. But then she makes rather a pride of not being one of us.’
Hope had said, ‘Tina tells me she’s never seen it. And I don’t suppose I shall, either.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, how much of a rarity is it? Shouldn’t I be lucky to see it, just in the time I shall be here?’
‘You never know,’ Barbara had advised. ‘It might show up for you this very evening. And if not, as long as you look out for it, you’ll be very unlucky if you don’t see it sooner or later.’
Hope stayed out for the best part of an hour. When she drew near to the bungalow she saw Craig’s car still outside it, and silhouetted in the open doorway were his figure and Barbara’s, as if he were on the point of leaving.
That gave Hope no chance of reaching the side door unseen, so she stepped back into the shadow of a crape myrtle tree, watching until Craig should leave. But as she watched she saw Barbara’s hands go to his shoulders, and as she hid her face on his breast his arms went about her, drawing her close.
Hope drew a sharp breath, her guilt that of an eavesdropper, and some feeling which she did not understand quickening her heartbeat as if in shock.
Why was that? She had known since first meeting them together that Barbara and Craig were close. Barbara’s warmth in speaking of him had confirmed it and so had Tina’s oblique hints. Tonight, when Barbara had obviously been distressed, she had turned to him, and if they were indeed lovers, what more natural than such a parting between them?
Yet Hope’s recoil from it dismayed her. She pitied Barbara’s young widowhood, admired her courage, liked her, wanted her to be happy again—surely?
But happy with Craig Napier? In spite of her question to Tina—why not?—did she unreservedly want that for Barbara? Or was her reluctance to face facts the stirring of something else? Something that was not jealousy, but was an envy of the rapport the other girl had with him, an envy which was almost a hunger to know she could count on as much of his understanding as Barbara could.