Hideaway Heart

by Roumelia Lane

  "I don't mind that. I'll stay on deck. It's not terribly far."

  The man hesitated and then shook his head. He seemed to be having second thoughts.

  "We are sponge-divers. At Cyrecano no sponge," he explained.

  "Oh, I see." Chris gave a dejected smile. Well, it had been worth a try. She turned and stopped dead as his hand touched her arm.

  "You really want to go to Cyrecano?"

  "Of course. I've told you. But if it's not possible . . ." Politely she drew her arm away.

  "I would say it is possible. We sail tonight with the tide."

  "You mean you'll take me? Oh, I'd be extremely grateful if you would!'' Chris exulted.

  The man put up a finger.

  "No one must know. My licence... you understand?"

  "Oh yes, I understand. I'll be here after dark. Thank you. Thank you very much.''

  She would have taken his hand had it been a little less grubby, but instead she nodded her thanks and goodbyes.

  To maintain absolute secrecy Chris knew she would have to be careful when leaving the boat. Luckily it was anchored in such a position as to be almost hidden from the general curve of the busy harbour. There wasn't a soul in sight. She went as quickly as the precarious gangplank would permit, but just before she had stepped down a figure appeared in the distance.

  Before Chris turned her head to hurry on she recognized the figure as Accrington. Bad luck that he should be coming out of one of the harbour offices just at this time. Still, he was an old man; he probably wouldn't even notice her. She hurried along in the direction of the road leading towards the villa, but her efforts didn't prevent Accrington drawing level.

  "Afternoon, miss!" He touched his cap respectfully.

  "Oh, good afternoon, Accrington!" in pretended surprise. "Isn't it a lovely day ?"

  "Too hot, if you ask me," he chuckled, and hurried on ahead.

  Thank heavens he hadn't noticed. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned off up the hill towards the villa.

  The rest of the time until darkness was spent in putting together her requirements for the trip. She had a meal sent up on a tray to her room and when the sky was black took up the small bag she had packed and left the house.

  Her keenness for sailing seemed to have mysteriously departed with the sunshine. In its golden light the boats had always looked friendly and inviting; now they rode the swell, grey ghostly figures against the night sky. All the cafes appeared to have shut up for the night. There wasn't much light, only the infrequent blur of a harbour lamp and its reflection on the lapping waves.

  She walked along the curved road, hating the sound of her heels upon the stone, and the accompanying thump of her heart. If only she didn't have to do it this way behind Boyd's back! But what choice had he left her ?

  She came to the plank, a strip of black reaching out to an even blacker shape.

  Perhaps that was the reason for her hesitation.

  If there had been a blaze of light to welcome her aboard she wouldn't be having these second thoughts now. But of course, it was a secret. How could they advertise the fact that they were taking a passenger when it was obviously against the rules?

  Chris gulped a breath and took a hesitant step forward. Well, here goes! But what if there wasn't a comfortable place to sit during the trip? From what she had remembered of the afternoon, the deck had been cluttered with all manner of implements, and going below was out of the question.

  Oh, heavens, what was she dithering about? There was bound to be a place somewhere!

  She had stepped up to gain a foothold on the plank when the shadows to the left seemed to move. A tall shape moved up and swung her violently round. She felt herself encased in a steel hold, and with nerves already stretched to breaking point the sudden action brought a scream to her throat. It died there when she stared up, white-faced and trembling, to see a familiar face carved out of rock.

  "Boyd! You gave me an awful scare!"

  "That was the idea. Going on a little trip?"

  She cast an uncomfortable glance towards the dark bobbing shape.

  "Accrington told you..." she began.

  "Don't blame him. I asked him to watch you."

  "Watch me indeed! What am I, some kind of prisoner?" Indignantly she tried to turn out of his arms, but the grip tightened. "Let me go! The captain is going to take me to Cyrecano."

  "Captain! That's a laugh. Nick Papandouros is about the nastiest character in the whole of the Aegean."

  "Not in my opinion he isn't!" she flashed upwards. "You're just saying that because you hate to be beaten. I told you I would get to the island without your help. Let me go! If you don't I'll..."

  His answer was to jerk her into a brisk walk. She had to run to keep up with his furious strides. Once on the Barbary Cloud he dropped her bag and the wrist hold was altered to two hands gripping her shoulders.

  "You prize idiot!" he snapped. "I ought to shake you to jelly."

  "Go ahead." She stared up defiantly into steel-flecked eyes.

  He allowed himself a harsh sigh. "For a grown woman you have the most pathetically naive thoughts."

  "We can't all be master-minds," Chris retorted.

  "It doesn't take a master-mind to know to give Papandouros's tub a wide berth."

  Impatiently Chris turned her head.

  "All this because I nearly outwitted you. Why didn't you let me sail on the boat? It wouldn't have done you any harm."

  She felt hard fingers sink into her flesh.

  "Those men are sponge-divers," he told her.

  "I know that."

  "And you know too, I suppose, that they've just done a spell off the coast of Africa? And . . ." he turned her face roughly towards him, "that they haven't seen a woman in four months?"

  "Let's not get melodramatic," she begged.

  "Why not? You chose the scene, not me. And whether you care to know the ending or not it goes something like this. Nick and his boys will be living it up all the way from here to Athens, and I don't mean just food and drink!"

  Chris couldn't speak, but tears sprang to her eyes at the knowledge that her actions could evoke such wrath in Boyd. Of course he must be finding her a nuisance.

  She turned her eyes up to find him gazing at her hard. His mouth was drawn tight over clenched teeth. The flaring woodsmoke eyes flickered down to pinpoints of flame and when he spoke his voice was like the last weary rumble after a violent explosion.

  "You really want to go to Cyrecano badly, don't you? Very well, if that's what you want I'll take you, but it will have to wait. I've got other things on my mind.''

  "If this is your way of putting me off..."

  "I said I've got other things on my mind. Accrington is laid up. I don't like the look of him."

  "He looked perfectly all right to me this afternoon." Chris gave him a disbelieving side glance.

  "Well, he's not now. I'll feel better when I know what the trouble is."

  She noticed an uneasy flexing of the jaw and immediately felt ashamed.

  "You are serious. Is Accrington really ill?''

  "My dear girl," Boyd threw up his head, letting out a sigh, "that's what I'm trying to find out, and standing here nattering to you isn't going to do that.''

  He started to walk and Chris fell in with his stride, a contrite look in the sherry-brown eyes.

  "Boyd, I'd like to help. Can I go to him?"

  Boyd kept on walking.

  "You're to stay away. We can't be sure it's not infectious."

  "But that's ridiculous! You can't leave an old man on his own, just because..."

  "I didn't say he was on his own," patiently. "Now cut along and stay out of my hair for a while - okay?"

  "No." Chris veered away. "If Accrington is in his cabin that's where I'm going. You're asking me to desert the only friend I've made out here just because of germs."

  "I gathered you two were pretty thick, the way he talks about you all the time." He took her arm thoughtfully. "I suppo
se the old boy could do with some cheering up. Do you think you could sit with him while I get in touch with the doctor?"

  Chris took in a breath. He slanted her a reassuring look. "Purely a precautionary measure," he finished.

  They went below and followed a carpeted corridor. Boyd opened a door on the left. At first when Chris saw Accrington she thought there had been some mistake. Such a change couldn't be possible in just a few hours. The soft nut-brown cheeks had a taut yellowed parchment look. The faded eyes burned unnaturally bright. Out of his smart uniform he looked unbelievably slight against the huge pillows and the striped pyjama sleeves flapped around thin wrists as he turned the pages of a sailing manual.

  Boyd nodded to the crew member in spotless white tee-shirt and slacks.

  "All right, Wooller, you can take a break now."

  Accrington sat slightly more erect in his bed as Chris entered.

  "'Evening, miss." He didn't forget the respectful touch of his fingers to an imaginary peaked cap, though she noticed the hand trembling slightly on the journey.

  "How goes it, Dan?" Boyd asked easily, strolling the cabin.

  "Danged chest!" the old man chuckled. "Ye'd think fresh air was a rare commodity the way it doles it out to me.''

  Chris struggled not to show her alarm at the weird sound of his breathing, but he winked at her mischievously.

  "Almost as good as Annie Laurie on the squeeze-box, eh?"

  "Better!" Chris laughed. She couldn't help herself. He was still the same old Dan in spite of the change in his appearance. His company and dry wit had passed many a pleasant hour on the run to Beirut and back. She had come to look on him as an older, more volatile version of her father.

  Boyd drew up a chair casually.

  "Chris is at a loose end, Dan. Do you think you can put up with her for half an hour? I've got one or two things to attend to."

  "I'd be disappointed if she left." Dan picked up a recent English newspaper. "She's the only one besides meself who can make head or tail of these fool crosswords." He pointed a shaky finger. "See there? Two across . . . runs into fourteen down: Monopoly institutions may prefer. Now what kind of a question is that?"

  Chris gave it her attention, then raised a humorous eyebrow.

  "I'm stuck!" she grinned.

  Boyd sloped a smile.

  "Go to it, you two. And when you've finished that there are plenty more papers in my office."

  Doctor Reynolds was an Englishman living in semi-retirement on Cathai. According to Boyd he had a handful of notable patients and visited some of the fishermen's cottages around the bay. He was a big bald man with painfully stooped shoulders. When Chris first saw him she thought he looked incredibly fierce, but housed under the drawn bushy brows were a pair of remarkably soft brown eyes. And his smile ... when he allowed it to interfere with the countenance fitting a gentleman of the medical profession... was as infectious as a schoolboy's.

  He didn't stay long with Dan Accrington and he wasn't particularly informative when he came out.

  "Yes, well, not much I can do, I'm afraid. Has a long history of respiratory trouble, I hear. He needs rest and lots of quiet. I don't think the cabin is a good place."

  "I'll have him taken to the villa." Boyd held Chris's arm. "There's nothing else you can tell us, doc?"

  "Afraid not, Boyd. There's no infection. At Dan's stage in life all we can do is give the body a free hand. Sometimes it's cleverer than we are solving its problems."

  "What about a nurse?" Boyd queried.

  "Not enough to warrant one, I'm afraid, but you've got lots of capable people at the villa. I've prescribed some tablets. Should make things easier, and of course I'll be glad to drop in anytime."

  "Thanks, doc." They saw him to his car on the quay and then Boyd dug his hands deep into his pockets.

  "We'd better see about getting the old boy some transport,"

  he decided.

  The following morning Dan was brought ashore on an improvised stretcher and settled comfortably in the back of a large American shooting brake. Chris sat in beside him. She had a bag that contained his belongings and the naval uniform which he had insisted she pack. The old man's eyes rolled dejectedly to the great white .shape of the Barbary Cloud. Wrinkled hands clutched the blankets tightly.

  "You'll be back before you know it," Boyd grinned, and turned to start up the engine. He seemed a little unfamiliar with the ornate dashboard arrangement, but after a few jerks on what must have been the right knobs the car moved obediently away from the quay.

  He drove slowly, probably with the idea of jolting Dan as little as possible, Chris thought; but when a journey that might have been over in five minutes was stretched out to twenty she guessed the real reason. Dan needed time to adjust himself. Since Boyd had taken him on he had known no other home than the Barbary Cloud. Now without warning it was being spirited away from him and a strange-sounding name offered in its place.

  The gentle roundabout ascent through sprawling rock-rose and yellow bell-shaped flowers, past white blockhouses and tangled gardens leaning over a blue-metal sea this was Boyd's way of introducing the Villa Tamerlane without the fuss and speed that is usually reserved for the sick.

  The staff at the villa were ready and waiting and within minutes of arriving Dan was ensconced in a large white bed in a ground floor room. The doors and windows opened out on to rolling lawns and flower-beds, and above the parapet wall was a wide strip of peacock blue sky. His apprehension diminishing, Dan looked around him and was soon asking for his books and papers. By lunch time he had settled in completely.

  Chris brought in the tray of lightly cooked food just as Boyd was about to leave. He stopped to readjust the old man's pillows and then followed her out on to the lawn.

  "Reckon you can hold the fort till I get back?"

  She smiled. "It's not a mammoth job keeping Dan company. You're going out, then?"

  Boyd nodded. "I have to go over to Trokata. I should be back at a reasonable hour."

  Trokata. Wasn't that where the farm was? Of course. In the confusion of Dan's illness Chris had forgotten about Paula, but Boyd obviously hadn't. She struggled inwardly not to alter her expression, but the smile felt more like a grimace as she offered lightly,

  "I intend to spend the afternoon with Dan."

  He turned as they walked to give her a perceptive look.

  "Is he the only friend you've made out here ?''

  "I suppose not, really. Howes is nice, and of course there's Clive." She kicked at an imaginary blade of grass, for the lawns were as smooth as green felt.

  "Of course, there's Clive. Don't wait up for me, I'll probably be late."

  With a taut smile he saluted generously and left.

  Boyd was late back that night. He hadn't returned when Chris and Ethela - the stout gentle housekeeper - had settled Dan down for the night. Chris went up to her room and undressed slackly. She climbed into bed with a book she couldn't read and lay staring at the patterned ceiling waiting for the sound of a car engine.

  It came when the silver grey of dawn had banished every star and sleep seemed as far away as ever.

  Towards the end of the week Dan lost interest in the daily crosswords and seemed to have no eye for the batch of sailing magazines that Boyd had ordered. He sank down amongst the pillows and gazed silently over the gardens. Sometimes he dozed fitfully. Chris thought he must be taking a well-needed rest, for the tablets had eased his breathing tremendously, but when he turned away from the tray of food she didn't know what to think. Perhaps Boyd ought to be told. She went in search of him through the labyrinth of muralled corridors, but Howes was alone in the office. He told her that Boyd had left for Trokata over an hour ago.

  After some consideration Chris decided to call in the doctor. He had said he would be glad to drop in any time and possibly Dan could do with a tonic of some kind. It could be his lethargy was due to some deficiency. Doctor Reynolds was dubious and said very little, but he wrote out a prescription.<
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  "One feels so helpless in a case like this. All I can stress is absolute peace and quiet. I'll see about sending a nurse along."

  He walked with eyes down back to the car and eased it noiselessly out of the drive. Chris watched it go with a desolate feeling.

  The doctor was a daily visitor after that, and Boyd approved of the nurse.

  "It's not good for you to sit indoors all day," he said to Chris one morning at breakfast. "You're looking a bit peaky. Taken a dip in the pool lately?"

  "I go there most days," Chris replied, thinking "not that you'd notice, being over at Trokata all the time!"

  He might have read her thoughts, for he returned thoughtfully,

  "I used to be able to fit in a daily swim myself. Perhaps I can make it some time this morning."

  If that was an invitation for her to join him Chris was determined to ignore it. After breakfast she went up to her room and wrote a letter to her father. She gave it to Howes to post along with the outgoing mail and then made her way to Dan's room, but if she had hoped to spend the morning with him she was out of luck. He was sound asleep and neatly tucked in, and the nurse, a serene, olive-skinned lady, shook her head with a smile. Chris tiptoed out again. It looked as if the pool was going to win, but if Boyd was there he needn't look to her for his amusements!

  She changed into the striped two-piece swimsuit and draped a beach robe about her shoulders. The pool was deserted, but she had done only half a length when Boyd appeared in white swim-shorts. She dragged her eyes away from the tanned muscular frame and continued to swim with deliberate unconcern. He dived, and she saw a brown arrow slice the water and emerge almost under her chin.

  "Hi!" He shook the water from his hair, and watching the droplets course down the craggy features Chris was reminded of that swim in the sea at Beirut.

  "Hello." She hated her shaking voice and dog-paddled for a while as though out of breath.

  Boyd did half a dozen fast lengths of the pool and pulled himself out by the rail. He dried off, donned a beach robe, and lay back in a long chair with a cigarette. Chris carried on for a while, but it was obvious when drinks appeared that he was pouring one for her.