Pact without desire

by Jane Arbor

  `You came! I waited on, half hoping—' he breathed, but she interrupted him.

  'I didn't—that is, not to meet you. Mrs Belmont brought me here for tea, and she'll be with me in a minute. So please—'

  'Well, well!' It was Ina breaking in, all smiles. 'You two know each other already? Fast work, young Iden, considering that Rede's Sara only arrived last night. And how is your lady wife?'

  'Very well, thank you. And I knew Sara in England,' Cliff muttered.

  'You did?' Ina's bulbous eyes gleamed with interest. `So there's a coincidence—you meet again! And you'll have tea with us, boy—yes?'

  But Cliff excused himself. He had business, seeing a buyer, and couldn't wait. 'See you soon. We must have a party,' Ina speeded him on his way, and during tea probed Sara for details which Sara did her best to evade.

  Ina mused, 'You may imagine how tickled we all were when your friend Cliff Iden and Isabel Carbery fell for each other after Rede had introduced them, considering how long Isabel had been setting

  her sights at Rede himself ! '

  Sara caught her breath. 'How long?' she echoed, recalling that last night she hadn't understood Rede's speaking of Isabel as 'an old friend'. 'But I thought Isabel Iden was only on a visit here with friends or relatives when Cliff first met her?'

  'On a visit of several,' Ina corrected. 'She'd been coming out for at least the last five years in the spring, and there were those of us who quite thought she and Rede might make a match of it. But apparently there was nothing doing.'

  'I see,' said Sara, mentally filing information which she hadn't heard from Rede, and Ina went on, 'Something of a beauty, Isabel, isn't she? You've met her, of course?'

  'Not until last night at the Lotus Room. She and Cliff were dining , there, and so were Rede and I.'

  'Then it was only Cliff Iden you knew in England?'

  'Yes.'

  'Ah—' Ina nodded sagely, as if doing some mental filing of her own.

  She drove Sara home in the early evening, saying, as Sara thanked her and they parted, that they must 'do this again quite soon', and that she had meant what she had said to Cliff—she would lay on a party for Sara. An evening party on Sentosa Island would be fun ...

  Rede came home shortly after Sara. He suggested they dine at home, and had Chakan bring drinks to their balcony. After dinner Sara might like to

  sample the offerings on television, and meanwhile he wanted to hear about her day.

  She told him, editing her slight recoil from her escort's exuberance, only for him to laugh and agree, 'Heart of gold, and all that, Ina. But a little of her goes a long way, you found?'

  'A bit,' she admitted. 'Not that she wasn't kindness itself, but I would rather like to buy a map and explore the city on my own—bit by bit, slowly, not all at a tourist gulp. And on foot, quite often.'

  Rede said, 'Not used to this climate, you'd find footwork pretty trying. When I've got the car, Lim could take you in the runabout anywhere you want to go.'

  'But I think he likes to sell the sights of the city too,' she objected. 'Couldn't I set out on foot and pick up a trishaw when I got tired—or lost?'

  'Or take a trishaw or taxi from here. We always use the same men, and Chakan would call one of them for you.' Rede set down his glass and rose. 'When I'm at home, I usually eat at about eight. Will that suit you?' he asked.

  Sara said it would, and that she would like to bath beforehand. After he had gone she wondered whether it would always be like this for them— polite, tolerant strangers on the everyday plane, on any other, wary enemies or lovers only at their bodies' compulsion, nothing more. Guiltily she wished she could have been frank with him about Cliff's invitation and about Ina Belmont's gossip as to his long friendship with Isabel, but fearing

  his reaction to both, she had said nothing. And while she was afraid of him and he despised her, how far could they hope to get?

  After dinner he watched television with her, choosing programmes he thought she would like, advising her of trash she would not. A pleasant, domestic evening for two people who were worlds apart.

  Three days later, after a similar quiet evening, Sara was about to go to bed, when Rede said, 'Just a minute—I'd be obliged if you'd tell me what your date with Iden at the Raffles the other day was in aid of? I believe you had one?'

  Sara caught her breath. 'You're mistaken. I had none,' she denied.

  'Oh, come ! You met him there. I ran into Ina at the Yacht Club yesterday. She said she'd thought she would have to introduce you to each other, but from her hearing him say to you, "You came", she supposed he had expected you. But when she asked him to have tea with you, he wouldn't. Ina didn't make that up?'

  'No,' Sara admitted. 'It did happen like that. He was in the foyer of the hotel when we arrived.'

  'You didn't mention it when you told me about your day's foray with Ina.'

  'It wasn't important. It was a chance meeting, that's all.'

  'A mere coincidence? When the ploy he was out on that day was a batch of calls on silver merchants in Chinatown? And his caIl to you here that morn-

  ing? You don't deny he made one?'

  At bay, like a cornered animal, she protested, 'Yes, he did ring me here, asking me to meet him, but—'

  'You didn't mention that either.'

  'Did I have to, when I refused to see him? Or must I conclude that anything I do or anywhere I go is going to be reported to you? If that's so, you should have warned me you keep spies on your staff and among your friends, you really should!' Sara raged.

  Rede said icily, 'Calm down. No spies. As mere a couple of chances as Iden's keeping a date which you say you refused him. You'll learn in time that Ina's curiosity about her friends is as 'satiable as the Elephant's Child's, and her total recall of anything that interests her is that of a computer. But entirely innocent. She's never malicious, but we're all grist to her mill of absorbing news and passing it on. On the staff of the Straits Times she could have worked up to Editor any time she liked. As for the other chance—Expecting a call from the mainland and asking about it when I came home that evening, I was told there had been only two local calls, both for you. That was so?'

  Sara nodded. 'From Mrs Belmont, and from Cliff.'

  'That's what I heard from Malee, that she'd asked for his name to take to you. He wanted a date which you say you didn't give him, but why did he want it?'

  'I didn't give him time to tell me, except that

  he and his wife were both shocked by the way you'd thrust me at them at the Lotus Room, and he wanted to know why.'

  'Why appeal to you, rather than to me?'

  don't know. Perhaps because you're his chief,

  and

  '—Or because the exercise worked a little too well; we dazzled him with you, and he's having regrets at having let you go? You'd be flattered by that, I daresay?'

  Sara flared, 'You know I wouldn't ! I've finished with him. And if I'd been flattered, should I have refused to see him?'

  'Caution might have warned you against it. After all, he has a wife, and you are mine. But if you were firm with him, that's as well. For, from the safely entrenched position of marriage, you might have found having him as a scalp for your belt not unattractive, perhaps?'

  'You'd suspect me of playing him off against you for—for kicks?'

  'Let's say, for justifiable lack of loyalty to the rather bizarre terms of our contract, you could feel?' Rede offered.

  Her head went up proudly. 'I shall honour them,' she said.

  'Meaning you'll make the best of them. Handsome deal—of a proposition I may say I expected you to turn down flat! '

  She stared, open-mouthed. 'But you made it! You proposed to me! And when I did refuse, you

  argued, you made me listen, you persuaded me

  With fingers at her trembling lips, she faltered, 'You're saying ? Saying you didn't want me to accept? You hoped I wouldn't?' In a flash of intuition, 'You'd have thought more of me if I'd said No?'
<
br />   He nodded. 'If you'd said "Go to hell" or words to that effect, and meant them, I'd have respected that.'

  'Then why didn't you take back your proposal?'

  'I'd made it, and as I told you, marriage was in my programme at the time.'

  'To—to anyone? Any handy girl would have done?'

  'I had proposed to you.'

  'And married me, despising me—Oh ' At the confirmation of her fears Sara turned away, drained of all hope for the future. 'I'm going to bed,' she muttered. 'I can't

  'I'll come with you.'

  'Please, Rede, no— '

  But she had hesitated long enough for him to join her at the door. Upstairs, he followed her into her room and turning to her, took her into his arms. She leaned back within his hold and looked up at him. 'Rede, you can't want me after—all this! '

  'All which?'

  'Of accusing me of deceiving you, trying to catch me out. And the rest—your contempt of me, your using me Please ' She attempted to twist free, but he held her fast.

  He mocked, 'Your immaturity has still a lot to learn, my dear. For instance, that bouts of exchanged home-truths are commonplaces of most marriages, and whether he's bested in them or not, a man can quite enjoy asserting himself in—other ways. Or put it like this—the true gourmet appreciates the spice of a quarrel as a vinaigrette sauce—' Ignoring her shudder of distaste at the unnecessary metaphor, he went on,

  'What's more, you won't deny that, having bought the merchandise honestly, I'm entitled to confirm my possession of it from time to time? Come.'

  As he spoke he spread the wide neck of her dress down over her shoulders, and with her upper arms thus pinioned, he took her hand and led her over to the bed.

  And presently the skilled gentleness was there for her again, and the pleasure, betraying her to the hot tide of passion which engulfed her as before.

  CHAPTER THREE

  STILL awake long after midnight, Sara relived her body's rapturous surrender to Rede's claim to it, and suffered an after-shame which eclipsed the brief delight she had known under his spell, and that of her own urgency to give and to take, while she could forget that he made no pretence of loving

  mere merchandise that he had bought. More than that, his frank admissions tonight underlined his low opinion of her.

  Though what cause had she for hurt? her honesty questioned. When she had married him, it had not been for love as she had once known it for Cliff— basking in his admiration of her looks, the days of their meetings always red-letter, their quarrels distressing, their reconciliations sweet, the longing to be his all, for which another name was jealousy. That had been love. How much or how little of those feelings applied to Rede now?

  On their first occasion together after he had made their marriage a reality, he had expected her to do him credit, and she guessed that in the matter of dress and poise, that challenge would hold. Waiting to see him, encountering him, was pulse-quickening too—a kind of small adventure every time. Reconciliations? They had had none—only a temporary eclipse of their differences at Rede's insistence on his marital rights. Butjealousy? With a sense of shock she realised that already she could be jealous about him; jealous of his past, of his now and of a future in which he might possess another woman—loving her.

  Yes, jealousy told its tale. 'I've begun to fall in love with Rede.' Her whisper tested for hope, but foresaw only the despair of knowing that the next time he made love to her without loving her, it would be her heart as well as her body which his detachment would humiliate. And to think that if

  she had said No to his cynical proposal of marriage, she would have kept her self-respect and his! (Worth it—at the expense of never seeing . him again?) Though her conscience answered Yes to that, her need to love and be loved answered No.

  Meanwhile the everyday of a life that was not without its novel pleasures had to go on. For instance, there was the bliss of planning out-of-doors ploys with reasonable certainty of sun and warmth. True, the island did stage its capricious storms from time to time, but the evening rains were short-lived, carrying no threat over to the dawn of the next beautiful day.

  Sara bought her map; walked, rode the network of the bus services, took trishaws into Chinatown, boarded junks for tours of the harbour, experienced the peace and silence of dedicated temples, spent hours in the city's flower-parks, and learned her new world with enthusiastic curiosity.

  For the most part she enjoyed it independently of Rede, but they dined out once or twice a week, where she savoured or rejected every strange dish of every regional menu which was put before her. She learned to use chopsticks, conformed with back-to-front meals where the soup was served last, and doffed her shoes for taking tea from cushions on the floor in a Japanese tatami room.

  She could not resist the exotic fruits which had never reached the English shops—durians and chikus and mangosteens and the melon's tropical cousin, the papaya. She longed to experiment with

  some of the foods and sauces which she found particularly attractive, but found Buppa not too receptive to the idea of sharing her kitchen. Sara, who had hoped to make her debut there as mistress of Rede's house, was disappointed. At first she thought she had an alternative plan, until that was vetoed by Rede himself.

  On her earliest explorations of the house and gardens, she had been attracted by a single-storeyed annexe to the main house which, though it was fully furnished and its kitchen equipped, seemed to have no immediate purpose. Asked about it, Buppa said it was a guest-lodge, and Rede confirmed that some of Temasik's Asian clients on business trips preferred to stay there instead of being put up in the house or in hotels.

  'They're very family-conscious, and when they bring their wives along, they like to keep to their own customs of cooking and eating, which they can do in the cottage undisturbed,' he added. 'And this year it's going to be occupied more or less permanently fairly soon.'

  'And I couldn't use the kitchen meanwhile?' Sara asked.

  'To play at cookery? If you must, Buppa shall make room for you in her kitchen and help you,' he promised.

  'She won't like that,' Sara warned.

  'A great many people may not "like" my orders, but they find it best to carry them out,' was his crisp retort, typical of his autocracy and which left

  her feeling snubbed. That he had spoken to Buppa was dear when that lady offered the use of the kitchen to Sara's trials and errors, and when she realised how very amateur were Sara's efforts, she even offered help and advice. Sara did not lay daim to the cottage again.

  Cliff had not tried to see her, and she concluded he had been able to convince Isabel that he, Sara and Rede were not in league against her. Neither he nor Isabel were present at a drinks party which Rede gave at the Temasik offices to introduce Sara to some of his colleagues, and when Sara remarked on their absence, he replied with a caustic, 'Sorry to have cheated you of a second chance to lay on your act, but it wasn't an occasion for the junior staff,' which Sara let pass without comment.

  She was able to tell herself she had imagined Isabel's thinly veiled hostility at their first meeting until, on her coming home one afternoon, Malee told her Isabel had called. and had chosen to wait in the garden to see her.

  Isabel, protecting her creamy skin from the sun in the shade of a cedar, refused the tea which Sara offered. Greeting Sara with a limp handshake, she came at once to the point of her visit, and it wasn't a social call.

  'I came to see you because I think I'm entitled to your version of what you and Cliff were to each other before he met me. He says you were just one of several girls he'd been dating in England, but that doesn't explain his double-take at the sight of

  ou at the Lotus Room, and I don't believe him,' she said.

  Sara could not resist murmuring, 'What a pity, to feel you can't believe your husband.'

  'Well, can I?' Isabel pressed.

  'I don't know. He may have had other girls, but before he came out here the first time, we were engaged.'

/>   Isabel claimed, 'I knew it, or something like it. He wouldn't admit you meant anything to him, but now he'll have to. He should have realised I could get the truth from you.'

  'Though is it worth while making trouble about it, now that it's all over?' questioned Sara.

  Isabel's eyes narrowed. 'But is it? How can I be sure of that?'

  'On my side, you can be quite sure,' Sara assured her.

  'On his, though? The way he looked at you

  And it was you he telephoned the next morning, wasn't it?' Isabel added, with an air of having kept this long shot in reserve.

  'He did ring, yes,' Sara admitted. 'But how did you know?'

  'We've an extension in our bedroom, and I'd just picked up the receiver there when I heard him tell someone he "must" see him or her. He flicked the switch then, cutting me off, and as we were hardly speaking after the Lotus Room scene, I didn't ask him about it. But where did you meet him that day, and what did he want?'

  'I didn't meet him. I refused,' said Sara.

  'Why?'

  'I had nothing to say to him, nor wanted to hear anything from him.'

  'Or could be—you were afraid your new husband would find out you'd kept a date with Cliff?' Isabel speculated shrewdly.

  'Rede knows that Cliff telephoned and that I didn't meet him.'

  'On sure ground there, are you? Though couldn't he still think Cliff's wanting a date rather odd? Especially considering how soon he caught you on the rebound from Cliff? And Cliff has never told me to this day that Rede Forrest knew you before he went on vacation to England this time.'

  'He didn't,' said Sara. 'We met at your wedding.' Isabel stared. 'You weren't at my wedding to Cliff I '

  'Officially, no. Neither was Rede.'

  'You gatecrashed it? I know Rede came to the reception?

  'I didn't. I was only at the church.'

  `To see Cliff married to me? Poor you! ' There was scant pity in Isabel's tone. 'And yet'—knitting her brows in calculation—'only a matter of weeks later you turn up here, married to Rede. If you were upset over Cliff, pretty fast work, that? For your sake, not shotgun, I hope?'