An Unsuitable Wife

by Lindsay Armstrong

  He smiled briefly. ‘It’ll be our secret. I’m only surprised you haven’t asked me to teach you to swim, though.’ A wicked little glint lit his eyes.

  ‘Could you?’ Her eyes widened.

  ‘I expect I could have a go. It might take a bit of a load off my mind. Now, a light meal and bed for you, my dear, and no arguments.’

  ‘Can I make the salad?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Mike Brennan said as he laid out steaks, sausages and chops on a platter.

  ‘Could you also tell me a bit more about these people?’ Sidonie settled herself on her stool with the chopping-board in front of her and a selection of salad items: tomatoes, a mignonette lettuce, a green capsicum, cucumber, snow peas, shallots and a punnet of beansprouts. She’d also selected a large,.clear Guzzini bowl to put the results of her labours into. Not only was Morning Mist fitted out elegantly but the crockery and cutlery and even the plastic ware was of the highest quality. She paused for a moment and considered that whoever owned the boat not only had good taste but a lot of money.

  ‘Tim Malloy is an orthodontist who’s made a small fortune out of teeth. His other great love, if anyone could love other people’s teeth, is boating. He will have his current girlfriend with him, having split up with his wife. The other couple on board are not that well-known to me but Tim loves to be surrounded by a crowd.’

  ‘I see,’ Sidonie said and frowned.

  ‘What’s exercising your mind now, friend Sid?’ Mike Brennan enquired.

  ‘Well, they sound like … party people,’ she mused. ‘I’m not very good in that kind of company generally.’

  “It’s never wise to prejudge people, Sidonie,’ he replied thoughtfully.

  ‘Oh, I agree with you entirely!’ She waved the chopping-knife but grimaced. ‘It’s just that I’ve had a few—um—unfortunate experiences, you might say.’ She went back to slicing cucumber.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, I’m not good at making conversation, idle conversations—’.

  ‘That’s funny—you never stop talking ‘to me.’

  ‘That’s different! And I often don’t understand jokes or the kind of banter that goes on and I find myself straining every nerve to join in, knowing I must seem like a wet blanket, and it all, for some strange reason, actually affects my hearing.’

  ‘Good God!’ Mike Brennan grinned. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said gloomily and reached for the capsicum. ‘Plus, now,’ she added, ‘I’m more conscious than ever that I come over as too “learned”.’

  ‘For which you lay the blame squarely at my feet?’

  Sidonie raised a troubled grey gaze to his. ‘Not for the actual fact of it, of course, just making me … feel it more acutely.’

  He studied her in silence for a long moment. Then his lips twitched and he said, ‘I was wrong.’

  Sidonie blinked. ‘Wrong?’

  ‘To tell you to try to change yourself. To make you feel uncomfortable with yourself. The only thing I wasn’t wrong about was that it would help to relax a bit.’

  Her lips parted. ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘It’s quite simple.“For some reason he smiled a dry little smile. ‘You’re unique just as you are. And some day the right bloke will understand that and appreciate it and probably never let you get away from him. I hear,’ he said, looking up, ‘our guests approaching.’

  Sidonie closed her mouth with a click and was galvanised into action. Then she looked down at herself despairingly, at her white shorts and old T-shirt. ‘I haven’t even changed!’

  He laughed and came round the island counter to take her chin lightly in his fingers. ‘So many worries. If I know this mob, they’ll be wearing next to nothing so just pop your red bikini on and you’ll be fine.’

  She hesitated. ‘I’ve got another one—not associated so far with all but drowning.’

  He lifted a lazy eyebrow. ‘I didn’t figure you for a two-bikini girl somehow, Sid.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I bought both of them in a rush of blood the day we met at Airlie Beach.’

  ‘Then you definitely shouldn’t waste them,’ he said gravely.

  Despite her fears, the barbecue was going well and she was actually enjoying herself when it happened.

  Mike had rigged up a canvas awning over the aft deck and the barbecue itself was attached to the stern rail so it was sitting mainly over water and a convenient breeze was wafting the smoke away from them. Tim Molloy was a giant of a man with curly red hair but with a persistent, all-embracing kind of friendliness that was hard to resist. His current girlfriend was a languid brunette with a stunning figure but she too was friendly and the other couple the same. They had brought with them several bottles of champagne and before long the kind of friendly banter Sidonie normally found hard to cope with was going on, but, and perhaps it was to do with drinking champagne at eleven o’clock in the morning; while she didn’t suddenly find herself becoming the life and soul of they party, she didn’t feel a freak either.

  It might even be to do with the fact that I’m dressed right for once, she mused. She’d put on her hyacinth floral bikini with a plain blue blouse on top but unbuttoned. Both the other girls were wearing bikinis as Mike had predicted. She’d also left her hair loose and hadn’t known whether to be amused or otherwise when Tim Molloy had taken her hand in his large paw upon being introduced, and said with a genuine. glint of admiration in his eyes, ‘Well, now, I see Mike hasn’t lost his talent for choosing attractive crew!’

  Mike Brennan had grimaced as Sidonie had opened her mouth but she’d shut it upon reflection and merely murmured something incomprehensible with as faint blush.

  They’d all inspected the boat eagerly from bow to stern and come to the conclusion that she was a beauty. ‘The best yet, I’d say, Mike, old son.’ Tim had clapped him heartily on the shoulder. ‘Where will you stop?’

  Mike had shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ And shot Tim an oddly penetrating look, Sidonie thought. Which had led her to think further that here was someone who knew Mike Brennan, knew his background and that she might just glean. some information on the subject.

  She didn’t, at least not at lot other than the fact that they were all, bar her, a cosmopolitan, sophisticated group of people who could discuss the latest news on the EC, the appalling sales tax on foreign luxury cars, whether the state Labour government of Victoria would be re-elected, as well as this divine restaurant in Sydney or, in the case of the girls, the latest state of the boutique on Hamilton Island and what they might wear to the Melbourne Cup.

  Curiously, or perhaps not so—she had decided he wasn’t a rough diamond after all—Mike seemed to be quite at home in all this talk. Not that he was as loquacious as his friend Tim Molloy but it was obvious that they had friends in common and that Mike was entirely abreast not only of world affairs but social-page affairs. It was also obvious that both girls were impressed by him.

  Yet he wore his faded khaki shirt, his red bandanna, a pair of entirely nondescript white shorts that looked as if they could have got mixed up with some un-colourfast colours. in a washing machine and sported none of the gold T chains or Rolex Oyster watches the other two men wore with Benetton T-shirts and expensively colourful togs. It’s his body, Sidonie thought with a curious little pang, so tall and strong but with not an ounce of surplus flesh, and that red Indian face you can’t read, and those deep blue eyes that are capable of looking so amused yet give nothing else away—and she took a despairing sip of champagne.

  Which was when it happened. Karen, Tim’s girlfriend, moved herself out of the shade and casually took off her bikini-top. Then she leant back against a stanchion, closed her eyes and offered herself and her voluptuously beautiful figure to the sun. No one appeared to take the slightest bit of notice bar Sidonie, who choked on a sip of champagne, choked again when the other girl followed suit as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and fled down the ladder mumbling something about getting the salad.


  Mike followed her down and it was not hard to see the quizzical look in his eyes as she stood in the middle of the cabin with her hands pressed to her cheeks. ‘A problem, Sid?’ he murmured.

  She took her hands away. ‘Of course. I feel as if I’ve strayed into a nudist colony!’

  ‘I take it you don’t approve of that kind of thing?’

  ‘No, I don’t! Do you?’

  He shrugged. “It happens quite a lot in this part of the world——’

  ‘That could be a justification for just about anything—rape, murder, heaven knows what.’

  ‘If you let me finish, it’s not a prelude to an orgy in this case, simply an expression of freedom—or something to that effect—on their part. They even have a bare-breasted‘ race day during the Hamilton Island fun-race week, which is only a couple of weeks away as a matter of fact.’

  Sidonie stared up at him. ‘They may well have,’ she said tartly, ‘but if you’re expecting me to–”

  ‘Perish the thought,’ he said seriously. ‘It never crossed my mind.’

  ‘So I should hope,’ she said crossly. ‘But you sound as if you approve of it all!’ she added even more crossly.

  ‘As a matter of fact I don’t—’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see you ordering them to cover up!’

  He grimaced wryly. ‘No. What I meant was, I personally don’t find it any sort of a turn-on. However, it’s quite possible that’s not the spirit it was intended in anyway.’

  For once in her life, Sidonie expressed an extremely cynical sentiment. ‘Want to bet?’

  He stared at her, his lips twitching until she coloured hotly and had to look away and say exasperatedly, ‘Why. do I get the feeling I’m being prudish in the extreme? Is it so…whatever, to be shocked and embarrassed?’

  He watched her thoughtfully for a moment then said with a lift of an eyebrow, ‘No. Not for someone like you. But it’s a pity to let it spoil your day; I got the impression you were enjoying yourself.’

  ‘I was…’

  ‘Then why don’t you look on it as simply enlarging your experience of life? You could still maintain your internal disapproval if you wanted to—I don’t think you’d be seriously compromising your ethics or yourself.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I could try,’ she said reluctantly.

  ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Mike remarked a few hours later as they waved his guests off.

  ‘No,’ Sidonie said consideringly.

  He glinted a faint smile in her direction. ‘You and Karen even had a heart-to-heart chat,’ he murmured.

  Sidonie bit her lip. ‘I may have misjudged Karen, in that I think she is one of those freedom-loving persons as opposed to being—what I thought she was .’

  ‘Also not thick,’ he commented. ‘She obviously felt your disapproval and clothed herself accordingly?’

  This was true. By the time Sidonie had returned to the deck after her outburst to Mike, both girls had put their tops back on and, although they’d made absolutely nothing of it, Sidonie, if anything, had felt worse. She sighed dispiritedly. ‘I told you I was a bit of a social disaster.’

  ‘No, you’re not, my friend Sid,’ he replied bracingly but with that wicked glint in his eye she was coming to know well, ‘just a nice kid, that’s all. And before you take issue with that I’m taking the dinghy to collect my crab pots and the tide is right for a bit of oyster-gathering. How would it be if I showed you how to make oyster mornay this evening?’

  She brightened. ‘Lovely. I’ll clean up in the meantime.’

  It gave her an odd sense of satisfaction to clear away the remains of the barbecue and restore Morning Mist to perfection. Indeed, when she’d finished, she made herself a cup of tea and curled up on the settee with it and looked around. It’s like home, she thought with a pang. It’s more like a home to me than I’ve ever known, what’s worse, and that’s not just because it’s a lovely, comfortable boat but…

  She swallowed and could no longer put off coming to grips with what she felt about Mike Brennan. But, to her intense desolation, nothing she tried to tell herself about it being out of the question to fall in love with a man you barely knew seemed to make the slightest dent in the fact that she had.

  She smiled sadly and thought of the French phrase coup de foudre, the stroke of lightning, and thought, So it is possible to be hit by love in this manner; they know, not that it helps me in the slightest. Only this morning he made it quite plain he wasn’t the right man for me. I wish I knew why… Well, it’s obvious why; he simply doesn’t return the emotion, but why do I get the feeling, still, that there’s some mystery about him? Because, she answered herself, it just doesn’t seem to fit that a man like Mike does nothing more in life than skipper yachts for other people.

  She stared into space for a long moment then got up with a helpless little shrug and decided to shower and change. And it was hard to admit what prompted her to do it, particularly in light of the things she’d said, but some impulse stopped her on the way to her cabin, turned her in the direction of Mike’s, which she happened to know, because she’d cleaned it in her bid to restore the boat after filling it with greasy black smoke, had a full-length mirror behind the door.

  She also told herself ‘she was quite safe as she stared at her image in it, because she would hear the dinghy returning, and she took off her blouse then unhooked her bikini-top and let it fall to the floor. But no sooner was the deed done than she felt the boat rock, heard someone coming down the ladder and gasped in sheer horror as he opened the cabin door and discovered her half naked in it.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she said, distraught, and scrabbled for her blouse.

  ‘Why, Sidonie,’ he said abruptly after stopping short, ‘this is a surprise.’

  Her face, her whole body now barely concealed by her bunched-up blouse held in her hands, felt scorched with shame. ‘I didn’t hear you. I——’

  He smiled briefly. ‘I ran out of fuel so I had to row. And the keys for the locker with the outboard fuel in it are in here.’ He nodded to the table beside the double bed.

  ‘Oh,’ she said hollowly. ‘W-well, I suppose you’d like some sort of an explanation.’

  His lips twisted. ‘Only if you want to; it’s not exactly a crime.’

  ‘I don’t really want to, except to say I had no intention of…I only have a small mirror in my bathroom and…if you must know…’ she sighed unhappily and her shoulders slumped ‘. . .I was possessed of an impulse to see how I looked without my top. I know that must sound crazy to you after the things I said—I don’t know what got into me,’ she finished miserably and studied her feet, wishing she could just disappear through the floor.

  ‘And?’

  Her lashes fluttered up. ‘I…I don’t know what you mean,’ she stammered.

  ‘What was the verdict?’

  ‘I didn’t get much of a chance to form any verdict other than that, as I always knew, I’m not particularly well-endowed. Beside Karen I—there doesn’t seem to be any contest.’

  Mike Brennan shook his head and there was something very wry and amused as well as oddly gentle in his eyes as he said, ‘I told you once before, that could be a matter of opinion. In fact if you want the opinion of a—rather old campaigner, you have a delicate, rose-tinted little figure that would be a delight to many a beholder. So cheer up, Sid. Quantity and quality are never the same thing. Would you mind if I got those keys now? It’s getting dark and I want to fill up the outboard and winch the dinghy up so we can make an early start tomorrow. If you’d also like to start grating some cheese, I’ll shortly commence my cooking lesson for the day.’

  ‘Is that enough?’

  Mike glanced at the mound of grated cheese. ‘Plenty. We’ll put most of it in the sauce and reserve a little for sprinkling on top, and we pour the sauce over the oysters and pop them under the grill.’

  ‘White sauce,’ Sidonie mused, ‘brings back memories I’d prefer to forget.’

  He grimaced. �
��Well, come round and see exactly how it’s done. Here.’ He handed her a wooden spoon.

  ‘Just stir it gently and consistently. As you’ll observe, it’s cooking over a very low flame.’

  Sidonie stirred intently for a few minutes with the appearance of absolute concentration. But the fact of the matter was her concentration was divided because she couldn’t get out of her mind what he’d said earlier—about her having a delicate, rose-tinted figure that would be a delight to many a beholder … And just to think of it made her feel curiously tremulous yet strangely a sad. Indeed, her hand trembled on the spoon and she had to clench her teeth to settle herself down.

  That was when she heard Mike laugh softly and say, ‘Relax, kid, cooking’s not really such a desperate occupation. Once you appreciate the cause and effects of it as you so obviously do in anything mechanical, it’ll be a breeze.’

  She made a deliberate effort to relax. ‘Sorry, I was thinking of something else actually—’ She broke off and bit her lip.

  He looked at her with his lips twisting. ‘I hesitate to ask this but—it’s not to do with anything else you haven’t told me, is it?’

  She blinked.

  ‘Like not being able to swim,’ he said gently.

  ‘Oh. Oh, no! I really don’t think I have any secrets from you now,’ she said, realised the terrible untruth of it as the words left her mouth and started to stir extremely agitatedly.

  ‘Sid——’ his hand closed over hers on the spoon ‘—I don’t think we need another disaster associated with white sauce—what’s the matter?’

  She stared at his lean brown hand over hers and was struck by a sensation of pure sensuality for the first time in her life. But it wasn’t just the feel of his hand on hers, it was the total, overwhelming consciousness of him so close to her, the clean yet purely male tang of him, the desire to rest against him and be held, to bury herself in his arms and be a part of him, to wonder, if she offered him her rose-tinted body, whether she could afford him some respite from whatever burdens he carried, because she was sure there were some, or simply to bring him a little pleasure.