by Janet Tanner
They had cool drinks and a snack in the hotel bar and then spent the afternoon exploring. But Tom drove; the question of Harriet doing so was not even mentioned.
They ate that night in a little bistro, the only two customers at the check-clothed tables, and afterwards sat on the verandah of their hotel watching the moon rise, a huge orange balloon smudged around the edges by a shrouding of river mist. In the darkness around them mosquitoes hummed, crickets chirped noisily and on the banks of the river, which was running high and deep, frogs croaked.
‘It must have been nights like this that started the legend of Dreamtime Tom said.
‘Dreamtime?’
‘When the world was young. A kind of Aboriginal Garden of Eden.’
‘Oh I see. Dreamtime. I like it,’ Harriet said, thinking that certainly there was a magic in the night; in the soft still-hot air, in the pink-tinted mist and the sounds of nature undisturbed. Here, with the hint of a breeze sighing in the ghost gums, reality seemed very far away. She glanced at Tom, sitting very relaxed, chair tipped back, feet propped through the bars of the verandah, and thought that it was difficult to believe this was the same man who had questioned her so searchingly about her mother.
As if he had felt her eyes on him, Tom turned and looked at her quizically and she felt awareness twist sharply again. At once her defences came up and she looked away, flustered by the tangle of emotions.
‘I’m very tired. I think maybe I’ll have an early night.’
In the small silence that followed she half expected him to try to persuade her to stay. There had been something in the way he had looked at her which had made her think for a moment that he was feeling much as she did. But the moment passed and she was glad. She was not sure she was ready to find out if she had read that look correctly, any more than she was sure she was ready to extend the parameters of what had so far been no more than a partnership of convenience. She found him attractive, yes, no denying it, but she really was tired – and emotions were likely to be exaggerated when one was at a low physical ebb.
‘You don’t mind if I go to bed then?’ she said, getting up and hoping that at least she was giving the appearance of her usual contained self.
‘Not at all.’ His voice was light and easy. ‘Don’t forget your mosquito net.’
‘I won’t. Goodnight.’
He raised a hand, casual gesture of farewell. But as she got up and went into the hotel she knew his eyes were following her.
When she had gone Tom sat on the verandah watching the velvet night creep in, thinking about Harriet and admitting to himself for the first time just how much he wanted her.
He had found her attractive right from the start, of course – perhaps more so than he had cared to acknowledge, for hadn’t he experienced something very close to jealousy every time Harriet made mention of her editor, Nick? It was obvious to everyone but a fool that theirs was far more than a business relationship and Tom had cast iron proof of it. After his first visit to her flat in London he had parked up the street for a while to keep observation, guessing that when he left her she would do some telephoning and it was quite on the cards that someone would arrive at the flat to talk things over. That someone had been Nick (Tom had established his identity by getting one of his pals in the Metropolitan police to run a PNC check – against the rules, but who was to know?) and when Tom had driven away in the grey dawn his car had still been there, parked outside her flat.
But he hadn’t given much thought to her as a woman beyond the typical red-blooded male response that he would like to get her into bed – and that had been a passing thought only. Far more important was the job in hand. He was determined to get to the bottom of the Martin/ Varna business and proximity to Harriet offered him a window on her world. With all his investigative instincts aroused he had been quite prepared to make use of her.
But somewhere along the line things had changed. When had it happened? He couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that he had looked at her tonight and felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach by a mule. As the thought occurred to him he smiled briefly. What an expression! But it did sum up perfectly the way he felt – and for him it was something of a new experience.
Ever since he had passed the stage of uncertain adolescence Tom had realised he was attractive to the opposite sex. More often than not women threw themselves at him and without the slightest vestige of conceit Tom had come to take the ease of his conquests as a fact of life. But they had been passing fancies only. He could not remember one who had affected him the way Harriet was affecting him now. Was it the way she looked – stunning in an almost careless way? Or the undeniable self-assurance that came from being raised in a privileged background? Possibly that had something to do with it. But it was more than that. There was her determination to succeed in a demanding career when it would have been so easy to rely on inherited wealth, but also a vulnerability beneath that tough veneer. And there was the promise of warmth beneath the coolness, a capacity for passion beneath the restraint. Had Nick tapped that capacity? Tom’s stomach contracted again as he thought of it and he got up abruptly.
This kind of diversion was not conducive to good investigating. But at least he had another day to kill before he could continue with his pursuit of Greg Martin; another day alone with Harriet. A half smile lifted one corner of his mouth. Tom O’Neill intended to make the most of it.
The country around Katherine is some of the most beautiful in the Northern Territory – in the whole of Australia perhaps. The Katherine River, named by the explorer Stewart for the daughter of the South Australian pastoralist James Chambers who financed three of his expeditions into the Territory, has cut its way through the sandstone cliffs to form thirteen spectacular gorges, some with walls two hundred feet high, as it winds its way past Smith’s Rock and Jedda Rock, and through the lush tropical greenery of the National Park.
In the dry season when the river is quiet and slow, boat tours ply the river, enabling visitors to see the full glory of the towering walls of the Gorge, but now, with the river full and fast flowing and the tourists too few and far between to make the trips viable, Harriet and Tom had to content themselves with driving into the Park and exploring on foot. But they were not disappointed. The tropical greenery had flourished under its annual watering; it rioted now around the ancient canyons and escarpments and the tranquil lagoons, with water so clear that every shade of colour of the pebbles at the bottom was clearly visible, were adorned with water lillies the size of dinner plates.
Here in the quiet reserve the bird life abounded – bower birds rose noisily from their nests on the rainforest floor, while tiny insect-eaters fluttered and skimmed through the overhanging canopy of branches, like huge brilliant butterflies. And everywhere, of course, were the parrots – white sulphur crested cockatoos, vibrant rosellas and lorikeets, chattering flocks of noisy grey and pink galahs. Harriet’s camera shutter clicked incessantly – she did not think the pictures would be any use to Focus Now, they were too much of a tourist indulgence and had all been done before and probably better in National Geographical Magazine, but she took them anyway, for her own pleasure.
The hotel had supplied them with a packed lunch and they sat down to eat it near a lagoon fed by a little waterfall – fresh bread rolls with cheese and ham, plump juicy tomatoes and bananas from a local market garden. The sun beat body down between the trees providing a pattern of deeply dappled light and shade as they ate, sitting on Tom’s Barbour which they had spread on the ground.
‘I could stay here forever,’ Harriet said softly, speaking her thoughts aloud. ‘It’s so peaceful!’
‘You can say that again. You’d soon miss your fix of the daily hurly burly, though. Peace is all very well in small doses but for the likes of you and me it would soon become tedious, I suspect.’
‘I suppose so. Just at the moment I feel I could take any amount of it. I think I’ll stay here and refuse to go back.’
‘And what woul
d Nick say about that?’ He hadn’t meant to say it but the words were out before he could stop them.
‘I could take photographs for him out here as well as anywhere else,’ she said, deliberately misunderstanding.
‘I wasn’t thinking of the photographs you might take. It was his personal reaction that I meant.’
Instantly the sharp awareness was there, itching beneath her skin like prickly rash.
‘Nick wouldn’t have any right to say anything,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t own me.’
‘Harriet, the man who thought he could own you would be a fool.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong. Nick is just a friend and also my editor.’ She reached out to pick a tiny delicate flower growing in the grass and then went on: ‘ You know an awful lot about me and I know nothing whatever about you. I don’t think that’s very fair.’
He shifted his long frame.
‘Oh, there’s nothing much to know. I live quietly in a hellishly untidy flat in Battersea – when I’m not half way around the world chasing up some job or other.’
‘Do your jobs often take you around the world?’
‘A few have – well, abroad, anyway. This is the farthest, I must admit. But you don’t want to hear about my work.’
‘No, I want to hear about you. Where you come from. That sort of thing.’
‘I told you – Battersea.’
‘With a name like O’Neill I’d guess it was much more interesting than that.’
‘All right – I do have Irish blood in my veins if you want to know. I suppose that appeals to the American in you.’
‘Anglo-American, not Irish,’ she reminded him. ‘ Go on. Where are your roots?’
‘County Kerry. But they are buried pretty deep. My great grandfather – or was it my great-great-grandfather? I always get them confused – came over in the potato famine. I’m more Liverpool than Irish – but then they call Liverpool the capital of Ireland.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’ Harriet persisted.
‘One brother, older, clever and respectable – he’s a surveyor, one sister, younger, married with two kids. Uncle Tom – that’s me.’
‘And you’re not … married?’
‘What makes you assume that?’
‘You don’t feel married. You’re obviously free to jet off anywhere at the drop of a hat. No, I don’t think there’s a Mrs O’Neill at that flat in Battersea.’
He grinned. ‘ You’re right, of course. But I think it’s my undarned socks that gave me away, not my obvious freedom. I feel sure a liberated lady like you wouldn’t deny a man the same privileges.’
‘How did we arrive back at me? We were talking about you.’
‘You are a much more interesting subject.’ She looked at him sharply, caught unawares. He was sprawled back on the Barbour, propped on one elbow, can of beer at hand, but when his eyes met and held hers there was nothing lazy about them.
Her breath constricted, she was hypnotised by those eyes – nothing could have induced her to look away.
‘Much more interesting,’ he said again. His arm went round her and still she did not move. The prickle was back beneath her skin, warm and creeping, and her stomach felt weak. He pulled her towards him and she did not resist. For a moment she was aware of him as never before, as if she were standing back and observing him with every one of her senses, detached yet at the same time intimately involved. The smell of his sun-warmed skin was in her nostrils, the line of his chin with the faint dark shadow of beard showing through looked strangely beautiful, the touch of his lips as they brushed her forehead started dark fires within her. She sat motionless yet every nerve ending seemed to be yearning towards him, nerve endings she had never realised she possessed. Her whole body was alive and singing, there was no room for thought, no will to draw back.
As he kissed her on the mouth a shudder ran through the very core of her. Her arms were around him now, feeling the long hard lines of his back beneath her hands as he pushed her back onto the ground. She lay beneath his weight returning his kisses and feeling the attraction spark between them like electric short circuits.
After a moment he rolled away, resting on one elbow and looking down at her.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I met you.’
She half-laughed; anything to relieve the tension she was feeling.
‘Why didn’t you then?’
‘In your flat? In London? Oh come on now, that would have been asking to get my face slapped.’
‘You could just be right.’ Her voice was unsteady.
‘I don’t think you liked me very much,’ he said ruefully.
‘I don’t think you liked me! Kiss me, indeed!’
‘You don’t have to like someone to want to kiss them.’
‘Oh!’ She arched her body provocatively, teasing. ‘ So you still don’t like me?’
‘I never said that.’ He reached out and took a strand of her hair, twisting it between his fingers. ‘You are very beautiful, with a lot of what they used to refer to as ‘‘spunk,’’ you may be talented for all I know, and when you relax you can be quite fun.’
‘Good.’ She teased him with her eyes, wanting him to kiss her again.
‘My pleasure.’ One corner of his mouth lifted wickedly. ‘You are of course also stubborn, spoiled and when upset you are likely to bite.’
‘Beast!’ She made to hit him and he caught her wrist, pinning it to the ground above her head. Then slowly, deliberately, he lowered himself so that his face blotted out the sky. Again she felt the surge of electricity between them.
Above them the sky was growing darker but neither noticed. He kissed her soundly, taking his time about it, keeping her arm twisted above her head with one hand while the other cupped her chin then ran down the line of her neck and shoulder. She felt the first heavy spots of rain on her outspread palm and ignored them. For long moments they continued to kiss, too engrossed in one another to care about anything but their closeness. Then as the storm became a downpour and the first lightning split the sky they could ignore it no longer.
Tom scrambled to his feet, swearing. His shirt was already soaked and clinging to his back. Harriet was less wet – his body had protected her – but long before they reached the ute she too was drenched.
‘Thank goodness my camera was in the bag!’ she gasped, as water dripped out of her fringe and ran down her face.
Sheet lightning illuminated the sudden darkness, almost like night, and rain lashed the windscreen of the ute.
‘We’d better get out of here,’ Tom said above the grumble of the thunder. ‘ We don’t want to get bogged down.’
He started the ute and moved off along the unmade-up track which was already turning to quagmire beneath the churning wheels.
The ferocity of the storm was awesome and in spite of the cloying heat Harriet shivered. This was elemental nature in all its raw majesty.
The ute bumped over a rise and down the other side into a morass of mud. The wheels spun, fighting to get a grip. Tom put his foot down hard and the engine raced but the ute remained stationary.
‘Take the wheel.’ He opened the driver’s door. ‘I’ll see if I can push it out.’
He jumped down, mud squelching over his shoes, and ploughed around to the rear of the ute. Harriet moved into the driver’s seat, stretching to reach the pedals. Her sandals too were filthy, mud clinging between her toes. As Tom pushed she tried to pull away and eventually, just when she had begun to think it never would, the ute inched forward.
‘Keep it going!’ Tom yelled.
She drove slowly and he ran to catch her up, hauling himself into the passenger seat. ‘You want to take over?’ she asked.
‘No – just keep going.’
She drove with intense concentration, manoeuvring the muddy track. As they hit made-up road the storm seemed to ease, the lightning sporadic, the thunder no more than an echoing rumble, the rain dying to a thick steaming mist.
She jerk
ed to a stop, her ankles going into cramp from stretching to reach the pedals.
‘Thank goodness for that! You can take over now.’ She turned to look at him and burst out laughing. His hair was dripping, face and clothes spattered with mud that had flown from the churning wheels. Yet he still looked as attractive as ever.
‘You can laugh!’ he said ruefully.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just that …’
‘I know. I’m in a bit of a mess.’
She looked down at her skin, clinging wetly to her legs, and her own filthy feet.
‘I don’t suppose I’m much better.’
‘You,’ he said, ‘are still the most beautiful girl in the Northern Territory.’
He reached for her wrist, holding it fast while he kissed her again.
‘Don’t, Tom!’ she warned. ‘We’ll probably stick together.’
‘I can’t think of anything nicer, can you?’
She couldn’t.
‘Move over then and let me drive,’ he said some time later.
After dinner they sat once more on the verandah of their hotel with the heady perfume of the wet shrubs in their nostrils. But tonight there was a sense of anticipation keeping the atmosphere electric. It was there each time their eyes met or their hands brushed, even three feet apart the air crackled with it as it had this afternoon with the energy of the storm.
‘What about a walk before bed?’ Tom suggested.
The main street of Katherine, which followed the bank of the river, was almost deserted. Light spilled out from a bar but the garage had closed down for the night, its pumps standing like silent sentinels outside the sprawling workshop and office.
Tom took her hand and the attraction sparked again, sending sharp tingles up her veins.
No one had ever made her feel this way before, alive with longing. She thought of Nick and the pathetic efforts she had made to respond to his lovemaking but she found she was unable even to conjure up a vision of his face. He seemed so far away now – it was almost as if he had never existed. And perhaps he never had for her. What had unlocked her emotions? Was it the stress of the past week? Or being in a different country? Whatever the reason it was unimportant. She was in a trance now except that it seemed the trance was reality and everything else mere shadows.