by Anne Mather
Thomas turned out to be Charles’s houseboy. He had a permanently smiling face, and the children took to him at once. Also, Charles explained, it made it very difficult for one to chastise him. It was impossible to remain angry for long with someone who looked so cheerfully innocent.
Before sitting down to their meal, Charles suggested that they might like to familiarise themselves with the layout of the bungalow, and as the children were keen, Elizabeth agreed. The building was divided into two halves by a long, narrow hall that ran from front to back. On one side was the large lounge-cum-dining area, with a small bedroom at the back where Caroline was to sleep; and on the other were the two larger bedrooms where Charles and Elizabeth, and the children were to sleep. The bathroom, like the kitchen, was annexed to the back of the bungalow, and comprised of a chipped wash basin and rather primitive toilet, with a shower that could only be used if an overhead tank had first been manually filled.
The children found this tour of inspection fascinating, and Miranda had cast away the slightly dejected air she had worn during the latter stages of their journey. The sight of the mosquito nets draped above their beds made the prospect of sleeping so much more exciting, and David asserted that he was going to take a shower the very next day.
But Caroline could see Elizabeth’s face changing as she began to appreciate the lack of facilities. The bungalow bore no resemblance to the comfort of the hotel in Ashenghi, and perhaps it was a pity that they had had to spend a night there. The contrast would not have been so much in evidence if they had driven on to La Vache last night. The furniture, for instance, was starkly practical, and because there had been no feminine hand in the design there was not even a brightly patterned cushion to add colour to the dull browns and beiges that made up most of the curtains and upholstery.
However, the meal that Thomas had prepared was waiting for them and it fortunately precluded any immediate discussion of their surroundings. Introducing a new topic to divert Elizabeth’s attention, Caroline asked what education was provided for the African children.
‘It’s quite good, actually,’ replied Charles, obviously enjoying the somewhat stringy beef that Thomas had served together with beans and sweet potatoes. ‘There’s a mission only a mile away at Katwe Fork, and the padre’s wife, Helen, teaches the younger children. The padre teaches the older children himself, and if by the time they reach eleven or twelve they show potential, he arranges for them to be transferred to the school at Luanga.’
Miranda choked then, and had to be thumped vigorously on the back by her brother before she could dislodge the piece of meat from her throat. Her eyes were streaming with tears by the time she coughed it up, as much with the hardness of David’s pounding as with the shock of choking. But before Caroline could say anything to comfort her, Elizabeth turned on her husband:
‘My God, Charles,’ she exclaimed tremulously, ‘I hope you’re satisfied! Bringing us out to this dreadful place and expecting us to stay for weeks! Why, the food’s not even edible, and you don’t care that we might all die of dysentery or worse in these appalling conditions!’ She flung her napkin down on the table and rose to her feet, ignoring Miranda’s wail of: ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ and marched to the door. ‘I’m going to bed, and don’t you dare to try and stop me!’
Apart from Miranda snuffling unhappily into her napkin there was complete silence for several minutes after Elizabeth had left the room. Charles looked absolutely staggered, and Caroline felt terribly sorry for him. Obviously, in the excitement of their arrival he had not noticed Elizabeth’s lack of enthusiasm, and her outburst had been completely unexpected so far as he was concerned.
At last it was David who broke the silence by saying: ‘What’s the matter with Mummy? What was she talking about? We’re not going to die, are we, Daddy?’
Charles’s mouth worked nervously. ‘No—no, of course you’re not going to die, son!’ He put a slightly unsteady hand on David’s head. ‘I—er—I expect it’s all the travelling. Mummy’s tired, that’s all, like she said. She’ll feel better in the morning. Won’t she, Caroline?’
As he looked across the table at her, Caroline realised that he was looking for reassurance, too, just as David had been. Poor Charles, he hadn’t the faintest idea of how to deal with someone like Elizabeth. The trouble was he had always been too soft with her, too gentle and considerate. Living apart for most of the year as they did he was inclined to indulge her in everything when he came home, and Elizabeth had never known what it was to be thwarted. What she needed was a firmer hand, a less understanding nature; someone who would mete out to her the kind of treatment she usually allotted to other people. But whether Charles had it in him to adopt that kind of attitude towards his wife, Caroline had her doubts.
Now she said: ‘I think we’re all tired, Charles. And I shouldn’t let what Elizabeth says bother you. It’s all so different, you see. It takes time to get used to.’
Charles pushed his plate aside, his appetite obviously deserting him. ‘I haven’t noticed you making too much fuss,’ he remarked, swallowing a mouthful of the lager which Thomas had provided to have with their meal.
Caroline smiled wryly. ‘I don’t have anyone to fuss at,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘Now, David, Miranda—who’s going to try this blancmange that Thomas has made for us?’
Charles fidgeted his way through the sweet course which even Caroline had to admit was not very palatable. Made with dried milk, the blancmange was still powdery, and both David and Miranda refused to finish theirs. But when Thomas brought in the coffee, Charles rose to his feet.
‘Look here, Caroline,’ he exclaimed awkwardly, ‘will you excuse me? I mean—well, I really think I ought to go and see if Elizabeth’s all right…’
Caroline nodded. ‘That’s all right, Charles. You go ahead. The children and I can manage perfectly well.’
Charles breathed a sigh of relief, bestowed a warm smile on his two youngsters, and then made a hasty exit.
‘Why can’t we go with Daddy?’ asked Miranda, still rather tearful.
David nudged her in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Don’t be stupid, baby! They don’t want us. They want to kiss and cuddle and that sort of thing, don’t they, Caroline?’
Caroline hid a smile. ‘If you say so, David,’ she answered mildly, pouring herself another cup of coffee.
Later, Caroline got the children ready for bed while Thomas was clearing the table, and then, with his assistance, settled them beneath their mosquito nets. Fortunately Thomas spoke very good English although his manner of phrasing things wasn’t always right, and she was glad of his help. She dreaded to think what would happen if either of the children wanted to go to the bathroom during the night. However would they manage to get back beneath their mosquito nets? She shook her head. Oh, well! That was a problem they would have to face if and when the occasion occurred.
Neither Charles nor Elizabeth had reappeared, and Caroline hoped that this was a good sign. At any rate, Elizabeth hadn’t made another scene and turned him out of the bedroom.
After that, the bungalow was very quiet. Thomas had wished her goodnight and left for some private destination of his own, and Caroline sat in the lounge for a while wondering what one did in the evenings here. It was scarcely nine o’clock and yet bed seemed the only sensible conclusion.
Turning out the lights, she eventually went to her own cubbyhole of a room. Thomas had left her suitcase standing at the foot of the bed, and she lifted it on to a plain stinkwood chest that would apparently have to serve as a storage container for her underwear. The only other furniture in the room, apart from the iron-framed bed, was a tall hanging-closet, which, when she opened the door, smelt so strongly of disinfectant that she was deterred from hanging anything inside; and a kind of marble-topped wash-stand, on which stood a basin and a jug of rather brackenish-coloured water in which floated a motley assortment of flying insects. The floor was covered by a kind of cheap linoleum, and there was a rag rug beside the bed. All in
all, it was not a very inspiring apartment, but at least the bed felt comfortable when she bounced on it.
Scooping away most of the insects, she managed to rinse her face and hands before taking off her clothes and putting on her nightdress. Quite honestly, she wished she had brought some pyjamas with her. There was something rather vulnerable about a nightdress when one couldn’t be sure that one’s bed might not be invaded by ants in the night.
Thrusting such disquieting thoughts aside, she turned out the light and climbed into bed. She supposed Elizabeth ought to be grateful that there was electric light here, run from a community generator. They could quite easily have found themselves with only oil lighting and no kind of refrigeration for food.
Lying there in the darkness, Caroline found her thoughts turning back to her meeting with Gareth Morgan. She had known this would happen, and that was why she had been loath to go to bed, but sooner or later she had to face the fact that whatever he had once felt for her, now he despised her and any crazy ideas she had had about effecting a reconciliation should be forgotten.
All the same, her reasons for coming here had not changed. The pity of it was that she had been unable to come any sooner. Anything she said now he would disbelieve even were he prepared to listen, which he so obviously was not. Why was it that one never recognised the value of something until it was out of reach?
She rolled on to her stomach, burying her face in the pillow. Could she ever be excused for her behaviour of seven years ago? She had only been seventeen years old, after all, whereas Gareth had been thirty even then. Perhaps that was why he had been so easily deterred. Perhaps he had considered himself too old for her. But it hadn’t been that. It had been her own stupid belief that without a secure background—without money—no love could hope to survive. From an early age her mother had drilled it into her—the old adage: when poverty comes in the door, love flies out of the window. And she had believed it, believed it blindly. Hadn’t her own father left her mother when she was small for those very reasons? Hadn’t he taken off with some flighty young thing who had a job of her own and wouldn’t saddle him with a home and family to support? Hadn’t she seen the marriages of people around who were finding it hard to make ends meet and who indulged their frustrations in rows? And she had determined not necessarily to marry for money instead of for love, but rather only to love where money was.
Time had passed, changing things, changing Caroline’s ideas, and bringing with it the realisation of exactly what she had lost. But by then it had been too late to regress. Gareth had placed himself out of her reach, and she had had to go on alone and make a life for herself.
And she had succeeded admirably. She had gone to college and become a qualified teacher, obtaining for herself a good post at a large comprehensive school. She was well liked among the staff and popular with the pupils, and after her mother died two years ago she had managed to get a small flat and become independent. From time to time she had had word of Gareth. His married sister lived in Hampstead, not far from where Caroline and her mother had lived, and whenever Caroline went back to visit old friends she had heard of Gareth through them.
Eventually, the thing that Caroline had once wanted to happen became reality. Through the headmaster at the school, she became friendly with Jeremy Brent, the headmaster of a well-established boys’ preparatory school in Kensington. He was everything she had once looked for in a husband—rich and attractive, of a good family with excellent prospects, and what was more would inherit his father’s baronetcy one day. He was instantly attracted to her and lost no time in asking her out and showing his interest was serious. Caroline should have been delighted, she should have been proud that a man like Jeremy wanted her for his wife, but something stopped her from falling in love with him. She knew that some part of her still hankered after a man who within a year of their separation had married and was still married to someone else. She used to tell herself that she was a fool, that if she wasn’t careful she’d end up like her mother, a lonely and embittered woman, but nevertheless, although she became engaged to Jeremy she delayed the inevitability of marriage.
Naturally, Jeremy became impatient. There was absolutely no reason why they should not get married right away. As well as his service flat in town, and his apartments at the school, he owned a small house in Sevenoaks which would suit them ideally until they started a family. He offered her a cruise to the West Indies for their honeymoon, and an unlimited account at Harrods to buy her trousseau. But still Caroline hesitated.
And then, early in the New Year, she had learned that Gareth’s wife had left him, that they were getting a divorce, and suddenly she had known that this was why she had been delaying her marriage to Jeremy.
She had half expected that Gareth would come home, to England. She knew his parents were dead, but there was his married sister in Hampstead who hadn’t seen him for years. But Gareth didn’t come to England, and as the weeks passed Caroline had become impatient and restless. Then, when the opportunity arose to accompany Elizabeth Lacey and her children out to Tsaba, she had not hesitated. She had told Jeremy the truth—that she was very much afraid she loved someone else—and that before settling down with him she had to make sure.
Jeremy had not seemed too surprised. He had sensed for weeks that something was troubling her, but when it came to her giving him back his ring he became obstinate. He insisted that he was convinced this was just a phase she was going through, that when she got out to Africa and met this man again she would realise how foolish she had been, that no emotion she had felt when she was still a schoolgirl could possibly survive her maturity to womanhood.
However, Caroline could be obstinate too when she chose, and she had made him take back the ring.
‘Who knows?’ she had commented lightly, ‘in the six weeks I’m away, you might meet someone far more worthy of your love than I am.’
‘Don’t be facetious!’ Jeremy had snapped, snatching her in his arms and pressing his lips to hers. ‘I won’t let you go like this. I won’t let you leave the country without the badge of my possession on your finger.’
‘But you don’t possess me,’ Caroline had replied, rather quietly, and Jeremy had become angry.
‘Perhaps I should have done,’ he had exclaimed furiously. ‘Perhaps if you were already mine, this fellow wouldn’t want you anyway. Or were you his possession first?’
Caroline had slapped his face then. She had been unable to prevent herself and Jeremy had had the grace to look ashamed. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Caroline,’ he had cried frustratedly, ‘but can’t you see? I can’t bear to let you go!’
But of course he had had to, although he had threatened that if she was not back within the six weeks she had promised, he would come out to Tsaba and fetch her back himself.
Caroline rolled on to her back and stared unseeingly up at the darkened roof above her. From time to time, she could hear rustlings outside the bungalow, and her flesh crept at the possibilities these noises conjured up. But mostly there were just the sounds of the night—the incessant scraping of the insects, the harsh croaking of bullfrogs, and occasionally the startled cry of some wild thing caught by a predator.
What was she doing here? she asked herself honestly. What was driving her to remain here and possibly risk further humiliation? What if Jeremy’s turned out to be the love she craved and he grew tired of waiting for her? What would she do?
The answers were simple but stark. She was here because in spite of everything she was still attracted to a man who had shown that his feelings for her had soon been replaced by those for another. And if Jeremy got tired of waiting, if he found someone else in her absence, then she hoped he would be happy. Because she very much doubted her ability to make herself happy, let alone anyone else…
CHAPTER THREE
CAROLINE slept badly. She tossed and turned in the narrow bed, occasionally stubbing her toes on the unaccustomed rails at its foot, and was awakened with a start at half past
six by an uproar from the children’s room. Only half awake, she sprang out of bed, searching for the quilted cotton robe she had draped over the chest the night before. The children’s room was across the passage and as she emerged from her room she could hear Miranda screaming and David whooping exuberantly.
Wondering how on earth Charles and Elizabeth could sleep through such a din, she thrust open the children’s door. Miranda was a quivering heap in one corner of the room, while her brother was bouncing excitedly up and down on his bed.
‘What on earth is going on here?’ Caroline demanded.
But even as she spoke she saw what it was that had reduced Miranda to a frightened jelly. Standing squarely on the floor between her and the comparative safety of her bed was a lizard, perhaps six inches in length, with grotesquely revolving eyes.
Miranda had stopped screaming at Caroline’s entrance and pointed with trembling fingers towards the small reptile. ‘It—it’s a dragon!’ she announced, her voice trembling. ‘A baby dragon. And—and soon its mummy is going to come and take it away!’
Caroline gave David an impatient glance. ‘Oh, really?’ she commented. ‘I suppose your brother told you that.’
Miranda started to nod, but David broke in, his expression indignant. ‘No, I did not,’ he denied. ‘I only said that—well, perhaps it might be a dragon…’
‘But you knew it was not,’ stated Caroline, turning to him. ‘Didn’t you?’
David hunched his shoulders. ‘How should I know what it is?’
Caroline regarded the terrified creature with a certain amount of distaste. ‘Well, Miranda, it’s not a dragon. Nor is it a baby anything. It’s a lizard, that’s all. A harmless, frightened lizard, who can’t understand what all this fuss is about. Can you see the way its little body is throbbing? That’s because it’s scared—more scared of you than you should be of it.’
Miranda scrambled slowly to her feet, her eyes glued to the creature as she did so. Then she looked across at Caroline. ‘But—but what’s it doing in here? How—how did it get in?’