‘All right, Claire,’ he snarled, turning back to face her. ‘You’ve made it perfectly plain that our encounter was nothing more than an idle frolic as far as you’re concerned. Well, I wish to God I’d never laid hands on you, but you have my promise that it won’t happen again. Don’t bother coming with me. I’ll see myself out!’
Moments later the front door slammed with a force that set the pictures swinging on the wall. Claire collapsed slowly into a chair and rocked herself backwards and forwards, with low, gasping cries. Pain seared through her with scalding force and, try as she might, she could not feel any pleasure in her victory. She had taken her revenge on Alain, just as she’d intended. So why did she feel so wretched?
The next three weeks were a difficult time for Claire. Somehow she seemed to be encased in a cocoon of misery, where the only thing she could feel was the pain of her feud with Alain. Her body went through the motions of everyday life, getting up, eating, running the tours, visiting her father in hospital, but she felt detached from it all. To try and raise her spirits, she took up tamure dancing again and joined a local troupe which was practising for the big July festival. Yet her heart wasn’t in it. At night she slept badly, suffering vivid nightmares where she argued and pleaded with Alain, or, worse still, made love with him. But in the mornings she always woke to find herself alone with her bed in total chaos and her cheeks crusted with tears. Fortunately the tour business was booming and she found herself committed to doing two or even three tours per day, seven days a week. It was exhausting, but Claire welcomed the work, because it gave her less time to think about Alain. And it also gave her the opportunity to save some money to pay off her father’s debt, since she was grimly determined that the Beaumont’s must owe Alain nothing.
After two weeks, she had enough money set aside to send him a substantial cheque as the first instalment. He sent it back, without any covering letter. Fuming, Claire sent it to him yet again. This time he kept it, but did not cash it. Claire had to admit defeat. And the worst of it was that she realised she had been secretly hoping for some contact with Alain over the issue. A letter, a quarrelsome telephone call, an angry visit. In the end she swallowed her pride enough to phone the hotel and ask for him. But his secretary told her that he had returned to Bora Bora and was staying there indefinitely. And she added apologetically that he was not taking any personal calls.
This stalemate continued until the third week after their heated parting, when something happened to shake Claire out of her lethargy. Marie Rose returned from her honeymoon. Because of her father’s illness, it was agreed that she should stay overnight in Papeete to visit him in hospital and rejoin her husband on Moorea the following day. But once Marie Rose had satisfied herself about Roland’s state of health, she turned her attention relentlessly to Claire. Throughout the hospital visit, Claire was conscious of her sister darting her speculative looks and, when they reached home, Marie Rose lost no time in asking questions.
‘What’s the matter with you, Claire?’ she demanded, as they began preparing dinner. ‘You look pale and bugeyed and awful. Are you sick or something?’
With this sisterly encouragement, Claire took a long, choking gulp, snatched a handful of tissues and blew her nose violently. Once she was able to talk again, Marie Rose patiently extracted all the relevant details from her, while simultaneously stirring a large pot of boeuf bourguignon. Her questions were so shrewd and penetrating that in the end Claire broke down and confessed everything to her, right down to her involvement with Marcel Sauvage. Marie Rose gave a low whistle of shock.
‘No wonder Alain took so long to get involved with you,’ she said. ‘It seems to me that you both have a big problem with trusting each other.’
Claire’s eyes blazed indignantly.
‘Alain is the one with the problem!’ she protested. ‘Not me!’
‘Well, you certainly didn’t make things any easier for him, did you?’ demanded Marie Rose. ‘Lying to him like that about how you were having an affair with poor old Danny Abbott! What on earth possessed you, Claire?’
‘I didn’t lie!’ said Claire sulkily. ‘Alain simply jumped to conclusions.’
‘Lying,’ insisted Marie Rose. ‘You deliberately deceived him.’
‘It was his own fault,’ muttered Claire. ‘He didn’t have any scruples about sleeping with Nadine when he was already involved with me, did he?’
‘I still can’t believe that Alain made love to you and then went off to Bora Bora for a holiday with Nadine the very next day!’ exclaimed Marie Rose. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘It’s true!’ wailed Claire.
‘We’ll soon see about that!’ announced Marie Rose with a militant light in her eyes. ‘Listen, Claire, Paul and I have to go and visit Alain anyway to check on some details about the blueprints for the Moorea hotel. Do you want me to find out what’s really going on between him and Nadine?’
Claire hesitated. She was sorely tempted by the prospect of having a spy in the enemy’s camp, but pride made her toss her head.
‘No!’ she sniffed. ‘Why should I care what’s going on between him and Nadine? It doesn’t matter to me.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ said Marie Rose tranquilly, dipping her finger into the wooden spoon and licking off a morsel of stew. ‘You can’t fool me. I’ll telephone you tomorrow night and tell you everything. I promise.’
Throughout the next day Claire found her mind wandering as she steered the four-wheel-drive car over rugged mountain tracks and down precipitous, leafy hillsides. However much she might try to pretend that she hated Alain, some part of her brain still clung to the hope that their vendetta was all a mistake. Deep down she was secretly convinced that Marie Rose, with her bloodhound instincts, would uncover some evidence that Alain was innocent. Some proof that he had only gone to Bora Bora with Nadine to examine drainage systems or Polynesian architecture, perhaps? And, when at last the phone rang shortly after eight o’clock, her hands were shaking as she picked up the receiver.
‘Marie Rose?’
The long pause at the other end of the line made her spirits plummet.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ said Marie Rose at last, with none of her usual bounce.
Even then Claire could not quite give up hope.
‘W-well?’ she asked with a valiant attempt at humour. ‘Are they just investigating damp courses or doing a survey of Polynesian unemployment?’
‘In a way,’ agreed Marie Rose heavily. ‘Alain’s talking about building a new hotel there and he’s asked Nadine to draw some preliminary plans, but—’
‘But?’ urged Claire.
‘But they’re definitely sleeping together,’ continued Marie Rose. ‘We went to visit them in the holiday bungalow they were staying at. There was only one bedroom and their clothes were in the same wardrobe. I know because I went in to use the bathroom and I checked.’
‘Oh,’ said Claire in a small voice, feeling as if a knife had gone into her heart. ‘Well, that’s it then, isn’t it?’
Two large tears sprang to her eyes, slid down her cheeks and splashed on her lap.
‘Are you all right, Claire?’ asked Marie Rose anxiously.
‘Me? Oh, yes. Fine. Never been better. Look, I must go. I’ve got coffee boiling over on the stove. Or something.’
‘I’m so sorry, Claire. I never would have believed it of Alain. How could he be so heartless?’
Those words echoed over and over in Claire’s head that night as she lay awake, watching the shadows of the banana fronds stir against her moonlit wall. Outside a faint breeze rustled the trees and the waves whispered on the sand. The lagoon was like a vast sheet of beaten silver and the warm scented aromas of a tropical night blew in through the open window. But all that tranquillity meant nothing to Claire. She lay in stark, tearless agony, her fists clenched and her eyes wide open, as she relived her tempestuous lovemaking with Alain. Once again she felt the intoxicating pressure of his body on hers, saw the urgent blaze in his eye
s that told her he loved her, even if the words were lacking. With a low groan, she turned her face into the pillow. She hadn’t imagined it, she knew she hadn’t! At least in those moments when they had shared the ultimate ecstasy, Alain had loved her. Then how could he turn so blithely from her to Nadine? How could he be so heartless?
In the end she fell into a troubled doze, but she woke shortly after eight o’clock with a headache and sore eyes. While she was gulping down her coffee in frantic haste, the telephone rang. No longer expecting any miracles, she answered it and found that it was her mother, phoning to say that her father would be discharged from hospital the following day. Claire felt barely a flicker of excitement at the news, but she tried to inject some warmth into her voice.
‘That’s wonderful, Maman!’ she said. ‘What time shall I come and fetch you both?’
To Claire’s dismay, she found that her parents’ return the following day only seemed to compound her problems. Naturally she was glad that her father was recovering, but her mother showed an irritating urge to question her about her listless manner and poor appetite. And, after several years of living in her own flat, Claire found that constant daily contact with her parents chafed her nerves. There were times when she longed to go back on her word, give up the tour business and flee to her job in Sydney. But that would mean throwing her family on Alain’s mercy, which was unthinkable. In the end all she could do was grit her teeth and spend as much time as possible out on the road, working. Which was what finally led to disaster.
One afternoon Claire received a phone call at her home, asking her to take two people on the Mount Marau tour. She hesitated, looking doubtfully out the window at the flying buttresses of cloud that were massing overhead.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t really think it would be a good idea. I normally leave much earlier in the day for that particular trip and it looks rather like rain to me this afternoon. The roads up there can be quite dangerous when they’re wet. What about tomorrow morning instead?’
‘Oh, come on, mate,’ wheedled the voice at the other end. ‘The forecast’s for fine weather today and we’re flying out to Los Angeles tomorrow. Tell you what, we’ll pay you double if you’ll take us.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that,’ replied Claire hastily. ‘It’s not the money I’m worried about. It’s your safely.’
‘Well, what about giving it a go? If it starts to rain, you can turn around and come back. Fair enough?’
Claire sighed.
‘All right,’ she agreed.
Her passengers proved to be two red-faced, strapping young Australian men full of jokes and boisterous laughter. As they climbed aboard, one of them flexed a massive bicep at her.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ he grinned. ‘If you get bogged, me and Wayne’ll push you out again.’
In spite of that reassurance, Claire kept an uneasy eye on the sky as she drove out of town. The sun had vanished and vast grey banks of cloud were massing in the sky. Far down below the ocean glittered with a dull metallic gleam like pewter and the air was heavy with an ominous stillness. As they reached the first of the Chinese market gardens, there was a distant rumble of thunder and the first large drops of rain ricocheted off the bonnet of the car.
‘I think we ought to go back,’ she said in a worried voice.
The red-headed youth called Bruce leaned forward over the seat and winked at her in the rear-view mirror.
‘Oh, go a bit further, love,’ he urged. ‘We don’t mind a drop of rain. Anyway, maybe she’ll ease up in a minute.’
But the rain didn’t ease up. Soon it was falling in steady sheets and the roar of wind and thunder filled the air. In the glare of a sudden flash of lightning Claire saw the road ahead change from tarmac to slick red mud.
‘It’s hopeless!’ she shouted above the noise of the storm. ‘I’ll have to turn and go home.’
Even the optimists in the back seat were forced to agree with that.
‘Yeah, reckon you’re right, mate,’ agreed Wayne. ‘Sorry we brought you out for nothing. Hey, what are you doing?’
For Claire had stopped the car and was turning up the collar of her jacket.
‘I’ll have to get out and engage the four-wheel-drive,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can turn safely without getting the wheels in the mud and they’ll never grip in this weather.’
‘Course you can,’ urged Bruce heartily. ‘You’ve got heaps of room before the dirt road starts. But if you’ve really got the wind up, I’ll get out and change to four-wheel-drive for you.’
‘Oh, no, don’t worry!’ begged Claire. ‘I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure I can turn it on the bitumen quite safely. It’s just that—’
Hauling on the wheel, she brought the vehicle nosing around in a cautious arc. Ahead of her rain came sheeting down, making the edge of the road totally invisible. Her heart thudded wildly as she wondered whether she was coming too close to that terrifying drop, but the car seemed to be responding magnificently. For one triumphant moment Claire thought she had done it, then the back wheels hit the dirt road. The car spun totally out of control, poised lazily on the brink of the precipice and, with a sickening jolt, hurtled straight over the edge.
‘Alain!’ screamed Claire.
Wet trees rushed up to meet them, there was a confused impression of rain and darkness and her head hit something with violent force…
‘She’s coming round, mate,’ said a deep voice. ‘Here, give us that wet cloth.’
A cold, damp sensation descended on her aching forehead.
‘Alain…Alain,’ she whimpered.
‘Are you feeling better now, love?’
Wincing, she opened her eyes. What she actually felt was a dizzy, nauseating urge to be sick. But as she saw the gloomy interior of the car and heard the roar of the rain outside, memory came hurtling back. Fortunately a tree seemed to have broken their fall, although the vehicle was leaning drunkenly to one side and the front windscreen was shattered. But what about her passengers? Had she killed either of them?
‘Are you both all right?’ she demanded sharply. ‘Did you get hurt?’
‘Nah. Reckon our skulls were too thick to suffer any damage,’ replied Wayne with a chuckle. ‘You gave us a bit of a turn, though. Thought you were a goner for a minute there. Listen, mate, tell them she’s come round now.’
The last words were addressed to Bruce. Blinking owlishly, Claire saw that she had been laid out on her side in the back seat of the car with a rug over her. In the front seat Bruce was talking into the two-way radio, speaking slowly and clearly above the static from the storm.
‘They want to know if you can move everything,’ he said to Claire.
Experimentally she wiggled her toes and stretched her arms.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘Yeah, she can. All right. Over and out.’ He leaned over the seat and grinned cheerfully at her. ‘Don’t worry, love. Some bloke called Alain is coming up to get us right away.’
Alain! Claire closed her eyes and groaned. That was all she needed—to have Alain come and see what a mess she had made of everything. Running off the road, nearly killing two tourists, wrecking her father’s tour vehicle. No doubt he would scorch the hide off her with his sarcasm when he arrived.
Yet, when Alain finally did arrive, he showed no inclination whatever to be sarcastic. The first sign of his arrival was a loud hail from the road twenty feet above. Bruce immediately scrambled out of the car, cupped his hands and shouted back. Moments later a figure in a yellow rain slicker came hurrying down the bank, wrenched open the car door and loomed over Claire.
‘Are you really all right?’ demanded Alain hoarsely, seizing her hands.
‘Yes,’ she choked.
He held her against his shiny, wet raincoat for an instant and hugged her tightly. Then he became brisk and practical.
‘What about you fellows?’ he asked the two Australians. ‘Any injuries?’
‘No, mate, we’re fine,’
Wayne assured him.
‘Just the same, I’d like you to have a medical check up in Papeete. Go to whichever doctor your hotel recommends and tell him to send me the bill. Alain Charpentier is the name. They’re sure to know it. Now let’s get you all out of here.’
Lifting Claire in his arms, Alain carried her up the bank as easily as if there were no steep, muddy slope, no tangling vines and no torrential rain to impede his progress. He was not even breathing heavily when he set her down by the roadside. Through the driving rain Claire saw the headlights of two stationary vehicles. Alain opened the door of one of them and helped her inside. Then he turned to address the two young men who had just reached the edge of the road. Winding down the window, Claire heard his words.
‘One of my employees is in the other car. He’ll drive you back to your hotel and give you a refund on your tour tickets. And if you’d like to have dinner at the Hotel Miharo at Point Cupid tonight, it will be on the house.’
‘Look, mate,’ protested Bruce, ‘you don’t have to do that.’
‘I insist,’ said Alain. ‘Claire, wind up that window before you get wet through.’
Ignoring this command, Claire put her hand out and touched Bruce’s sleeve.
‘I’m awfully sorry about the accident,’ she said.
‘Don’t say that,’ he replied uncomfortably. ‘I reckon we’re the ones who ought to be apologising. It was mainly our fault.’
Both young men shook hands with her and then climbed into the other car. Alain stood by with folded arms and only when they had driven away did he climb in beside Claire.
‘What the hell did he mean by that?’ he demanded.
Nervously Claire stammered out an explanation of all that had happened. Alain swore under his breath.
‘You little fool.’ he snarled. ‘Don’t you realise you could have killed yourself? Well, that’s the last time you ever drive that car on an inland tour again. I forbid it! Do you hear me?’
‘Who are you to forbid—?’ began Claire hotly and then subsided.
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