by Robyn Donald
Yet strained though her ears were, she didn’t hear him walk along the verandah, so that when he said, ‘Good afternoon,’ her fingers loosened and a couple of sheets of paper dropped onto the floor.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and stooped to pick them up, handing them to her without looking at them, for which she was extremely grateful.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ she said inanely.
‘So I see. Perhaps I should whistle. Although you might mistake me for Dean then.’
Grabbing for her composure, she managed to produce a laugh. ‘Yes, I might. I suppose it’s all the whistling he does at his dogs.’
‘Possibly,’ he said, blue eyes limpidly unreadable. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
‘No, not at all.’ And because she felt defenceless sprawled along the lounger, her faded cotton shorts revealing far too much skin, she swung her legs down and straightened up as he sat in a big rattan chair.
‘Have you had a good day?’ he asked.
‘Fine. And you?’
Just ordinary pleasantries, the small coinage of conversation, yet nothing sounded ordinary or small when Paul spoke.
‘Busy,’ he said. ‘Did Fran tell you about the party this weekend?’
‘Yes. I offered to help her, but she didn’t think you’d need a waitress or a good plain cook.’
Something glittered beneath his lashes, disappearing so swiftly she couldn’t discern it. ‘No,’ he said blandly. ‘The caterer will organise that side of things. I expect you to be a guest.’
No doubt it was kindly meant, although she wondered at the inflexible note in the words. ‘Paul,’ she said, feeling her way, ‘it’s very generous and hospitable of you to include me, but I really don’t think I’d fit in.’
‘If it’s clothes—’
‘It’s not just that,’ she said quietly.
‘So tell me what it is.’
It was a command, not a suggestion. She said, ‘I’d feel that I’d imposed on your hospitality. Would you have asked me if I’d been staying at the bach?’
His smile was hard and sardonic. ‘Yes.’
She cast around for another objection. ‘Is Dean coming?’
Two lines grooved vertically between his brows, strengthening his subtle air of intimidation. ‘Dean will be away this weekend with Brenda. Have you met her yet?’
‘No. She’s busy with exams, apparently.’ It was a sidetrack; she went on, ‘I’d rather not, Paul.’
‘I’d like you to.’
If he’d been at all arrogant about his request—if he’d said it as though she owed him for his hospitality—she’d have refused him. After all, she could ask Dean for the loan of his cottage while he was away.
But she couldn’t resist. Or the smile that accompanied it, oddly sympathetic.
So, perhaps helped by remembering the sari she and her mother had chosen in Fiji—that glittering, beautiful thing of glorious orange-gold that somehow transformed her skin into ivory and her hair into amber, and set the dancing lights gleaming in her eyes—she said, ‘All right.’
His smile was ironic, as though he was laughing at both her and himself. ‘You’ll have fun,’ he promised.
Jacinta hadn’t been to a party for years. She’d never been to a party with Hollywood film stars; it would be something to tell her children, if she ever had any. ‘I’m sure I will,’ she agreed.
CHAPTER SIX
PAUL left for Auckland the next morning and didn’t retun for the rest of the week.
A good thing, Jacinta told herself stubbornly, settling into a calm rhythm of writing and swimming and walking talking to Dean and Fran—even helping the housekeeper in the garden, although a gardener worked there three days a week.
She might be poised on the brink of falling in love, bu she didn’t need to go looking for trouble—and that was what she’d do if Paul was there all the time. His absence gave her a breathing space, time to compose herself.
Time to miss him.
The manuscript dawdled along—partly because she of ten found herself dreaming as she stared at the compute: screen, dreams that had nothing to do with the character: she was striving to bring to life. But also because she’d reached an impasse; although she knew what the novel’s protagonists had to do, she found to her irritation and in dignation that they weren’t satisfied with the plot she and her mother had mapped out for them. They sulked and fumed and had to be forced along their preordained paths and in the process they turned wooden and obstructive and banal.
Jacinta set her chin and struggled on.
Three days before the party she took out the sari fron the wardrobe. The short-sleeved blouse in orange silk fitted her well, settling snugly at her waist. She remembered how to get into the soft folds of the skirt, and then draped her self in the silk veil in citrus colours of mandarin and gold and bright, clear orange.
It wasn’t her usual style. The Hindu woman in the hot little shop had been an excellent saleswoman, aided as she’d been by Cynthia Lyttelton’s cries of delight and pleasure when Jacinta had modelled the sari. Jacinta had only allowed herself to be persuaded because the vivid colours did such amazing things to her skin and eyes and hair.
As she turned away to take it off she remembered with a brittle smile that she’d bought it the day after Paul had danced with her.
Her sandals, of tan leather, had the right oriental air, although to really set the costume off she needed jewellery. She’d have to do without, because apart from a pair of gold hoop earrings she had none. Even her mother’s wedding ring had been buried with her, a pathetic reminder of the lengths she’d gone to in order to keep the censorious at bay in the small town where Jacinta had grown up.
Replacing the sari in the wardrobe, she hoped fervently that the guests at Paul’s party didn’t turn up in shorts and bathing suits!
On Friday the caterers arrived and took over the kitchen Although Fran complained about the mess, she revelled in the confusion, even bringing Jacinta’s lunch to her on a tray so that she wouldn’t get in their way.
The caterers drove back to Auckland that night, and Jacinta waited for Paul’s car, but at seven the phone rang. Jacinta knew who it was even before she picked up the receiver.
‘Has Fran got you on answering duty?’ Paul asked.
‘No, I was going past when I realised the answering machine hadn’t been switched on.’
He said, ‘I see. I’m in Sydney at the moment, but I’ll be home tomorrow morning.’
‘I’ll tell Fran,’ she said, listening to the slow thud of her heart.
‘All well?’
‘Yes, everything’s fine.’
‘Are the caterers under control?’
Jacinta laughed. ‘Under Fran’s control, certainly. She’s enjoying herself very much.’
‘She likes bossing people around,’ he said dryly. ‘And are you enjoying yourself very much?’
‘Yes, of course.’
A voice from his background called out: a female voice.
‘I have to go now,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Jacinta replaced the receiver, telling herself that the gripping pang in her heart was not jealousy. It couldn’t be because she had no reason to be jealous. The woman in the background could easily be a secretary. Sydney was in Australia’s eastern time zone, two hours behind New Zealand, so it would be just after five there.
Or she could be a friend’s wife. Or a relative—once he’d mentioned cousins in Australia.
Except that the tone of her voice had been seductive rather than businesslike or friendly.
That night the long, wakeful hours dragged by, illuminated by the vivid imaginings of Jacinta’s brain as she spun scenarios of Paul with a beautiful woman...
She should have stuck to her original plan and left Waitapu.
When she couldn’t bear it any longer she got up and tried to write, but nothing would come, and she wondered whether she was just fooling herself and wasting time with the manuscript.
>
She began to read it, and it was boring—hackneyed characters in hackneyed situations, clumsily constructed sentences and dull conversation, action sequences that read with all the power and fire of treacle. In disgust she put the sheets back on the desk and went to bed again, and this time she slept.
Only for a short time, however. She woke early, swam until she was exhausted and then, unable even to look at the computer, wandered around the garden to the hammock suspended from the wide branches of a jacaranda tree. It was hung for Paul’s long legs, and at the thought of him sleeping in it something clutched her stomach.
After several attempts she managed to climb into it and lay sprawled in its shady embrace, staring up into the feathery dome of the tree.
The sound of her name woke her.
‘Oh,’ she said feebly, opening her eyes to meet Paul’s cobalt gaze.
He’d been frowning, but it faded, so all she saw were the two kinks in his brows as they straightened. Her spine melted.
‘You hid yourself well,’ he said evenly. He was standing beside the trunk of the tree, and as she lifted herself on her elbow he leaned back against the bark, the small movement emphasising the slight shifting and coiling of his heavily-muscled thighs beneath fine cotton trousers.
Jacinta swallowed ‘What time is it?’
‘Just on midday.’
‘Good lord!’ She sat up, clutching the side of the hammock as it swayed. He reached out a hand and steadied it, regarding her with an enigmatic half-smile. ‘I didn’t sleep terribly well last night,’ she explained.
‘Why not?’
‘No reason.’ She swung her legs over the side and got out, not without some difficulty because the wretched hammock would have thrown her if Paul hadn’t held it still. ‘Did you have a good trip?’ she asked, slightly red-faced when at last she was standing up.
‘Excellent, thank you. Come and have some lunch with me. We’ve been banished to the verandah.’
Just before they reached the table Paul said, ‘I saw something in Sydney that might be useful for you,’ and detoured into his room.
Keeping her eyes averted, Jacinta waited until he emerged through the French windows with a parcel. It was a book on the techniques of writing novels.
‘Oh,’ she said, scanning the index eagerly, ‘thank you so much! I’ve read a couple of how-to books from the university library, but this one looks great. I need it too. I’m stuck.’
‘I believe it happens all the time,’ Paul said, smiling as she flicked through the pages.
Embarrassed, she put the book down on the table and said, ‘Thank you, Paul. I’ll read it with great interest.’
‘I hope it gets you through your block,’ he said easily. ‘Sit down. We’d better eat before Fran comes to sweep everything away.’
‘She’s really in her element. I poked my nose in and offered to help, but they all shooed me out and told me to get lost—in the nicest possible manner, of course.’
He laughed. ‘They’re used to working together,’ he said.
Lunch was a salad and quiche, with crusty brown bread and olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Paul drank a beer with it; Jacinta had mineral water, and tea afterwards.
They talked of nothing much. Although Paul was a little remote, happiness hummed through Jacinta, reverberating in every cell, oversetting the common-sense strictures of her mind in a flood of delight. The sea sparkled and scintillated beneath a sky of blazing blue, the small sparrows that waited on the verandah railings for crumbs glowed chestnut and buff in the golden light, and the panicles of lilac-tinted flowers in the cabbage tree—the biggest lily in the world—scented the air with a tropical fervour.
Jacinta asked, ‘What time does this party start?’
‘We’re having a barbecue on the beach at eight. Two people are coming up around five. Laurence Perry is one of the character actors, and Meriam Anderson is the producer’s assistant. They’ll be staying overnight.’
She nodded. ‘If it’s a barbecue I suppose they’ll be wearing shorts.’ It wasn’t hard to keep the disappointment from her voice, but he gave her a swift, keen glance.
‘I wouldn’t like to guess what they’ll be wearing,’ he said. ‘Meriam Anderson dresses in a very understated manner, but I doubt if she’ll be in shorts. She’s English, and for her shorts are too informal to wear to any party, even a barbecue.’
He knows her very well, Jacinta thought, horrified by the shard of jealousy that pierced her body, so acute that it hurt even when she breathed.
He went on, ‘However, Harry Moore’s girlfriend, Liane, thinks that dressing formally means putting on another toe ring. I imagine you could wear a nightgown and they’d think nothing of it—beyond the fact that you were making a statement. They understand statements.’
Was her sari a statement? She had no idea, but she certainly wasn’t going to wear any of her shorts, all of which showed their age badly.
‘I’m wearing casual trousers and a shirt,’ he said. ‘No tie. Don’t worry about them. They’re just people.’
She finished the last of her tea and set the cup and saucer down. ‘I know, I know, but I don’t want to look like an oddity.’
‘You won’t.’ He paused, then said, ‘How you treat them will determine how they treat you. Beneath the hype and the beautiful faces and the money they’re ordinary people.’
‘Surely hype and money and beauty—not to mention power and talent—cut people out from the common herd? Harry Moore, for example, can’t even go to a restaurant without being mobbed by fans. A few years of that—and the enormous amount of money he earns—is going to change him, even if he was just a simple farm boy to start with.’
Paul leaned back in his chair and surveyed her with half closed eyes, impenetrable beneath his surface amusement. ‘He’s intelligent and astute and he knows where he’s going, but yes, I was being a bit flippant. Think of them, then, as another species—interesting and worth studying but ultimately not important.’
Because you’re never going to meet them again, she thought, hurt—and yet of course he was right.
He added thoughtfully, ‘Actually, with hair that colour you’ve probably had more than your fair share of attention. Do you think it’s changed your character?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m a very ordinary person.’
His answering smile lightened her heart.
That night Jacinta dressed with great care. The material of the sari lent its light to her hair, changing unashamed ginger into a molten river of fire. She left her curls to riot and donned the gold earrings, then used a lipgloss she’d had for some years, a peachy-gold colour that made her lips seem fuller and more—interesting, she hoped.
In the grip of a helpless hope, she went out.
The two film people were still in their rooms, so she walked down the hall and into the morning room and across into the conservatory. She was looking down onto the beach, where a sheep was roasting on the spit in the charge of one of the caterer’s staff, when some imperceptible alteration in the atmosphere brought her head around.
Paul stood in the open doors between the conservatory and the morning room. He was looking at her, dark brows drawn together, his face set into a rigid cast.
Tension leapt between them, stark, fierce.
I look awful, Jacinta thought, her barely born confidence ebbing into desolation.
And then, as though he’d cut it off, the moment was gone. ‘Those colours suit you magnificently,’ he said, the words spoken in a tone he might have used to praise a dog.
Rebuffed, she replied stiffly, ‘Thank you.’ Her smile was set and artificial as she fought to control the pain that slashed through her.
A light, feminine voice, English-accented, said, ‘Paul, this is a wonderful place!’
He turned and smiled at the woman who’d followed him into the room. Jacinta watched Meriam Anderson’s response, as involuntary as hers, to the warmth of his smile. In her mid-thirties, and dressed, Jacinta noted
, in a soft, navy blue silk dress that managed to look both casual and chic, the woman came across and slid her arm into Paul’s, and nodded at Jacinta.
When they’d been introduced earlier that evening Jacinta had been in a blouse and the rusty skirt, and Meriam had been very gracious. But now, although her voice stayed warm and pleasant, her eyes narrowed slightly.
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘what a splendid outfit. You look as though you’re going to burst into flames any minute.’
The evening went downhill from there.
At least, Jacinta thought as people began to arrive and be conducted down to the beach, she no longer cared what they thought about her. There was only one man whose opinion meant anything to her, and he’d taken one look at her and switched off. No doubt he thought she was blatant and garish.
However, she was not going to let his rejection—if that was what it was—affect her.
Tilting her chin, she tried to ignore the gnawing ache in her heart. Eventually about sixty guests stood in the last rays of the sun, dressed with the sort of bravura chicness that made them stand out. Her outfit didn’t look out of place at all. Not when Liane, Harry Moore’s girlfriend, wore a black slip with nothing on underneath, and a fanfare of peacock’s feathers in her black hair. Only one toe ring, Jacinta noticed, but that appeared to have a diamond in if.
It was definitely a collection of beautiful people. Amazingly good-looking in a sombre, brooding way, Harry Moore was Jacinta’s height, with a mouth that was saved from sulkiness by a humorous quirk. He flirted with Jacinta, but then he flirted with all the other women there except Liane. Her he looked at with a desperate yearning he tried to hide.
I know what it’s like, Jacinta thought, and applied herself to the conversation, hoping to help him through whatever private hell he was enduring.
‘With that colouring you have to be Irish,’ he declared, and when she’d cheerfully disclaimed any Celtic blood, he said, ‘I’ll bet there’s some in your background. You look like a high summer heatwave, sultry and exuberant and lush.’