To Play With Fire

by Flora Kidd

  'He's thirty-four! That's twice my age. How much older than you is my father? About the same, I'd guess, so you're a fine one to be handing out advice like that to me, aren't you?'

  It seemed to Tory that the safe little world in which she had been living for the past month, the world of microscopes, gardens and botanical terms had come tumbling down about her ears, leaving her exposed to criticism and mockery.

  'What do you mean?' she gasped weakly.

  'You think I'm sweet on Denzil,' said Carla harshly. 'Well, I am, because he's fun to be with as well as being big and strong and understanding.' The harsh voice quivered a little and almost broke. Carla bit her lip to control whatever emotion had bubbled up and then continued on a lower fiercer note. 'But I'm not half as

  sweet on him as you are on my father. I think it's time you took your own advice, Miss High and Mighty Latham, before you're taken advantage oft'

  Her burst of emotion over, Carla turned and went running up the stairs, reckless of the noise she made on the uncarpeted wooden treads. Down a passage she pounded, the door to her room crashed open and then crashed shut again, and there was silence.

  More than disturbed by the girl's outburst, Tory returned to her bedroom and lay down on the bed. She tried to read but could not concentrate. Carla's words were ringing in her ears. They had been flung at her, she realised, because the girl had resented the advice which had been offered and had seized the' nearest weapon to hand and used it clumsily but effectively. For although Tory knew there wasn't the slightest possibility of Magnus taking advantage of her in the way she had suggested, though Denzil Hallam might take advantage of Carla or any other woman who showed an interest in him, it was the fact that Carla had noticed Tory's liking for her father which was most disturbing. If she had noticed, others must have noticed too.

  Tory sighed, laid the book on the bedside table and clicked off the light. Settling again under the single sheet which was all she had found she needed as a covering during the warm nights, she admitted ruefully to herself that she was making a mess of trying to help Magnus cope with his daughter. There seemed to be no way for her to reach the girl, who possessed very little of Magnus's sensitivity.

  Carla must be like her mother, not only physically but in other ways too—and possibly the fact that the girl was motherless and had spent all those years in a girl's boarding school, where she had learned to fend for herself, had made her hard and rebellious.

  Next day Magnus announced that he was going to

  the island of Martinique for a few days at the invitation of the Director of the Botanical Gardens there.

  'I've told Carla and she's promised she'll behave herself,' he said 'How are you and she getting on together?'

  Obviously he hadn't noticed the strained relations between herself and Carla at the meal table, and it occurred to Tory with a sudden flash of insight that Magnus didn't notice anything he didn't like because, he had the mentality of an ostrich, burying his head and ignoring the unpleasant aspects of life.

  In the next moment she rejected this startling observation, about someone whom she had always regarded as admirable, as unkind and unworthy of her.

  'Not as well as I'd like,' she replied. 'Would you mind if I asked you a personal question about your wife?'

  'About Rita?' His voice lilted with surprise. 'No, I don't. Go ahead.'

  'Is Carla like her?'

  'She has, of course, Rita's colouring, but she's not as beautiful,' he replied quietly.

  'And in temperament?'

  He didn't reply at once, and in the silence which lay between them she could hear the night song of -frogs and the rustle of leaves stirred by the wind coming from the garden through the open windows.

  Magnus spoke very slowly, as if it gave him pain to speak of his wife.

  'Yes, in temperament too. That's why I'm worried about the child, and about her infatuation with Hallam. I'm so afraid she might be hurt by him and then cast off. Rita was hurt in that way once. You see, Tory, when I first met her she was married to the most awful man who had treated her unkindly and then deserted her.'

  'Oh, I see,' she whispered. 'Thank you for telling me.'

  She took the information to bed with her and pondered over it before she slept. It reinforced her opinion of Magnus as the sort of person to whom a woman who was unhappy might turn, and of whom the same woman

  might take advantage, using his pity to trap him into, marriage with her.

  He left the next day, but it wasn't until he had been gone for three days that Tory realised she had hardly seen Carla and was forced to ask Mrs Dunnet if she knew anything of the girl's whereabouts.

  'Da girl no good,' stated the little woman, rolling her big brown eyes. 'She ain't been home since yesterday.'

  'Do you have any idea where she's gone?'

  'I reckon she spent de night down at the marina, miss.'

  'Then I shall go there at once and bring her 'back,' said Tory determinedly. The time had come for her to use the last resort, to go and beard Denzil Hallam in his den and tell him to stop encouraging Carla to visit him.

  She went in the cream car which Magnus allowed her to use. When she turned into the entrance of the marina she found several cars parked in a yard beside the office building. The blue jeep was there too.

  But as soon as she saw the masts of the sailing boats nostalgia claimed Tory. She had to go and look at them. It was almost two months since she had last gone sailing with George in their racing dinghy, but it wasn't until now that she realised how much she had missed the activity of sailing and messing about in boats.

  Up and down the pontoons she wandered, pausing every so often to stare in amazement at the forceful thrusting lines of a new fibreglass cruiser or to admire

  the graceful sweep of the bow of an old wooden schooner. The hot sun struck down at her fair head and she pulled on her sunhat. She was wearing a sleeveless red and white striped cotton sweater and crisp white slacks, but wished she had taken time to change into a sundress which would have been cooler.

  As she reached the last pontoon she found some small fibreglass dinghies tied up. They had slim glinting masts and looked fast and lively. She felt a sudden urge to be in one of them, skimming over the glittering blue water of the bay, feeling the wind lift her hair and the salt spray sting her skin ...

  'So I wasn't mistaken, the beautiful botanist has condescended to pay us a visit,' said a voice behind her, and she turned to find Denzil Hallam there.

  Without crutches, his deeply tanned muscular legs revealed by brief well-tailored brown shorts, a cream shirt taut across his shoulders and open almost to the waist for coolness, he looked clean and efficient. From beneath the tilted brim of his white topped yachting cap his hard eyes regarded her unsmilingly. His hostility seemed tangible, something which reached out and touched her, warning Tory to go carefully.

  'Why have you come?' he asked coldly.

  'I was admiring the dinghies,' she replied evasively. It was not the time to approach the subject of Carla. She would have to establish some kind of communication with him before she dared ask him where the girl was. 'Do you hire them out?'

  'Yes, for four beewee dollars an hour,' he replied coolly. She knew now that 'beewee' was an island colloquialism for British West Indian currency. 'But I hire them only to people who have some idea of how to sail,' he added.

  'I've been sailing and crewing in dinghies for almost as long as I can remember,' she said.

  'Those would be two-sail jobs, these are single-handed craft. You'd capsize one in a breeze like this before you'd got under way,' he jeered.

  'No, I wouldn't,' she retorted, 'and if you don't believe me, why don't you let me hire one and show you I can sail?'

  He stared at her for a moment with narrowed eyes, _ then shrugged his shoulders.

  `Okay. I'll get someone to fetch the sail and rig it,' he said, and half turned to go.

  'And you'll watch from dry land, I suppose.' Her voice rang out in
challenge. 'Oh no, that isn't good enough. I'll race you out to that orange marker buoy and back again, and I bet you'll find I'm just as good a sailor as you are.'

  He swung slowly round to face her and again his hard narrowed gaze assessed her.

  `So you like playing with fire, do you, Victoria?' he scoffed softly. 'And I've never been able to resist a challenge. All right, I'll take you on for the hire of the dinghy. But I'm warning you you're going to get wet. Will those elegant pants of yours stand up to salt water, or could you use a pair of shorts?'

  Excited suddenly because he had responded to her challenge, Tory glanced down at her white slacks. It would be a shame to spoil them.

  'Do you have any shorts that will fit me?' she asked.

  'Sure. My girl-friends are always leaving their clothes behind. I suppose they think it gives them a good excuse to come back and see me again,' he drawled provocatively. 'There's a changing room in the office building. Go there and I'll bring you a pair.'

  The shorts were really cut-off jeans, faded blue and frayed at the edges, but they fitted perfectly. Denzil Hallam had a good eye and had sized up her measurements fairly accurately, Tory thought with a grimace

  of distaste. How much she had disliked his reference to girl-friends who left their clothing behind after visiting him! It hinted that they stayed overnight with him. If she hadn't been so keen to sail she would never have agreed to wear clothing that belonged to a woman who had possibly shared his bed.

  She found him waiting for her on the pontoon where the dinghies were tied up, talking to a huge black man whom he introduced as Josh and who acknowledged her in the usual friendly island way.

  Denzil had also changed his clothes and was wearing battered-looking jean shorts and a thin short-sleeved cotton T-shirt. Both jeans and shorts emphasised the sturdy muscularity of his physique. He did not have the height of the other man, but once again Tory had the impression of immovable rock-like strength.

  His glance went to the shorts she was wearing, then travelled insolently down her long bare legs, which had acquired an attractive golden tan since she had come to the island.

  The shorts seem to be a good fit,' he drawled, his glance coming up to meet her furious glare. 'What about shoes?'

  'I'll sail in bare feet.'

  'Okay. Now about the start of the race—you see that ! big motor cruiser on a mooring out there? Well, it's in line with the flagpole at the end of this pontoon, so we'll make that the starting line. Josh will fire a gun for the start, and for whoever finishes across the line the first. Which dinghy would you like?'

  Two had been rigged and their shimmering terylene sails were flapping idly. Tory chose the yellow one and stepped down into it. The single sail was loose-footed and not attached to a boom. The dagger board was already down and she gave it a practice pull to see if she could get it up easily. Glancing up at Josh, she

  indicated that she was ready to go. He untied the boat and pushed it off.

  Grabbing the tiller and winding the mainsheet round her other hand so that she could pull in the sail, Tory steered for the starting line, aware that Denzil's boat, a blue one, was still tied up. Wind filled the sail, the little boat heeled slightly and she automatically placed her weight on the side-deck so that she was ready to lean out. The wind increased in strength and the boat heeled more. She leaned right out, still steering with the tiller and still holding the mainsheet, and tucked her feet under the straps made from woven nylon which were attached to the bottom of the boat, to prevent her from falling out if she leaned too far.

  Boom! The gun went off and she was across the starting line first. Looking up at her sail she saw the shadow of another sail beginning to move across it; Denzil was catching up on her. She looked round and saw the sharp pointed bow of his boat edging up. He was trying to overtake her by stealing the wind from her sail.

  Quickly she pushed the tiller away from her. Her boat changed direction, moving towards his. Just as her sail began to flap because it was too close to the eye of the wind, she pulled the tiller towards her, the sail filled again and the little boat danced on its way.

  Twice Denzil tried to pass her again in the same way and twice she prevented him from doing so. After the failure of his third attempt he changed his tactics, went on to the other tack and sailed away from her.

  Tory knew he would have to tack again to reach the orange buoy, and so would she. Then they would be on converging courses and he would have right of way, but if she could sail faster than he, she could pass ahead of him.

  Determined to do that, she tautened her sail and

  leaned out as far as she could, knowing that the boat would go faster if it was not allowed to heel over too much. The boat bounced over the waves. Spray came up over the bow to soak her, but she didn't care because she was too exhilarated by the duel of wits and skill.

  The round orange marker buoy bobbed like a ball on the heaving water. Tory took a quick glance under her sail, heard a voice roar 'starboard I ' as the other boat came directly towards her, and knew a kick of satisfaction as she sailed blithely in front of him with a few yards to spare.

  Immediately she went about, sailed straight for the buoy and was round it and on her way back to the finishing line, her sail full and bellying, only to find that the other boat was right beside her and was actually pulling ahead.

  For the next few minutes she used every trick she could think of to get her boat to sail faster, pulling the sail in and then letting it out again, bringing the dagger board right up so that the boat could skim over the water, and eventually it seemed to her that her lighter weight was beginning to tell as she kept level with the blue boat.

  Side by side the two boats seemed to fly over the water, their bows sending up spray. Tory made one more effort to go faster, and the little boat responded. Its bow came up as it rode on the crest of a wave across the finishing line.

  Thrilled by the excitement of the close finish, Tory eased down the dagger board and pulled in her sail a little to change course for the approach to the pontoon. The sail filled with wind and the boat heeled so that she had to sit far out to keep it upright. She looked over her shoulder to see where the blue boat was, forgetting that she would soon be sheltered. Her sail' emptied of wind suddenly and the boat, weighed down

  by her weight on the windward side, capsized the wrong way, dumping her in the warm silken water.

  As the sail came towards her threatening to blanket her she kicked out vigorously and swam round the stern of the boat. Seeing the dagger board sticking out from the exposed bottom of the boat, like a fin on a fish, she grabbed it and pulled it down, then managed to stand on it. From that position she was able to grasp the rim of the boat and pull it upright.

  Slowly the mast and sail came up. A quick wriggle and she was over the side and back in the boat. Grabbing mainsheet and tiller, her feet in the water which was swilling about in the bottom of the boat, she steered towards the side of the pontoon.

  Josh was there to grab the dinghy and hold it still, but it was Denzil who leaned down to help her out. 'Well done,' he congratulated her.

  'Who won?' Tory demanded, turning to Josh and flinging her wet hair behind her shoulders.

  'Guess you crossed the line together, miss,' he replied with a wide white-toothed grin. Lordy, dat was some race! I ain't ever seen a woman sail like that before.'

  Damn, thought Tory, I wish I'd beaten him. But there was satisfaction in learning that she hadn't been beaten by him. She'd held her own. If only she hadn't capsized so ignominiously the wrong way.

  'I hope you've no more doubts about my ability to sail,' she flashed at Denzil.

  'No more doubts,' he conceded. 'After a soaking like that you need a shower and another change of clothes,' he added.

  'I'll be all right,' she asserted independently, 'a rub down in the changing room will do. Don't forget my slacks are dry.'

  He didn't argue, but when they reached the end of

  the pontoon he took h
er arm and guided her in the direction of a path which was shaded by flowering shrubs and palms.

  'This isn't the way to the changing room,' she objected. The touch of his hand- on her bare skin was possessive and a little disturbing.

  'I know it isn't. I'm taking you to my bungalow. You can shower there in peace and privacy.'

  'But my slacks ...'

  'I'll get them for you.'

  She gave in—because she was suddenly curious to see where he lived and not for any other reason, she told herself, refusing to admit that she had no alternative and was being forced to go by the strength of his hand on her arm.

  After about five minutes' walk the path ended at a clearing above a small crescent of a beach. Set back from the sand and built on stilts was a wooden bungalow with a verandah running along its front.

  They went up a flight of wooden steps to it and entered through a door made of steel mesh into a big living room comfortably furnished with several armchairs and a settee.

  'The bathroom is through the archway on the right,' said Denzil. 'You'll find clean towels in a cupboard beside it. I'll go and get your slacks and a dry top for you to wear.'

  The bathroom was not as elegant as the one at the Director's house, but the water system was much more efficient, and Tory luxuriated in the feel of hot water washing away the stickiness of salt from her hair and skin.

  She had just turned off the shower and was about to pull aside the shower curtain to grope for a towel when the bathroom door, which she had forgotten to lock, opened and froze her to immobility.

  'Only me,' said Denzil. 'The dry clothing is on the chair.'

  The door closed again. Tory came out of her statuesque stillness, let out her breath and twitched aside the curtain. On the chair were her white slacks and on top of them was a flowered blouse and a pair of bikini panties. Under the chair were her white sandals and her handbag.

  She rubbed herself dry, opened the small cupboard above the washbasin and found some men's talc. It had a tangy lemony smell and she used it liberally. The panties fitted perfectly; she slipped her slacks over them and pulled on the blouse. It buttoned down the front and did not fit her as well as the shorts and the panties. It seemed that Denzil's girl-friends weren't as big in the bust as she was, and Tory wished she had been wearing a bra. But even if she had it would have been wet, so she would just have to put up with the fact that the blouse gaped widely between the buttons.