Summer's Awakening (31 page)

Hal was talking about the Busch Gardens at Tampa where his sister and her husband were taking their children on Sunday. She forced herself to concentrate.

'Why don't we join them? Me, you and Emily?' he suggested. 'She'd love it. It's a great place for kids. There are tigers and dolphins and all kinds of fun.'

'It's a nice idea, Hal, but I think her uncle's planning to take her to see Thomas Edison's house at Fort Myers.'

'I've been there. It's okay, but kinda dull for kids, especially girls. She'd like Busch Gardens better.'

Summer felt slightly irritated that, never having met Emily, he considered himself able to judge what she would or wouldn't enjoy.

But she said only, 'She adores her uncle. She'd enjoy anywhere he took her.'

He swung the car under the arch and cruised slowly up the drive. When the house came into view, the only lights showing were in the Antonios' apartment above the garage.

There were no outside lights on. When the full moon was shining they weren't necessary, but from time to time the moon was obscured by a cloud.

Hal turned the car in a loop until the beam of his headlights was pointing towards the drive, then he switched off both engine and lights, and climbed out.

As he came round to open her door, she felt that he wouldn't have done this if it were not in his mind to kiss her in the shadow of the porch. But she didn't want to be kissed and
her
mind searched frantically for a way to avoid the embrace without hurting his feelings. The trouble was she had as little experience of handling this kind of situation as a girl in her middle-teens.

'It's been a very nice evening, Hal,' she said, as she stepped from the car. 'Seeing this house from the Bay was most interesting. Thank you very much for taking me.'

'Why don't we do it again next week?' As they walked towards the house, he put his hand lightly on the small of her back.

'Well... I'm not sure. I—I may be busy,' she temporised awkwardly.

'You won't be busy every night, will you?' he persisted.

She had never realised what a difficult business it was to back out of a relationship with a man, even at this early stage when it was hardly more than an acquaintance.

'It depends,' she said vaguely. 'Anyway, we'll be seeing each other at class.'

Outside the front door his hand drew her round to face him and his other hand moved to her shoulder.

'Oh, Hal—' she began.

Before she could add, '—please don't!' the lantern above them was switched on from inside the house, and the front door opened.

'Oh, it's you, Summer,' said her employer. 'I heard a car arriving, but I didn't expect you back for some time yet.' He turned to her companion. 'You must be Hal Cochran. My name is Gardiner.' He offered his hand to the younger man. 'Come in and have a drink, won't you?'

Hal's expressions were easy to read. Surprise, frustration, then annoyance showed on his square, open face; quickly followed by gratification at being invited to enter the home of the head of a big company.

'That's very kind of you, sir,' he said deferentially.

'Not at all. I've been wanting to meet you.'

'Oh, really?' Hal looked somewhat startled.

James closed the front door behind them and led the way to the living room.

'Yes,' he said, speaking over his shoulder. 'Summer has led a sheltered life. She's new to America and I feel responsible for her welfare. Till she's somewhat older and wiser, I don't like her going out with people I haven't met. Does that strike you as unreasonable?'

'No—no, I think you're right, sir. Nice girls do have to be careful. Hell, these days even old ladies have to watch out.'

'Precisely. But I don't think Summer accepts her vulnerability. Perhaps you can convince her that I'm not fussing unnecessarily.'

By this time they had reached the living room where Hal turned to her and said earnestly, 'Mr Gardiner is right about that, honey. There are a lot of bad people around. Not like in Miami or New York City or those places, maybe, but—'

'I'm aware of the hazards,' she interrupted. 'Only recently someone not far from here had an exceedingly unpleasant experience while she was using the swimming pool.'

'In her own backyard? That's terrible. What happened?'

'Nothing much,' James put in blandly. 'The girl was swimming in the nude and someone dived in with her. She knew him. It was harmless horse-play. What would you like to drink, Summer? Your usual Perrier and lemon, or something stronger?'

'Perrier, please,' she said stiffly, taking off Mrs Hardy's shawl. 'I think what a man might call horseplay could be very objectionable to a woman.'

'If she was swimming in the raw, I'd say she was asking for it,' said Hal.

She gave him a sparkling look. 'Have you never swum without clothes when you thought there was no one around?'

'Sure I have, but that's different.'

'Only because you know that if a girl came along when you were like that she'd be most unlikely to embarrass you. She certainly wouldn't alarm you—as this man we're talking about did with the girl in question.'

'Oh, come now, don't tell me she thought she was about to be raped?' said James. 'In that case why didn't she yell for help. There were plenty of people within earshot. What about you, Cochran? Beer... bourbon... Scotch?'

'A little Scotch for me, please.' Hal began to glance round the room, taking in its unusual shape, an elongated octagon, and the high vaulted ceiling.

The lofty proportions and the monochromatic colour scheme—the walls curtains and the upholstery were all in shades of pale raw umber—was a restful background for an eclectic collection of beautiful objects.

Above the French marble fireplace hung a large gilded baroque mirror with its original time-misted mysterious glass. This was surrounded by six gilded Florentine brackets forming perches for porcelain birds of vivid plumage.

The object which Summer liked best stood by itself on a black and gold lacquer tray-table at one end of the comfortable sofa. It was a bronze sculpture of Pegasus, the winged horse ridden by Bellerophon who, in Greek legend, after spurning the advances of his
queen, was set many dangerous tasks such as killing the Chimaera, a fire-breathing monster with a lion's head, the body of a goat and a dragon's tail.

She had immediately recognised the horse as Pegasus, but hadn't realised, till Mary Hardy showed her, that the sculpture had hidden hinges which enabled its shape to be changed. It was by a sculptor called Francisco Baron, and James had bought it on a visit to Spain. The house contained many paintings and
objets d'art
bought on his travels.

However, although she could not deny his excellent taste, at this moment she was too furious with his hypocritical pretence of avuncular concern for her welfare to allow him any good points.

She wished Hal were less visibly awed, and wouldn't keep calling James 'sir' as if he were a much older man, or someone entitled to special deference. She was ready, at the first hint of condescension in James's manner towards him, to spring to Hal's defence.

But during the following half an hour there was nothing patronising in her employer's attitude to the younger man. He was very pleasant to him; and apparently genuinely interested in the subjects which she had found tedious.

At length, breaking off a conversation about the Chicago White Sox, he said, 'I think we're boring Summer. May I get you another drink, Cochran?'

'No, thanks. I'd better be going.' Hal put down his glass and stood up. 'It's been very nice meeting you, sir. I hope now you'll have no objection to us maybe going dancing next week?'

'If Summer is here, that's up to her. But my niece needs her teeth checked, and the two of them may have to go to New York next week.'

'Oh... I see.' Hal looked downcast.

If he had hoped to say goodnight to her in private when she showed him to the door, another disappointment was in store for him. James came with them. He kept the door open till Hal had climbed into his car, then he closed and locked it, and fastened the chain and the bolts.

'Come back to the living room,' he said. 'I want to talk to you,' and Summer found herself starting to quake. Since the episode in the swimming pool, she could never feel at ease alone with him, and especially not late at night with the others upstairs in their bedrooms.

Following her into the living room, he closed the door quietly behind him.

'Tell me something,' he said conversationally. 'If you knew Emily meant to do something I disapproved of, how would you react? Would you let her go ahead?'

'Naturally not. I'd try to persuade her against it.'

'How can I rely on that when you yourself don't respect my wishes?'

'In general, I do,' she answered. 'But because I have a living-in job I don't think it gives you the right to vet all my friends and acquaintances as if I were a Victorian governess. Now that you have met Hal, you might have the fairness to admit that my judgment about him was sound. There's nothing "odd fish" about him.'

'There wouldn't appear to be—no. If I hadn't opened the door when I did, he was going to kiss you. Did you want him to?'

She began to flush. 'No, I didn't.'

'How were you going to prevent it?'

'I—I don't know. It didn't arise.'

'Thanks to my intervention. Otherwise the way to avoid that situation was to politely refuse the invitation in the first place. If I don't send you to New York, how are you planning to slide out of another date with him?'

'Because I didn't want him to kiss me, doesn't mean I don't like him,' she prevaricated.

Her glass still contained some Perrier. His, like Hal's, was empty. He picked it up and crossed the room to the antique black lacquer cabinet which served as a drinks cupboard.

'As I said, you've led a sheltered life. The mating dance is no longer a courtly minuet,' he told her dryly. 'It's a fast fandango into bed. If Cochran's been fat since his teens, he's probably a slow worker. But once he gets started he may try to make up lost time. You could find him hard to fend off.'

She said coldly, 'You obviously see every relationship in terms of sex. It isn't everyone's outlook. There are people who want to be friends before they... go any further.'

'There are indeed.'

He strolled back to the main group of seating where she perched on the edge of a giltwood bergère and where now he stretched his long frame on a blond linen sofa.

'And it'll surprise you to know that I'm among them,' he went on. 'At my age, unless he's a fool, a man wants more from a woman than her body.'

'But you don't give Hal the credit for being equally discriminating?'

'I think he's probably like you—several years behind his contemporaries in experience with the opposite sex. I also think he's a simple soul with simple needs. What he wants is a wife. You're not ready to be anyone's wife—certainly not his. The man has no conversation other than sport. If he's not out, he'll spend his evenings in front of the television. When he's older, midway through the evening he'll go to sleep in front of the television.'

She couldn't argue with him on that score.

When she didn't answer, he said, 'Where did he take you this evening?'

'We had dinner on Marina Jack II.'

He arched an expressive dark eyebrow.

'Have you ever been on it?' she asked, annoyed by the supercilious gesture.

'No. It's popular with the tourists, I believe. What was the food like?'

'I don't think you'd have been impressed. I would have enjoyed it just for the view from the Bay. We came past this house and Ca'd'Zan.'

He said, 'Mabel Ringling used to have a Venetian gondola moored on a small island near their terrace. The gondola and the island were swept away by a hurricane in 1926.'

Relieved to be on a safe subject, she said, 'How frequent are serious hurricanes?

'In the last fifty years, there've been thirteen; the worst in 1944 when eighteen people were killed. But shortly before that period, in 1928, nearly two thousand people were killed. You're in no danger here. The Keys are the vulnerable areas, and there could be evacuation problems with hundreds of mobile homes, towed by elderly drivers, choking the main exit routes. But September is the most hazardous month, and you and Emily won't be here then.'

'Are
you sending us to New York next week?'

'I think so—yes. If you've no objection?' he said suavely, the tawny eyes mocking her.

He knew she would be glad to escape the difficult situation into which her inexperience had led her.

She rose from the bergère. 'If that's all, I'll go to bed now.'

'There's one more thing.' He put aside his drink and stood up.

She expected him to say what it was on his way to open the door for her. When he didn't move in that direction, she said interrogatively, 'Yes?'

He crooked a finger, beckoning her to come closer.

Puzzled, uncertain, she obeyed.

'Perhaps I should have left you to cope with Cochran,' he said reflectively. 'It might have made you less uptight about being kissed in the pool. Were you really as frightened as you made out the girl was to him? Or would flustered be more accurate?'