They Met in Zanzibar (10 page)

“But I’ll soon have my hands full for a while,” he said. “My sister is coming over from Singapore, to stay with me for a few weeks. After that, my parents go on leave and Lynette will fly to Europe with them.”

“Is it your sister’s first visit?”

He nodded. “It’s possible she won’t come back to the
East, so she’s keen to see Motu before she leaves. She’s a bit older than you are, but I hope you and she will get along, Peg.”

“I’m sure we shall. When does she arrive?”

“Not for a fortnight or so.”

“Is she thrilled about going to Europe?”

“Probably. Except for an occasional week or two, she’s hardly left Singapore during the last three years.”

Michael must have been glad to have his sister as a topic for conversation, for when he paused he sought awkwardly for a new one and, finding none, stood up. “Thanks very much for the tea. I’ll have to get back to the job. You’ll see that Mr. Maldon gets that note as soon as he comes in, won’t you?”

She said casually, “Steve’s writing, isn’t it? What’s so urgent?”

“The two company officials are arriving tomorrow - a technical director and a legal man. They’ll stay at the Government Club and Steve’s arranging a sort of buffet supper there for the following night. All the planters and their wives ... and you,” with a quick and slightly nervous smile, “are invited. The idea is to introduce everyone in a friendly atmosphere and get the two directors to put the thing over. Till it’s set
tl
ed, Steve is no more involved than your father.”

“No?” she said with irony. “Seems to be arranging everything, though, doesn’t he? Still, someone had to do it. Going? So long then, Michael.”

Alone, she had a second cup of tea and then took the tray to the kitchen; but she heard her father come in as she was washing the cups, and at once set fresh water to boil for more tea. Jim only ever drank one cup, so she poured it and took along a plate of biscuits as well. Steve’s letter, she noticed, lay open on the table, and her father was standing looking out of the window, an unlighted cheroot in his mouth. He turned and gave her an absent smile, put the cheroot into his pocket.

“Thanks, Peg. Had yours?”

“I made it early, for Michael Foster.”

Jim nodded at the letter. “Did he bring that? Read it.” She did read the concise words in a bold masculine hand, but they said no more than Michael had told her. She said softly, “Please don’t do anything that will make you unhappy. Out of eleven men you’re the only one who’s against the take-over, and if you begin
arguing
with these company officials they’ll have a set of ready-made answers that will only make you angry. Would it be such a strain just to listen to them and say nothing?”

He gave his brief hearty laugh. “I shan’t listen to them because we’re not going to their polite little party. Let all the yes-men get together and enjoy themselves in their own fashion. We’ll stay where we belong - on the plantation that I’ve earned with fifteen years of sweat.”

“If you’re definitely not going you ought to write a refusal to Steve.”

“Steve?” His smile went a little bleak. “I’ve nothing to say to him. I doubt whether he’s expecting me to turn up, anyway.”

“It seems such a pity that
... this should break up your friendships with the other men.”

He shrugged. “The older ones will probably be leaving and the young men will become neat little superintendents. As for Steve,” his smile now held a hint of calculation and defiance, “it will be interesting to see how far he’ll go towards freezing me out
.
As general manager of this highfalutin’ organisation he’ll be in a position to be helpful or merely passive. We’ll have to wait and watch, won’t we?” He had drunk his tea and now put down his cup. “We’re in this together, Peg. For your sake I’m sorry you couldn’t find Motu as I’ve always known it - lazy, productive and the pleasantest place in the world - but the changes began to take place behind my back. We do still have our plantation, though.”

Impulsively, she hugged him and kissed his cheek. “And we’ll stick to it, if that’s what you want. Can’t we do something positive about it?”

“We’ll start tomorrow - see a freight man in the town and send a cable to an agent in Singapore. What I’d really like is to be fixed up with shipping and a buyer even before the new subsidiary is formed. That’d really be showing my independence!”

“Well, that’s what we’ll go for!” exclaimed Peg gaily. He flung one of his short heavy arms round her; his tones were jubilant. “That’s just what I wanted to hear. I’m not writing to Steve, but you can reply to that thing for me. Tell him thanks for the invitation, but we already have a date with a
little
celebration of our own!”

It was impossible, Peg decided later, after she had written her formal rejection to Steve and sent Nosoap off on his bicycle with it, to tell just how her father was feeling. He was not a man of deep emotions, but a binding affection had always been part of his life. Affection for a wife he seldom saw, for a daughter he didn’t know, for the cottage in which he housed them in England. And perhaps it was a kind of affection that bound
him
to his palms; whatever suffering he had known had been caused by those palms which had magnetised him to Motu, and perhaps he regarded the plantation with the angry love of a parent for a wild exacting child. Peg no longer questioned whether his decision were the right one; because he couldn’t contemplate capitulation she was with him all the way.

Together, next morning, they visited the shipping agent in Motu. The man was wary, but promised to make enquiries throughout the smaller shipping lines which operated in the South Seas. A carefully worded cable was sent to a copra buyer in Singapore, and from him they did receive a fairly quick reply; it took only two days. The buyer would accept the copra at a commission of fifteen per cent. Jim muttered something unprintable and said he would keep the thing fluid; no harm in contacting a man he knew in Sarawak.

In a perverse fashion, Jim was enjoying himself, but Peg wondered how he would have felt if there were no one to laugh with and boast to. She pandered to his vanity, abetted him wherever necessary, because she loved
him
and knew that without the plantation he would feel useless. Deep down she couldn’t help feeling uneasy and sad.

It was strange how the days passed without a word of news from other planters. In a trip up to town Peg saw two men who were obviously the important couple, strolling among palms and making notes while uncaring bo
y
s walked up the trees on their roped feet and hacked off the nuts. None of the nuts fell on the two men, Peg noticed regretfully. A Malay had once told her that coconuts fell only on bad men, so perhaps those two were only doing their duty after all.

Jim Maldon had taken to swimming m
o
re often, and he even had Peg drive a small outboard motor boat while he rode the surf behind it. He was still tough and sturdy, but Peg had the worried conviction that he was losing weight. Certainly he ate less and exercised more strenuously.

More than a fortnight had passed since her picnic with Steve when Peg saw him again. She had just delivered a boy of ten at the clinic and was hesitating in the brilliant white sunshine before getting back into the wagon, when Steve pulled up his car straight behind it and got out.

“Good morning,” he said in businesslike tones. “Come and have a drink in the Club. I want to speak to you.”

As distantly, she began, “If it’s anything to do with my father...”

But he took her elbow and led her past a shuttered white building and into the cool, airy interior of the government club. Through an archway to the left there was a small bar with stools round it and a few bamboo chairs about drink tables.

“Stric
tl
y speaking, you’re not allowed here in slacks, but at this time of the morning there are few people about. Sit down. The usual lime and soda?”

A white-coated young
man
with a triangular brown face and slanting eyes took Steve’s order and promptly delivered it. Steve dropped ice from a jug into Peg’s drink and pushed it across to her before dealing with his own.

“Smoke?” he said.

She shook her bent head.

A match rasped, and she smelled the cigarette. Jerkily, she tried the ice-cold drink, was glad of its shock to the warmth of her throat. From the
corner
of her eye she saw him drop a match into the black china ashtray; his fingers looked brown and purposeful. She felt a stabbing pain as she thought: He’s not remembering the kiss on the beach or what Jim said to him when we got back; he’s only concerned with his damned coconuts. That was Steve for you. The reflection steeled her considerably. So much so that when she looked up she was able, coolly, to meet his glance.

“If you wanted so much to speak to me,” she remarked, “you could have called at the house.”

“It’s no use talking to you there,” he said tersely. “Too much of your father about. And if I’d asked you over to my place you wouldn’t have come. As a matter of fact,
I’ve driven along your way several times, hoping to meet you.”

“Dear, dear. That’s a comedown for the general manager.”

“You and your father,” he commented with a bitter smile. “You’re out of an identical mould. Jim, I can understand
... but not you. You must be able to see what’s going to happen to him when he’s cut off from everyone else.”

“That’s what he’s chosen. Those fine company officials don’t seem to worry about it, so why should you care?”

“They’re quite
concerned,” he said sharply, “and I’m more unhappy about it than I’ve been about anything for a long time! I’ve explained to them how Jim feels - and believe it or not, they can understand that kind of sentimentality in a man. They asked me to get him to meet them.”

“It wouldn’t do any good. It so happens,” with her chin well up, “that we’re arranging to send copra to a man in Singapore.”

“
We
?”

She lifted her shoulders. “Everyone else has forsaken
him.
I suppose they’d come to the house if we invited them, but if they can’t drop in as they used to, they can stay away. We’ll manage to ship and sell the copra, and if we have to take a loss over the first few months it will be better than giving in to a bunch of plutocrats who haven’t a man-sized soul between them.”

“That includes me, I suppose?”

“You know whether or not it includes you.”

“Get this straight. I’ve actually pleaded that your father should be allowed to carry on as long as he wishes and that the company should continue to buy from him on the old basis, with the understanding that when Jim retires he’ll sell to the company at two-thirds of the price he’d get now. They were sorry, but they couldn’t consider it.”

“Well, you tried.”

Heat entered his voice. “And you’re quite unimpressed, apparen
tl
y. What’s going to happen to Jim when you leave Motu? Have yo
u
considered that angle?”

“I won’t leave till things are settled.”

“And what’s the security type in England going to say about that?”

By now, Peg was so strung up that she had to flare at him or be flippant. In self-defence she chose flippancy. “He’s nothing like you, Steve, so he’ll probably be very understanding about it.” She paused, looking for a few seconds at his dark drawn brows and compressed lips. Having turned the point of a knife towards her own heart, she drove it a little way in. “I was quite shattered when you kissed me at Nabanui, but not for the reason you thought. I tried to imagine it was Paul, and received a jolt.”

“Go on,” he said, with deadly quiet. “Get it said, and then perhaps we’ll be able to converse like normal human beings.”

“That’s all. I just wanted you to know that if it hadn’t all been so sudden I’d have told you I’m not free for an affair.”

“You’re not even capable of one,” he said savagely. “I knew that the moment I met you in Zanzibar. I suppose you think you love this man Paul?”

“I know I do. I’ve adored him since I was a child.”

“How old is he?”

“Your age, or perhaps a year older.”

That stopped him. He stared at her across the table, and then quickly tossed off his drink; the empty glass met the bamboo with a thwack. He leaned towards her, eyes glittering.

“Do me one favour. When you sorrowfully confess to him that you’ve kissed another man, forget my name. Do you feel better for having taken a stab at me?”

“Slightly.”

“Good.” He spoke the word as if it were an expletive. “And now, about Jim. I saw him a day or two ago here in town and he drove right past, without a nod. Did he mention it?”

“No. I suppose you think he was being childish?”

“I
think
he feels alone - and that’s not like Jim. He’s always been a great mixer. Before you came he hardly spent an evening alone, and every weekend he came to my place for dinner and a game of cards. He and I were the best of friends. This change in him worries me.”

Peg looked down at the sliver of ice that was fast disappearing at the bottom of her glass. “It has nothing to do with my coming here,” she said, a little unsteadily. “He thought he had ten friends among the planters, but finds that because he happens to care more for his plantation than for cash, he’s become a sort of odd man out. I know it’s not their fault, but you can’t blame my father for feeling let down. And maybe,” after a pause, “it’s pride, not childishness, that’s made him decide to go it alone. If you spoke to him now you wouldn’t be sorry for him, I can assure you. He’s not in the least downhearted.”

“That’s good news, anyway.” But Steve sounded grim. “If he remains stubborn, heaven knows where it will end. The two company officials are leaving tomorrow and I’ve been hoping that somehow I could get Jim to meet them before they go.”

She shook her head. “He won’t - not now. He’s made his plans for going all out on his own.”

“And what if they fail?”