They Met in Zanzibar (19 page)

She shot her head, inhaled a little smoke and asked,
“
Are you happy,
Steve?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“I mean really happy, not just sliding along on a sort of light contentment.”

“Becoming percipient, aren’t you?” he said, gently mocking. “A light contentment isn’t so bad, after a lousy patch. Why the sudden concern about my happiness?”

Meditatively, she bit at the inside of her lip. “For a long time I haven’t thought very much. It’s been good to accept everything and let you take the weight. But
it
...
it can’t go on, can it?”

“Why not?” he asked evenly.

“Well
...”
she looked at him appealingly. “I’m not entirely absorbed with myself. There are times when I begin to wonder about other people - mostly you.”

“I’m glad. What do you wonder?”

“Chiefly what lies behind that smile of yours. You smiled pretty often in the old days, but it was always a smile that had meaning; it jeered, or was cynical, or angry, or tolerant. It spoke for you.” She made a complication of pressing out her cigarette. “In a way, you’ve become rather a stranger.”

“I’m no different,” he said, without much expression. “When you’re back to normal you’ll probably find me as maddening as I used to be.”

Something stirred in Peg’s memory. She heard the thwack of tennis balls, felt the vague discomfort of a garden chair under the trees, and heard voices just behind her, Steve’s just a murmur and then Lynette’s. “You’re mocking, humorous and maddening, but I’m in love with you, Steve - entirely and absolutely.”

Peg’s voice trembled slightly and it sounded thin. “I’d like to be back to normal, but I don’t want more pain. Not yet.”

Steve tossed down the remains of his drink. In deep, relaxed tones he said, “We’ll guard against that - don’t you worry. When you’re thoroughly rested I may start to bully you a bit, but you won’t mind it. You’ll know it’s only reaction from a long spell of being a thorough gentleman!”

She smiled. “I’d never have guessed you had it in you to be such a dear.”

His mouth was sardonic. “It was one thing I had no ambition to be - a dear. But maybe it’s good for a guy to have it thrust on him. Come on, sweetie - let’s have lunch.”

Peg didn’t really try to rouse Steve in any way, probably because she knew that while she remained thin and was occasionally listless he would refuse to be jolted. But gradually it came to her that there was no depth whatever to their relationship; as a bulwark he was necessary to her, but Steve didn’t really need her at all. He had said he did, but it wasn’t true. He asked nothing of her, not even some small household duty, and the casual, gentle pose he must have found quite difficult sometimes, because it wasn’t in the least natural to him. Perhaps, because she was so unlike the girl he had known before the accident, he overdid the softening of everything for her.

There came an afternoon when Mr. McTeale called at the house. He came upon Peg putting finishing touches to a new sun-dress, and he beamed jovially.

“You’re looking grand,” he said, in his faintly Scottish tones. “Married life agrees with you, but you’re still a wee bit slender like. Young Michael Foster told me you were well, and that’s why I came to see you. Is Steve about?”

“No, he’s out this afternoon, Mr. McTeale.”

“That’s a pity. Maybe he’s spoken to you about your old house!”

Peg’s hands rested on the bright stuff in her lap. “No. No, he hasn’t, except to tell me that he’s stored one or two things and got rid of the rest. What did you want to know?”

“Och, it’s not so important for a day or two, but I would like to get the O.K. for alterations. Last time I mentioned it to Steve he said it must wait till you could see the place. I thought as you’d sold you wouldn’t be interested any more, but he said he was keen for you to see the place as it stands. I don’t know why.”

Peg knew why. She had never seen the house since she had set out from it, that night with her father. Steve had mentioned it only once, as if in passing. “Nothing you value is left there, and we’re planning to convert it into quarters for two Malays and their families. If you agree, that is.” Peg had agreed, perhaps too quickly, for Steve had answered, “You must look it over some time before we alter it.” He might have added, “when you start facing up to things.” It was what he had meant, though she hadn’t gathered as much at the time.

She said now. “I’ll mention it to Steve when he comes in, Mr. McTeale. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“I’d like it, but I daren’t stay. Will you be coming over to see us soon?”

“I’d love to.”

“Then you’ll both come Saturday, perhaps, for dinner? It’ll be a treat to have you like your own self again. Goodbye, then.”

After the man had gone Peg was aware of a slight tingling sensation in her fingertips. She hurriedly finished off the neck of the sun-dress and went to the square blue and white kitchen to iron it. Neither Nosoap nor Melai, who had been Steve’s houseboy for several years, were in the kitchen, and she quickly did the job and put away evidences of it. Then she put on the dress, a yellow and white small check with bands of broderie anglaise across it, and changed her toe-strap sandals for white shoes. When she met Steve on the terrace, just after five, he gave her a surprised wink.

“You look like an advertisement for the Riviera,” he commented. “Going somewhere?”

She stood in front of him, slight and fair-haired, blue
-
eyed, and smiling a little nervously. “Mr. McTeale called. They’re ready to alter
my ...
the old house, and he thought
you wanted me to see it first, just as it is now.”

The guarded look came into his eyes.' “Yes, that’s right. I didn’t want it changed beyond recognition till you’d seen it again.”

“Will you take me there?”

“Right now?”

“Please.”

“Sure,” he said, but hesitated. “You’re quite certain it’s what you want?”

“Yes.”

“All right, but if you change your mind on the way just say so.” He laid an arm along her shoulders and they moved across the terrace towards the car standing on the drive. “Feel good today?”

“Splendid. I bathed twice.”

“We’ll go out touring the island
one day. In you get.” He came round and sat beside her, gave her another smiling appraisal and set the car moving.

They had driven together a few times, but only into town. This time they took the other direction, along the main plantation road. To Peg it was all very familiar. The miles of thickly growing palms that reached high up into the sky; a stream here and there with thickets of banana along its banks, the unending arc of blue sky overhead. Then the bridges, first the one which spanned a small ravine and then the long one over the river. He was driving quite slowly, and talking of the new divisions of the land, but after they had crossed the bridge she said quietly, pointing,

“It happened just there, didn’t it? Which ... which tree, Steve?”

“The ipoh,” he said, barely giving it a glance.

“Was the old car a complete write-off
?
”

“No, but I sent it off on a freighter to one of the other
islands; the buyer paid a couple of hundred into your account. I’ve ordered a small car for you, but it may not arrive for several weeks. Here are your trees.”

They looked different, and she saw it was because all the rank grass between them had been cleared. Here and there stood handcarts filled with the big greenish brown coconuts, and in a clearing a mountain of them was ready for the machetes of the boys who husked and split the nuts.

Then they were turning from the road into the small compound of what had been the Maldon plantation. Peg felt a dull ache, but nothing else, as she looked at the palm-thatched little house.

Steve laid a hand on her wrist. “There’s no
thing
inside. Don’t go in unless you really feel an urge to.”

A little tautly, she said, “I
think
I’d better. May I go alone?”

“If you must - just for a couple of minutes.”

He got out with her, but Peg walked into the house while he remained near the car with his back to it, looking up at the palms. She walked through the rooms; they were shabby, dusty and echoing, and at first she felt only a slight distaste for the place which was something like the distaste she had come to feel for the suite over the clinic. Even when a poignancy came into her thoughts she could feel only the sadness of her father having built the house which was now to be converted for two families of islanders. She came out into the sudden dusk, dry
-
eyed, got into the car and said nothing till they were on their way home.

“I was prepared for it to hurt much more,” she said. “In a way I wish it had.”

Steve didn’t answer, except to give her a reassuring, mechanical glance. But she got the impression that he too wished the sight of the place which had been her father’s beloved home for fifteen years had had some other effect than the apparently dull impact which she had stood very well.

They had dinner alone on the terrace, and when the huge, woolly night moths became troublesome they went indoors. As usual, at about nine-fifteen Peg looked at her watch.

“Bathing twice has made me sleepy. I’m going to bed.”

Steve did what he always did. He lit the lamp in her blue and grey room, adjusted the mosquito net and looked about for the lizards which could frighten though they were harmless. Peg was trying to reach the back zipper of her dress would have managed it, but Steve said,

“Here, don’t strain like that - let me.”

He did it before she could stop him, saw her back, smooth and golden and bare to the waist. Perhaps it was a reflex action that made him take her shoulders in strong warm hands and bend to touch the nape of her neck with his lips. She shivered and he ended the kiss quickly, but did not release her at once. Perhaps he didn’t want her to turn about and face him, for his hands dropped suddenly, he said an abrupt, “Goodnight, Peg, sleep well,” and was gone.

For the first time since she had married Steve, Peg lay awake half the night, staring at the stars.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Now a t
iny cloud broke into the hitherto serene horizon. You couldn’t describe its elusive quality, but there it was, and subtly, small incidents increased its size. There was the matter of going to the McTeales’ for dinner. In the five weeks of their marriage Peg and Steve had not dined out. Had Peg thought about it she might have questioned him, but to her it had been part of his over-protection of her peace and quiet, and when McTeale had given his invitation she had thought Steve would be pleased that she had accepted for them both.

But unsmilingly he had said, “I’ll tell McTeale we’re not going out yet in the evenings. He’ll understand.”

“But, Steve, I can’t keep you away from your friends,” she’d protested, “and anyway, I’d like to go out for a change. It’ll do me good to stay up till midnight for once.”

“You can stay up at home first,” he’d replied offhandedly. “We’re not going.”

“That’s not fair to me, because it makes me feel I’m coming between you and your colleagues. I don’t want to do that.”

“You don’t have to worry about the men. They know all you’ve been through, and that you were ill when we married.”

“But I’m not ill now! I’m absolutely normal.”

“Are you?” he’d said quietly. “Do you think you could convince the gossiping wives of that?”

She’d felt heat come into her face, a sudden quickening of her heart. But she’d kept her voice steady. “I could try. I can’t hide away for ever just in case some prying woman makes things unpleasant.”

He’d let a minute elapse. Then, coolly: “You don’t see it my way at all. I happen to be over these men, and rather larger than the usual target for the women. I won’t have them make conjectures about us.”

“We have to face it all some time,” she had said, but found her voice failing before the end of the sentence.

After a silence, he had lifted a shoulder and remarked, “Social contacts aren’t important to us just now. I’m apt to be impatient too, but over something rather different. Leave the outside world alone for a bit. People won’t mind.”

“Apparently you don’t mind their thinking me a semi
-
invalid, either.”

He’d ended the conversation almost curtly. “That’s better than other things they might think. Just leave it.”

So the cloud grew slightly bigger and took on a greyness, though it was still kept at a distance, on the skyline.

At this time, Netta Fellowes was Peg’s salvation. The small, cheerful little woman of thirty-odd, with her quiet voice and seemingly instant understanding, now came to the house about two mornings a week, but sometimes she invited Peg to drive into town with her for shopping. Netta drove sedately, a very old car which had gone from education officer’s wife to education officer’s wife for the last twenty years. Its mileage was not high, but the gravel roads, hot sunshine and sudden deluges had left their mark on coachwork and chromium. However, it was still comfortable inside, and Netta said it had emotions of its own which could only be communicated through the wives of education officers.

Netta was that rarity among women, a person without idle curiosity or suspicion. She was liked only by people who really knew her; others considered her insipid and rather pitied Dick, who, had they but known it, was well above compassion of any kind, because he knew his wife better than anyone and was well aware of her unspectacular but very real worth.

It was because Netta naturally assumed the Cortland
ménage
to be like any other that Peg found her such a comforting companion. Netta would drive to the waterfront and say,

“I hear Mr. Adamson has had a new shipment of furnishing fabrics. Let’s poke them over.”

Or perhaps it was occasional furniture, or hardware, or china. Netta probed happily, perhaps spent a pound or two, and together the two women would go into the cool Club cafe for tea. With Netta, there was never the smallest complication, and after a jaunt to town with her Peg would walk through the house and wonder whether she should suggest a turquoise chair for the empty
corner
in the lounge, or a gilt mirror for the blank end of the short passage.

She had been in the house some weeks before she noticed much about the furnishing. Her own room, white-walled, grey-carpeted with powder blue curtains and bedspread, the bed plain teak, and an unexpected touch of vermillion in the bedside lampshade, was almost entirely new; that was obvious. Steve had furnished it especially for her, restfully but with just that hint of life which gave the room a rosy glow after dark, and she had accepted it gratefully.

The lounge had been arranged more for comfort than to please the eye, but there was an agreeable air about its long, uncurtained window wall, its deep green easy chairs, cream rugs, rattan chairs close to the outdoors and couple of hanging paraffin lamps which had deep gold shades.

Steve’s bedroom door was opposite Peg’s. The room was large and airy, with a french window on to the side of the house. Peg was rather startled, the first time she looked in there, to see twin beds covered with wine-coloured damask; then she realised that it was really his guest room, that he had got rid of his own bedroom furniture and refurnished his room for her.

There were one or two small alterations she would like to have made in the house, but something kept her from suggesting them. Perhaps it was a sense of inadequacy, of not quite belonging. Would she ever get over that feeling of being here through Steve’s kindness? She did wish there were things she could do for him, but when she had suggested dosing his workers as she had dosed her father’s he’d turned her down flat. He’d always looked after his own boys and, in any case, the company were, taking care of that side of things on a grand scale. No more need for amateur dabbling.

It was after she had been out with Netta one afternoon that she came back to find letters on the table, neatly stacked as if someone had brought them in from town and handed them to Melai. Company correspondence by the look of it, but because there was a very faint chance of a letter for her from someone in England Peg looked through them, reflecting as she did so that only a couple of official letters had ever been addressed to Mrs. Stephen Cortland.

Long manilla envelopes, a few with airmail markings, all for the company ... except one. A dashing feminine hand, airmailed from Singapore. Peg turned it about, and suddenly her fingers were shaking and she
w
as shoving the thing back into the pile and hurriedly shaping it so that no one would know she had looked through it.

She went outside and walked quickly down to the beach. Her shoes filled with sand and she kicked them off and walked into the edge of the sea. For a long time she stared out at the reef and refused to think, but eventually the thoughts came of their own volition. That letter ... from Lynette, of course. Was he writing to her, or was she still the woman scorned, trying to undermine the marriage which had humiliated her? Somehow Peg was sure that Steve would never correspond with another woman once he was married. Whatever he might
do,
he would never write about it. He had sent Lynette Foster away, and the last thing he would do was correspond with her.

But if Lynette wrote to him, what then? Could he ignore Michael’s sister, the daughter of his friends in Singapore? He’d have to reply, even if coolly. Perhaps he had already replied to her last letter and this was a further effort.

Peg felt the late afternoon breeze springing up, a coolness over skin which had sweated a little through memories revived by the letter. That vicious visit of Lynette’s to the suite over the clinic; her malicious ravings which, misted over by Peg’s malaise, had quickly seemed distant and nonsensical. Lynette had been furious, in a mood to say anything that would stab and spoil the day for the woman who was marrying Steve Cortland.

And yet why shouldn’t there have been truth in the statements she had spat out? There was no doubt at all that Steve had had an affair with her in Zanzibar, and to
Peg’s own knowledge he had led her on considerably here on the island. Had he wished, he could have stopped her going so far as to tell him she loved him. He hadn’t wished, because in a way he had enjoyed it. The whole point of his behaviour was that, much though he appreciated Lynette in an affair, he didn’t want to marry her. For one thing, she was too easily got, and for another she was wrong for his job. It was natural for him to presume that as Lynette had chased after him, so would she chase
after someone else when Motu and being the general manager’s circumspect wife bored her predatory nature.

Peg moved along the edge of the water. She was confronting herself now, and it was beginning to hurt. The question recurred; why had Steve married Peg? Because she had needed him ... granted. And according to him, because he had needed her. That didn’t make sense unless, knowing that she loved Motu and of her own will had decided to stay on the island, he felt she would gradually work herself into the identity he wanted in a wife. Someone young and hurt enough to be grateful and obedient, someone who would docilely fill his requirements...

No, none of it made the sort of sense one would expect of Steve. He wouldn’t want an unstable wife, like Lynette, but neither would he want a docile one, and of all things he detested gratitude most. It all came back to that other pronouncement of Lynette Foster’s. Steve had married Peg Maldon for an exquisitely simple reason; in his new position a wife would soon be a necessity, and he had been shocked by the manner of Jim Maldon’s death into making himself responsible for Jim’s daughter. Perhaps he had remembered a kiss on the beach at Nabanui, but probably not. He hadn’t thought about kisses when marrying Peg.

It darkened, and she stood still. A familiar, tormenting ache came into her throat and she knew, despairingly, that her respite was over. She was in love with Steve. In love with Steve. He wanted her in love with him; she had felt it deep inside her two of three times. But Steve had no love to give. He could make love, but that was different, something male that had passion but no heart in it. Peg didn’t want that; wouldn’t have it, even if she were never offered anything else.

She turned tiredly, and at the same moment heard her name called, peremptorily. He was coming down to the
beach at a long stride, a tall stranger in the dusk. The tall stranger who was her ... husband. She found that unconsciously she had been twisting the ring on her finger; twisting and twisting. Steve reached her as she bent to pull on her shoes.

“What are you doing down here, for heaven’s sake?” he demanded. “I had the hell of a fright when Nosoap said he hadn’t seen you since lunch.”

She straightened away from his arm. “What did you think I’d done - turned mermaid?”

Her voice must have been much harsher than she intended or realised, for he stared at her and said, “What’s happened? Don’t you feel so well?”

“Does it always have to be something physical?” She trod into the sand. “Walking in the sea was a good way to think. Steve, I want to go away for a while.”

He didn’t exclaim, or make her stop and face him, as she had thought he might. He only said coolly, “By yourself? And what would that solve
?
”

“I think it might give us both a different outlook - about each other, I mean. Ever since the accident we’ve been too close to be able to see each other. You’ve been wonderful to me - so kind and considerate that I wonder if I deserve it. You’re such a ... a long way away - from me, I mean. I suppose I’m the sa
m
e - not myself at all.” Her tones lowered.
“I ...
I want to be myself.”

“I’m all for it,” he said briefly. They were crossing the terrace now and he let go of the elbow he had been holding. “We’ll have a talk after dinner.”

If they’d continued then, if he’d made her sit outside in the early darkness while he brought her a drink, and then come and sat beside her, she might have said all that was in her heart and at least have made him understand that she hated her false position in his house and couldn’t stand it much longer. And both of them might have been saved a little of the inevitable pain of their situation
... and something worse. But he left her at the door of her room and turned abruptly into his own room. And Peg had to take a bath and get into another dress, slick her hair and do her face, go into the living-room and inspect the dining-table, and wander outside feeling more than ever that she did not belong here, where she wasn’t even much use to the servants.

Over dinner, the atmosphere tautened. Peg ate hardly anything and Steve didn’t go beyond the main course. He had a purposeful look in his eye as he carried their coffee into the illumined terrace. Then one of those small things which have been known to change the course of people’s lives broke in on them. Michael Foster’s little car ground to a halt on the drive and he ran over to them.

“Steve, there’s a fight among the boys in Compound One. Two of them are drunk and laying about the others with knives!”

Steve’s jaw tensed; he was in a mood to have flattened Michael. But he stood up, swallowing coffee at the same time. “I won’t be long, Peg!” And he was gone, racketing away with younger man.

Relief was anguish, and she didn’t want it. Their talk, when it eventually came, would be anticlimax, and she didn’t want that, either. Peg drank her coffee, smoked a cigarette and went to her room. She undressed, turned back the bedclothes, but went to the open window and leaned there, taking in the night scents. She could smell the sea and the milky aroma of freshly opened coconuts, and she could see glowworms out there in the grass, and fireflies flitting among the branches. Looking into her own heart, she could see nothing but hurt and bewilderment.

She heard Steve return. It was ten o
’
clock, so he’d probably just call goodnight and go back for a drink on the terrace. Their talk would be postponed, and when they got round to it she’d say only a few words, carefully, and he would judicially weigh them and tell her where she was wrong. She drew a long, dragging sigh, took a cigarette from the box on her bedside table and flicked the lighter. She was replacing the lighter in its slot beside the ashtray when Steve tapped at the door and walked straight in. Only the bedside lamp was burning, and in its soft radiance she saw that he hadn’t lost the look of determination; if anything it had become slightly fanatical.

“Are you tired
?
” he asked bluntly.

“No. I usually go to bed at this time, but read for a while.”

“And tonight’s no different from any other?”

She flicked ash into the tray. “It’s late for talking, isn’t it? You don’t look to me to be in the right frame of mind for it, either. What happened with those boys
?
”