They Met in Zanzibar (2 page)

“Are you there?” she called towards the balcony. “One of your shirts
got...”

Peg stopped abruptly, for a man had risen from the long wicker lounger in the balcony. A man who looked enormous in linen slacks and a singlet. He held a glass in one hand, but it was his other arm, from elbow to shoulder, that drew her horrified gaze. He had a savage red scar in a long loop with several cuts beside it. The whole thing looked puckered and discoloured.

Deliberately, he took a white tropical shirt from the back of a chair and shouldered into it. “Who are you, for Pete’s sake?” he demanded crisply.

“I’m sorry,” she said, backing away from him. “I thought this was my father’s room.” But curiosity brought her to a halt. “How did you hurt your arm?”

“In a tangle with a shark down south, a week ago. What’s it to you?”

“It should have been stitched.”

“I’ve had worse. It’ll come round. Your father is probably next door. I believe it was vacant.”

“No, that’s my room.”

“So?”

The way he said it caused a prickle in the nape of Peg’s neck. She went very cool and appraised
him
as he was appraising her. He was covering the muscular chest and buttoning the shirt with strong brown fingers that were hairy on the backs. His face was square with a decided cleft in the chin, and his nose, forward-jutting and slightly bent at the bridge, looked as if it could probe into anyone’s business and get away with it. He was dark, his hair quite straight but thick and smooth, and his brows were a straight line, broken dead centre. Peg was just wondering about that strong, well-defined mouth when her father came into the room.

“Steve, you old so-and-so!”
he beamed.

“Well, Jim!” without much surprise. “Fancy seeing you here. Just a minute - don’t mistake this situation. This kid came bursting in here only a moment ago
...”

Jim Maldon laughed, and gave an extra shake to the hand he held. “What’s mine is yours,” he said jovially. “Almost, anyway. This is my daughter, Steve. She’s going back with me to Motu. Peg, shake hands with Steve Cortland. Is that my shirt you’re holding?”

“Yes, I thought you were next door to me.”

“You’re safe next to Steve,” said her father, “so long as you lock your door and keep a gun beside the bed.”

“Thanks,” said Steve drily. “Your father could be right, though. When you get into a part of the world where the men outnumber the women, shout for help first and ask questions later.” Casually, he belted the shirt. “Shall we go down for lunch?”

“Got a bathroom here?” said Jim. “I’ll just wash and get into this clean shirt. Talk to Peg about Motu. Be good for her to hear it from another angle.”

Steve did not at once comply. He tossed off the drink he had set down and put the glass on the dressing chest, gave himself a detached glance in the mirror.

“So you’re Peg,” he said. “I’ve heard about you, of course. A nurse, or something?
”

“Just an assistant in a convalescent home.”

“Willing to be used - as a nurse, I mean?”

She laughed and nodded. “Are you typical of the men at Motu?”

“Something strange about me?”

“You’re more direct than the usual Englishman.”

“You’re not backward, either. If you were older we’d have to be careful with each other. What’s Peg short for?”

“Margaret, I’m afraid. Doesn’t suit me, does it?”

“Peg will do. What do you hope to get from a trip to Motu?”

“Knowledge and experience, and the pleasure of living with my father in the place he loves. I may stay only a few months.”

“You look healthy, so you’ll probably stand it all right. You may even decide to stay permanently - hitch up with someone there.”

“I shan’t do that,” she said positively.

His eyes, a clear dark grey in the muted light, narrowed mockingly. “Don’t ever be too certain about anything connected with the emotions. The people who say there’s no such thing as the lure of the tropics can only speak for their humdrum selves. For those who’ve imagination and strong human needs the lure exists; take it from me.”

“Are you a ladies’ man?” she asked interestedly. Apparently nothing anyone said ever surprised
S
teve Cortland.

“Would I live on Motu if I were?”

“You might prefer your peccadilloes concentrated into your leave periods. Things you wait for are far more exciting than pleasant habits.”

He grinned. “You’ve a point there. Let’s say I don’t dislike women so long as they don’t bother me. How do you feel about men?”

“Pretty much the same,” she said, unconsciously wrinkling her nose, “but I’m not experienced enough t
o
have them bother me. Even you don’t bother me, though I can imagine that you’d send a certain kind of woman flat on her face.”

“What kind?” he asked negligen
tl
y.

Smiling, she said thoughtfully, “She’d be about twenty-five, good-looking and choosy ... and she’d wish to heaven she’d fallen for someone rather less male and more gentle.”

“Don’t pull your punches, do you?” he said agreeably. “How long are you and Jim staying here?”

“Two days, I think.”

“Then tomorrow I’ll take you round. Your father’s seen it all.”

“Perhaps he’d like to take me himself.”

“Don’t challenge me, pretty Peg,” he said lazily, with a provocative glint in his eye. “If I took you up on it you’d be scared to death.”

Her brows rose, her lips opened as if to retort, but his laugh broke in. It was both annoying and stimulating to have him kidding her; she knew relief when her father came back into the room with his heavy, buoyant tread.

They lunched together and the men talked about Motu. Jim wanted to know all about his own plantation, how McTeale was making out and whether the price had changed. It seemed that McTeale was also overseeing Steve Cortland’s plantation, but Steve had a young English superintendent in charge of his labourers. This was the slackest season, the only time any of the planters could get away, but even now they were picking coconuts and drying them. There was never any time of the year when the palms did not bear, but during heavy rains it was best to deal only with the fallen nuts.

They sat over coffee so long that when they moved it was just on tea-time. Peg went to her room for a rest, and after the sudden six o’clock darkness she had a bath and put on a thin white jersey silk. At seven-thirty she had dinner with the two men and after it she walked out alone, into the strange warm night.

She didn’t walk far, of course. She felt sleepy and contented and excited about tomorrow. She heard an occasional babble of Kiswahili and the more dignified speech of the Arab. She caught sight of dark-faced men with white beards and pink turbans, conversing over coffee outside a blank-looking house. There were few windows anywhere; the houses were constructed for coolness, with little that was artistic about them except perhaps a carved door or a Saracenic archway.

Next morning it was brilliant again with that peculiar white haze across the sky. Peg went to the bazaars with her father, but by mid-morning he had had enough. He subsided into a chair in the dark hotel lounge and ordered beer for himself and cold shandy for Peg.

“Our climate at Motu is better than this,” he said.

“We’ve more breeze round us and it’s not so humid. It’s the greatest place in the world.”

“I love Zanzibar, though,” Peg sighed happily. “There’s something about it that gets you. You feel you couldn’t stay long, but you must come back.”

Her father smiled. “Don’t you get like me, Peg. It’s bad enough for a man to feel pulled back into outlandish places. A woman would find it hell. Supposing you married someone who hadn’t caught the bug?”

“I’d infect him,” she said mischievously. She looked up with her candid blue gaze as Steve joined them. “Hallo,” she said. “Do you know where I can bathe?”

He sank down lazily into a chair he had hooked forward, gave her the faintly amused smile to which she was already becoming accustomed. “Sure I do. Get your bikini and I’ll take you out for the rest of the day.”

“Yes, go with Steve,” her father urged. “I’m going to enjoy myself old-man fashion - musing over old times with the hangers-on at the Club.”

“You’re not old!”

“In the tropics I am. But don’t you worry. In Motu I’m king of my own little estate and you’ll be Princess Peg. You know, if you take to it out there I may never have to go back to England again. I shan’t mind. I belong down there, among my own palms.”

“We’ll leave you then, Jim,”
said Steve, a little abruptly. “There’s a small car I borrow while I’m here. I’ll get it and meet Peg out front in about five minutes. All right?”

As he left them at his long easy stride, Jim lifted his shoulders. “Something has got into Steve - I noticed it as soon as we met him yesterday. I believe he was to meet someone here who hasn’t turned up.”

“A woman?”

Her father edged past this. “It could be anyone. He
knows people all round. He just seems a bit stiff, that’s all.”

“Well, I wouldn’t like to meet him when he unbends.”

“Don’t you like Steve?” asked her father, astonished.

“He knows too much.”

“That’s reasonable, isn’t it? He’s thirty-two and never been family-bound. I’ll admit he’s not much like your friend Paul Lexfield, but then they’re from totally different backgrounds.” He paused. “You collected a letter from Paul at Mombasa, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not much good at this,
but
...
do you feel tied to him?”

“In a way.”

“Isn’t he going to marry that girl?”

Peg, honest as ever, but averse to a discussion of this kind, got to her feet, saying, “No, he’s not going to marry Vanessa. I’ll get my swim-suit.”

Ten minutes later she was sitting in a smallish car beside a rather large Steve Cortland and watching him manipulate the thing through narrow streets on to the shadeless stone waterfront. Peg’s perceptions were new and keyed up, and she was acutely aware of everything she could see and feel. The bay was a smooth and shining blue, the public gardens were heavy with heat and hardly anyone strolled or even stood in the shade of the trees.

Steve waved towards an
imm
ense stone wall that faced the sea. “That’s the old Arab fort. The Portuguese built it as a stronghold back in the fifteen-hundreds, but guess what it’s used for now.”

“A prison?”

“You might call it that. It’s a club for women in purdah.” “That’s barbaric!”

“I don’t know. It’s a pretty good idea, I think. One of the reasons I visit these spots is because it’s refreshing to find that in some places the relationship between the sexes is still kept in its place.”

She looked at him critically, saw an arrogant gaze directed towards the buildings on the right, a smile playing about the firm mouth. “You know, I can see you in one of these white-walled houses surrounded by your harem. You have the temperament for it.”

“It’s a charming picture,” he conceded. “I almost wish it could happen. That building, by the way, is the Government Offices. It’s called Beit-el-Ajab, which means House of Wonders, because it was the grandest building, except the Palace, when it was erected. That’s the Palace, right next door. If it had grounds those Arabic arches would look quite something. See that alcove in the outer wall? It holds a visitors’ book, but only men may sign it.”

“When men rigidly exclude women from their outward life it’s a sign of unease,” Peg scoffed.

“Or surfeit in the private life,” he suggested with his tongue in his cheek. “Do you want to see the sights or just bathe?”

“Both, please. Make for a beach, but point out anything of interest.” She sat back, momentarily sated. “The town has a run-down, decaying look, but I love it. Where was the slave market?”

“There’s a cathedral on the site. I’m going there to a wedding next Saturday.”

“How lovely. I wish I were staying. Two days isn’t nearly long enough!”

“Only one day and a bit, I’m afraid,” Steve said. “I heard this morning that your plane for Mombasa calls here tomorrow. You can’t be sure of a connection the day after.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Don’t look so doleful. This place never changes, so you can come back any time and recapture the atmosphere.”

“But it won’t be just like this. I may be alone or with someone quite
different
...
and I shall be older.”

“But you’ll never be cynical, young Peg. You’re not the type.”

They were now driving along an avenue shaded by casuarinas. “I suppose you like your women sophisticated,” she stated. She remembered Vanessa, and quivered slightly. “I think you have to be bo
rn
with the germ of sophistication or you never have it. I don’t mind being homespun.”

“If you’re fishing for compliments try some bait on that hook.” He gave her a speculative look and turned his glance back upon the road. “You’re not like Jim; you must resemble your mother. He used to talk about you both sometimes. He may have had a peculiar way of showing it, but you two meant a lot to him.”

“Yes, I know. My mother adored him.”

“She must have been an unusual woman. How would you feel about a marriage in which you’d see your husband for three months every couple of years?”

“I couldn’t stand it,” she said simply.

“No, you couldn’t,” he said flatly. “You’re healthy and eager and demanding. You even make
me
feel jaded.”

“You’re laughing at me again, but I don’t care.” She flung out her arms to embrace the sun-drenched forestry they were entering. “Isn’t this stupendous? It’s so thrilling it hurts.”

He shook his head toleran
tl
y. “You’re young ... very young. Tell me what you did in England.”

“It’s so far away I can hardly remember.”

“I’ll prompt you. You were a nursing assistant at a convalescent home. What happened before that?”

“I went to school. My mother wanted me to go away for some sort of training, but I couldn’t leave her, and I didn’t want to go so very much, so I took the job and
we were happy.”