They Met in Zanzibar (22 page)

In stifled tones she said, “Tell me how it happened. I want to know.”

“It was just a madman slashing about with a knife.”

“A ...
madman?”

He looked at her briefly. “I don’t want you upset like this. It was nothing.”

“Don’t keep saying that,” she said unsteadily. “I’m not some poor weak idiot who can’t stand a jolt. Tell me how it happened.”

He hesitated, took care to keep his shoulder absolutely still under her fingers; the last thing he could risk was frightening her now. He spoke quietly. “We have a couple of Malays who are badly affected by abnormal weather, and so on. They all react a little, but these two occasionally break out and come to blows with each other, and they whip up a sort of frenzy among the workers. One of them was working on the new sheds. I went there this morning by river - got there about twelve and found everything haywire. This chap had locked himself into the storehouse and was laying about him with his parang - ripping up the sacks of sugar and meal and salt. He had the door barred inside, and I went to the small window and tried to reason with him; the superintendent there had tried, it, too. It didn’t work. The man stopped shouting, so we left him to it for a while, but when he started up again I knew we had to get him out and that we could only do it by drastic means. The other men were scared stiff, and by two o’clock they’d all run back to their huts. I suppose that’s what happened to the boy I sent up to you with a note.”

“What did you do?”

“I could have broken in the door, but from the noise I judged he was just behind it. He c
o
uld have been injured.”

“As if that mattered, after he’d caused so much trouble!”

“He wasn’t responsible for what he was doing. This man,” with a barely perceptible pause, “is the one who caused an uproar that other night, when Foster came for me.”

Peg remembered. He’d come back from subduing the Malay in a mood to subdue his wife. While one hand still held the pad of material to the wounds in his neck, the other crept up quiveringly to cover her face.

“How did you get him out of the hut?” she questioned, almost under her breath.

“We made a paraffin flare and threw it in. He was out in a second, I used a rugger tackle and brought him down, but he got in a few jabs with the knife before we got it away from him. He’s locked up now.”

“And you’ve been bleeding ever since then?”

“No, it started
u
p again when I canoed back down the river.”

There was a long silence. Peg’s hand moved from her eyes and lay along her cheek. She turned her head and saw the old scar, the big loop made by a shark in African waters. She wanted to press her lips to it, but daren’t yet. She felt a tautness in him, an iron control, and some sixth sense told her that he was waiting, almost with stilled breath, for what she would say next. It had to be the right thing. A strange wave of feeling ran through her body.

“Steve,” she whispered, “take me to Singapore with you
tomorro
w ...
please
.”

There was a second’s absolute silence. Then he let out the pent-up breath sharply, and said indistinctly, “I’ll take you, honey. We’ll get on home now.”

The packing was left till the following morning. Peg felt serene and languid, not at all in the mood for folding clothes and sending out messages, but it had to be done. Steve hadn’t felt like going up for a last-minute talk with McTeale, but that had to be done, also. Still, by tonight they would be in Singapore, and best of all they’d be staying at the grandest hotel, just like a honeymoon couple.

Peg, still in her thin gown, walked about the bedroom hugging herself and telling herself vaguely that she would need to buy a couple of evening dresses and new underwear. There’d be a business meeting or two for Steve, and they would be entertained a few times by the directors and their wives, but most of the time there’d be just the two of them. Dancing, bathing, sightseeing, watching the moon come up over the sea, talking and sharing silences ... and making love. Peg sighed ecstatically, and drifted about wasting precious time.

When Steve came in, smelling of sunshine and khaki drill, he threw up his hands. “You haven’t done a single thing since I left you! We’ve just an hour - do you know that?”

She stood in front of him, her arms still clasped about her body. “Don’t touch, darling. I want to ask you some questions.”

“Be quick about it.” Keeping his hands behind him, he brushed the tip of her nose with his lips. “You smell delicious. I’m sure the questions can wait.”

“Not any longer; I want to leave them behind me when we go. I know it’s not my business what you did before we were married, but did you have an affair with Lynette?”

He grimaced. “Kind of. She’s a sticker.”

“She came to you at Zanzibar, didn’t she?”

“She did. But I didn’t go to her -
r
emember that.”

“But you invited her.”

“Oh, no. I called at Singapore when I went on leave. I told the Fosters I was going on to Zanzibar for a week or two, to attend a wedding, chiefly, and Lynette cornered me afterwards and told me she’d never been there and wouldn’t like to go to such a place unless she knew someone there. Would I mind if she arrived during my stay? At that time I couldn’t see that it was such a bad idea to have a girl to take round to the various parties in Zanzibar. It’s a place where people are always giving parties. So I said it was up to her.”

“And she came. When did you two part company?”

“Jealous?”

“Not now, but I want to know.”

“I put her on a plane less than a week later, and I myself took a ship round to Bombay and Ceylon. I next saw her when she arrived here.”

“Was the affair on its last legs
?
”

“It had never been a real affair, and what it had been was dead. I’d met you in Zanzibar, and Lynette had quickly begun to look a little shoddy. When she got here she told me every day that she loved me; I kidded her along because I thought she’d soon grow tired of making all the running, but she didn’t. At this moment she’s probably fastened herself on to someone else, and is telling him how provocative and attractive he is.”

“She wrote to you,” Peg said baldly.

He nodded. “I wondered, afterwards, whether you’d seen the letter in my mail. In a way I hoped it was responsible for ending that rather unreal relationship of ours, because that would mean you did care, quite a bit.”

“
What did she say in the letter
?
”

“That she’d hoped to hear from me before belatedly leaving for Europe. I tore it up. She’s probably in London now. Lynette is one of those problem women.”

“Men like mysteries.”

“Up to a point, yes. But Lynette is part vixen, though I didn’t find that out till she came here to Motu. I don’t mind a kitten with claws, but when a grown woman still shows them over other
women...
” He stopped, but added, “She tried to get at me because I took you on when your father died. I didn’t say a thing, one way or another, till we’d decided to marry, and even then I left it till the eve of our wedding. She smiled and congratulated me, but I’ve never seen that look in any other woman’s eyes. It was horrible.”

Peg didn’t tell him about Lynette’s visit to her room the following morning. Now none of it mattered, and in any case, that kind of detail would filter out during the days to come. All she cared now was that Steve was looking at her with the eyes of a man deeply, desperately and exquisitely in love. He was unmasked, himself again.
But much, much more.

She gave a little caught laugh. “I’m terribly happy, Steve. I didn’t believe it could be like this.”

“That’s what I want,” he said, his tones rough with emotion. “I knew we had to go through a day like yesterday some time, but I didn’t know a few stabs with a knife would do the trick, or I’d have had them much earlier. That weeping!”

“You prescribed a good bawl a long time ago.”

“I must have been mad.” He kissed her, dragged himself back to reality and looked at his watch. “Dam you, Peg Cortland. I’ll get you on that plane if I have to carry you to it as you are!”

“You know something?” she said mischievously. “I don’t think I’d care!”

But while he packed she hurried into a crisp lettuce green dress, and white shoes. And as she moved about the room she caught her own startled glance once or twice in the mirror. Eyes clear and passionate and shining, because at the moment they could contemplate nothing but the future, with Steve.