They Met in Zanzibar (3 page)

“Till she died.”

Peg nodded, and looked down at her hands. “She was a brave, laughing person. As a child she was in an accident which left her with only one lung. She was strong otherwise and when they were first married neither she nor my father ever thought about her weakness. They travelled together on his business, but after I came along he decided they had enough money to try their luck in the South Seas. He went off alone, but when he came back for us my mother had just recovered from a bout of pleurisy.” She lifted shoulders that were slim in a cotton print. “For a few years it must have been grim for them. My father had ‘caught the bug’ as he always calls it, and he couldn’t settle in England. A doctor had told my mother that she must always be careful and that the South Seas were too hot for her constitution. So gradually their way of living developed. In a way they were always with each other, but at times I did think
...”

She let it tail off, and for some minutes he drove without speaking along the narrow road between palms and mangoes and an occasional cinnamon tree. Huts were hidden among bananas and papaws, and sometimes a woman with a child would be visible, lounging in the shade of the heavy palm thatching; but seemingly, no one worked.

“What did you do for pleasure?” he asked at last. “Did you have many friends?”

“Quite a few in the village; I’d never lived anywhere else.”

“No young man?”

She hesitated. Paul wasn’t yet hers, and he wasn’t any younger than Steve Cortland. “I experimented around,” she said vaguely. “Is that a ruin over there, among the trees?”

“It’s an abandoned palace with a mosque adjoining. There are several, but they’re not as old as you might think. The humidity here soon disposes of a building that’s left derelict.”

Peg became surfeited with heat and the exotic surroundings, and when Steve stopped close to a narrow beach she was very willing to stay in the car and change into her swim-suit while he disappeared and got into briefs. The water was warm and relaxing; swimming, but looking back towards the land, she got her first really strong whiff of cloves. They must be near a plantation. She swam and floated, and when she came out she pulled off her cap and lazed in the shade till Steve joined her. Was it casually or with purpose that he hung a towel over the scarred shoulder?

With that odd abruptness she had noticed once or twice in his manner he said, “Don’t hang about - you may be seen. It offends the Arab to see an undressed woman in public.”

“Supposing I’d taken you at my word and brought my bikini?”

“You’d have had to swim in your dress. I didn’t think for a moment that you swam in anything but a slick suit.”

“I don’t. All right, I’m going,” a little crossly as he waved her towards the car. “There’s not a soul in sight.”

“Except a thousand villagers among the trees. You don’t get away from people on Zanzibar. They don’t move much, but they see everything. Get cracking. I’m going to dress.”

When he came back she was in her dress and combing her hair. He gave her a crabmeat sandwich and a handful of tiny tomatoes, poured iced coffee from a thermos and opened a box of fruits. Except for an occasional remark which he wouldn’t have addressed to anyone but a woman,
Steve treated her as if she were just any youngster in Zanzibar for the first time. It piqued her a little, but she didn’t really care. Steve hadn’t the gen
tl
eness to be as sweet a big brother as Paul had been, but he would do as a neighbour in Motu. An exasperating neighbour, but that was one thing you couldn’t select.

He drove her through the clove plantations, where a few pickers were filling apron-cloths with cloves, past a house whose front garden was a huge clove-drying platform, and back towards Zanzibar town, where it was now, at four o’clock, much busier. There were actually a few Indian women in saris walking along the streets, and Swahili ayahs in black led their Indian charges down towards the gardens where a band was preparing to play in the domed bandstand. Coffee-vendors, with their conical brass pots in hand and china coffee-bowls clinking in their pockets, made staccato noises to indicate their whereabouts to the thirsty. Zanzibar was waking from its heat stupor, to enjoy the evening.

Steve did not drive straight to the hotel. He took a turning which brought them to another of the ubiquitous walls and stopped the car opposite a beautiful arched opening. Peg gazed at the scene framed by the arch and knew they must be close to the edge of a low cliff. Could there possibly be a more beautiful sight, she wondered, than a dhow with the wind in its sails on a bright blue sea with a palm tossing nearby against a hyacinthine sky, as seen through a white Arabic archway?

“Thank you,” she said a little breathlessly. There was a silence while she soaked it in. Then she glanced at him quickly. “This is the third time today that you’ve stared at me as if you’re not sure how I tick. Is there something wrong with me?”

“Not radically.” He rested a big brown hand on the wheel, spoke calmly. “You mustn’t mind my weighing you
up. I have a reason.”

“What sort of reason - to do with my father?”

He nodded. “I think
you can take it; you seem fairly sound.”

“Take what, for heaven’s sake?”

“Don’t get excited or I’ll change my mind. Just listen, and remember that I’ve quite some feeling for Jim.” He let a few seconds elapse before saying, “I was coming over to England in about ten days.”

“You were? To see my father?”

“He wasn’t due back in Motu for a few weeks, and I thought I’d catch him at home, and perhaps find him reluctant about leaving you. You see, he’s never mentioned bringing you to Motu. Maybe he had to wait till he saw you before he could make up his
min
d.”

“But ... but you never go to England, so this ... whatever it is must be important. Does it have something to do with my father’s plantation? Was there a fire? Or is there some trouble at the house? Please tell me at once!”

“I asked you to listen. There’s been no fire, no trouble at the house. Just after Jim left Motu we had a visit from some representatives of the big concern who buy our copra for making their products. They want to start a manufacturing unit at Singapore, and as distances go down there Motu is not so far away. They came with a proposition - to buy up all the plantations on Motu and consolidate them into one vast estate.”

Peg stared at him. “What does it mean, for my father?”

“That he could sell out, for a very good figure.”

She said unevenly, “No amount of money can take the place of the thing you live for. I’m sure he won’t sell. They can’t force it.”

“They can make things difficult for him, particularly if
he’s the only one who stands out. All the planters were sounded about it and most of them would be willing to sell; those who aren’t at the moment will eventually give in.”

“Except my father!”

“That’s right.” He grinned sharply. “Considering you haven’t seen a great deal of him you know him pretty well. Jim is going to fight, all on his own, with his back to the wall.”

“But they can’t do that to him,” she said, aghast. “And you ... are
you
selling?”

“Yes,” he said laconically. “I’m selling.”

“Why, you ...
you traitor!”

“Hey, now, this isn’t a war. The thing isn’t settled by a long way, but it had to come. These people have been paying us a fair price for years, but they realise it would be economically to their advantage to own all the plantations and centralise control. It’s done in everything these days - rubber, cacao, all the major crops. You just can’t be sentimental about a single plantation.”

Her blue eyes flashed. “You can’t be sentimental - but you haven’t told my father!”

“I was going over to England for that purpose. I thought that if I caught
him
settled in and not too eager to leave, he might be glad to take a good sum for the plantation, and not return to Motu. He’d be free to travel, too
...”

“He’ll never be free and you know it. That plantation has been almost everything to him, and now it must seem almost like his wife as well. You heard him say
...”

“Yes, I heard him,” he said impatiently. “You don’t have to tell me anything about Jim Maldon. I’ve known him for eight years. But this thing has to happen, and Jim can’t stop it. No one can.”

“And
you
’
re
not even going to fight it!”

“You be quiet about that side of things,” he said grimly.
“My plans are my own business. I’m concerned just now about Jim.”

“I’m sure you are,” she said bitterly. “Are you going to tell him while we’re here?”

“No. I’d have told him in England, but here, seeing him only for a short time, I don’t think it would be wise.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because when Jim gets back he’ll hear rumours, and it’s as well that you should know the truth of the matter. It’s not a concrete proposition yet, and they said it might be several months before they get down to negotiations,
but...”

“Yet you were going to England, to persuade my father to stay there.”

“It would have saved him the heartache of having to say goodbye to the place.”

She was silent. Then, her voice threadlike, she said, “Supposing he gave in? Could he go on living there?”

Steve sounded savage. “That’s the devil of it. The younger men will get their purchase price and an offer of a job as superintendent of a section. The older men have to go. All these companies have an age limit, and Jim’s beyond it.”

“I see.” She drew in her lip. “My father intends to go to Motu, so perhaps it’s wise to say nothing to him while he’s here. After all, if it’s only a rumour so far, it can’t hurt
him
very much, can it?
I ...
I almost wish you hadn’t told me.”

“I told you for your father’s sake,” he said curtly. “I’m not due back for two months and it’s just possible the company snoopers will get busy among the plantations. That’s likely to put Jim’s back up, unless someone points out that a change is inevitable and could be very profitable. You’re all he has now, and though you’re only a girl he may listen to you. Try to persuade him to give in. Fighting will only wear him out.”

After an interval Peg said, in small tones, “Will you take me back to the hotel, please?”

He drew an audible breath and started the car, turned it back towards the town. “I know Jim’s
stiff-necked
,” he commented, “but he got that way through struggling for what he has. You’re just nineteen and you’ve never struggled at all; heaven help you when some man takes you in hand.”

“I’m not going to persuade my father to sell,” she said tightly.

On a harsh note, he answered, “You think about it before you decide anything at all. If he sells, Jim can build a new house right there on the island, and still grow a few palms in his garden. He’ll quite be well off for the rest of his life, and able to give you
...”

“
I
don’t want a thing except his happiness. And if a thousand acres of coconuts are what it takes, I’ll help him to keep them.”

“Even if he loses his market? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do. I’m talking about a man’s heart and you’re talking about his pocket. You said you wanted to save him the heartache of saying goodbye to the place. You don’t know what heartache is, Mr. Cortland, and I don’t suppose you ever will know. You have no love for your plantation; it’s just something that has brought you in a good supply of cash and now looks like putting you
on
easy street. When you’re superintending your own estates as a section of some soulless company’s copra estate, I hope it hurts - unbearably!”

He had drawn in outside the hotel, but as she made to spring from his car his fingers gripped her wrist. “Just a minute. I admire your spirit, but your reasoning is rickety.
You’ll feel differently after you’ve thought it over. And don’t start blaming the younger men for taking jobs with the company. They’re doing what’s best for themselves.”

“Including you?” she asked shakily.

“Yes, including me.”

She pulled her hand away from him. “You’re actually going to work for the company, after owning your own plantation? An hour ago I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“You can,” he said, his expression dour. “They’ve asked me to be general manager of the whole set-up.”

Peg felt an odd tightness in her nostrils as she took a deep breath, a roughness in her throat. She looked at his grey eyes, narrow and glittering a little, at the strangely straight line of his mouth. She ran the tip of her tongue along dry lips. “So you’re the enemy,” she
said. “It’s as well to know.” Before he could move, she slipped out of the car and ran, her head thudding, into the hotel and up the stone staircase to her room. Inside it, she locked the door and laid hot hands along her cheeks, and after a minute she went into the bathroom and splashed tepid water from the tap over her face.

She didn’t go down to dinner that evening, said it was too hot and she would prefer a salad in her room. No, there was nothing wrong with her, she assured her father, but she understood they had to leave for Mombasa tomorrow morning, and after such a day she would rather rest up. She had a couple of letters to write anyway.

But Peg didn’t write the letters. She paced from the room into the ba
l
cony and back again, wondering just how the proposed changes would affect her lively, one-track father. The island was his home, his plantation was a part of him and he’d have to keep it, whatever the cost. To lose it would be worse than losing a limb.