They Met in Zanzibar (6 page)

“When you women dress up’ you take things off. We put ’em on! I hope you’re not expecting a high time tonight. There’ll be just the planters and a few wives.”

“Don’t they dance?”

“Sometimes, if someone mentions it.”

“Well, you must mention it for me. Michael will be there, won’t he?”

“Young Foster? I reckon so. I suppose you intend to dance the poor devil into a coma. I wouldn’t be young again for all the pearls on the reef!”

She turned a sparkling glance to him. “Oh, yes, the pearls! Do you think we might look for some? I’d love to find a pearl myself - just one.”

“You’d better get Foster on that, too,” said Jim hastily. “I’m too old for it.”

She asked anxiously, “Does it tire you to have
me living
with you?”

“It’s great,” he said warmly. “I’d enjoy it more if I thought you were never going to leave.” When she said nothing he added firmly, “But you’re not to consider me. I didn’t consider anyone when I got dug in out here and on the whole I haven’t regretted it. That sounds callous, but your mother understood, and I think you understand, too.” Jim never spoke emotionally; perhaps it was an inherited dislike of showing feelings that made Peg deliberately matter-of-fact about most things. She squeezed his hand on the wheel.

“You be good about dressing up,” she coaxed. “Don’t take your jacket off halfway through dinner as you did when we had the McTeales in.”

“It’s the women,” he grumbled. “There are some places where a white shirt and black trousers with a cummerbund are correct evening dress, but this lot came out of the Ark.”

“That tie neatly expresses your sentiments. Leave it at that. Oh, look, we’re not the first.”

Nor were they the last. Mrs. McTeale’s correct little living room had been designed to take a dozen guests, and that was the number that turned up for the finger-supper and conviviality. Peg had already met them all; four middle-aged men, three wives, Michael and two other bachelor planters, one bookish and the other sports- minded. To Peg, Michael appeared the most balanced of the men. He could talk copra, though rather hesitantly, books, music of the more popular kind and tennis or golf. He also danced well, which Peg discovered when, after they had eaten and she had been persuaded to take chartreuse with her coffee, she found that her father had taken her at her word and suggested some dancing.

There were only two or three couples, of course, but most of the non-dancers were lounging outside or very near the door, and the rest of the room was left free for those who wished to glide about on its small space. Michael had a rest now and then while one of the other men relieved him, but while rhythmic music emerged from the record-player Peg had to dance. It was one of the things, like gardening and cooking, which she found purely and absorbingly recreational; she loved it.

But at about eleven Mr. McTeale turned to classics, and his wife supplied snacks with coffee or drinks. Jim Maldon, as usual near bedtime, had a tall whisky and soda with ice, and Peg was surprised to find herself plied
w
ith a small glass of whisky as well as the coffee she had asked for.

She laughed at Mr. McTeale. “I’m no drinker. I couldn’t take that!”

“You should,” he said seriously. “My wife will tell
you...”

The woman broke in, “It’s true, my dear. All of us women have whisky once a day. It’s good for you out here.”

“Pickles the pests,” remarked Jim. “Try a swallow of it.”

Peg wanted to protest again, but they were all watching her and it was easier to hold her breath and gulp a good mouthful of the amber liquid. She laughed, her eyes watering, and poured the rest of the drink into her father’s glass. They began talking again and she wandered outside, her cheeks burning and butterfly wings beating about her heart.

There had been no rain for a couple of days and tonight the sky was very dark with a yellow moon hanging softly not far above the treetops. The air tingled with a subtle magic and Peg knew a sweet pang of longing for someone who would sweep her down to the shore for a bathe in the silvered sea, and afterwards talk all the foolishness that the young do talk when it’s past midnight and their elders are in bed, and there’s love in the air.

She walked into the garden; a pretty one, for the tropics. There was a path with banks of Malayan daisies at the sides, an archway heavy with coral creeper and a hedge of trimmed hibiscus which divided the flower garden from the orchard. Peg stood at the gate in the hedge, gazing at the dark shapes of the mangoes and wanting something she couldn’t possibly have named.

She was too bemused to hear a step, and when two hands slipped over her eyes she started, but smiled. “Stop it, Michael,” she said. “You’re a big boy now.”

“It’s not Michael, damn you,” said a pleasant, unforgettable voice.

Her heart leapt straight into her throat and she swung round. She stared up into a dark mocking face, felt the hands which had hidden her eyes now pressed to the back of her head, as if he hadn’t moved them. But they were imprisoning her head so that she had to keep it just like that, lifted and rigid. Unconsciously her mouth had parted and her eyes widened, enormously. She felt his light kiss on her lips and in a reflex action she tiptoed to receive it before suddenly pushing him away. The breath hurt in her lungs.

“That’s for calling me Michael,” Steve said calmly, “and also to say hallo. How are you, Peg-for-Margaret?”

She took a quick step away from him, towards the lights of the house. “When did you ... get back?” she asked jerkily.

“About an hour ago, by freighter. I could see there was a party on here as I passed on my way home, so I got changed and came along.” A pause. “You must be quite settled in now. What are you doing out here alone?”

“Getting some air.”

“And waiting for Michael?”

“No. I thought he’d come to fetch me. My father must be ready to go home.”

“Is Jim all right?”

“Yes,” she said guardedly.

“Sorry I came back early?”

“I don’t care what you do, so long as I’m not a target for your amusement.”

His voice hardened. “Have you been sore at me all this time?”

“I haven’t thought about you,” she replied untruthfully, “but I did hope we might have another couple of weeks of peace.”

“Oh, come,” he said, a taunt in his tones. “You’re too young to want peace; you’re not even the type. How do you like Motu?”

“Very much.”

“Find enough to do?”

“Plenty.”

“And you find young Foster a charming playmate? I thought you would.” He walked with her, slowly. “You didn’t ask me if I had a good leave.”

“I think you can be depended on to get all the enjoyment available, wherever you might be.” But in spite of herself she queried, “Did you stay much longer at Zanzibar?”

“Four or five days. Then I made my way to Colombo. I was there about ten days before starting the homeward trip.”

“Do you have a girl there too?”

His voice didn’t alter. “That’s a leading question, sweetie. Ask it some other time, earlier in the day.”

She knew the answer already and it made her angry. He thought he could do as he liked, anywhere. A girl on every island except where he worked. If he had one here he might have to marry her, and that wouldn’t do at all for Mr. Cortland. They were nearing the house and she asked quickly,

“Why are you back two or three weeks early?”

“I’ve been waiting for that,” he said. “You’ve edged round it and finally plunged. I’m back early because the company cabled me at an address I gave them. They’re sending a couple of men with solid proposals at the end of the month.”

“Oh.” She spoke flatly, in husky tones. “It’s nearly two weeks to the end of the month.”

“I need that time to get things weighed up here. I’m sure of the younger men and old Stebbings, but not of the Professor, old Gracey or your father.”

“So you’re going to work on them.”

“What’s wrong with that? I happen to believe in the change-over.”

“Well,
I ...
I can’t say I wish you luck, can I?”

The tremor in her voice brought him to a halt, facing her. “You won’t believe this, but I’d sell even if I weren’t going into the company afterwards. There’s nothing I like better than producing copra, but I have no affection for one particular acreage of trees, and I feel the company’s offer will be so generous that no youngish man would dream of refusing to sell. Where the older men are concerned the money could mean security and freedom. You must see that.”

“They have security now and they don’t particularly want freedom.”

“You’re prejudiced. What has your father said about it?”

“We haven’t discussed it.”

“Not at all?” he demanded. “There must have been some talk of it here!”

“Almost none. I suppose the younger men accepted it and the older ones were sceptical. My father says there have been rumours of that kind before.”

“And you,” he said grimly, “have taken good care to avoid the subject. You may think you’re being kind to your father, but you’re not.”

“I want him to have what
he
wants,” she said. “He’s given all he has to Motu, and I think Motu owes him his kind of happiness. He’ll make his own decisions.”

“Very well,” in cool, exasperated tones. “I’ll be over tomorrow. Care to give me dinner?”

“Would you trust it - from me?”

His eyes narrowed and glinting in the darkness he said, “I’ll take a chance. You weren’t all that evasive when I kissed you just now.”

Peg’s fists clenched at her sides; she would have liked to push that arrogant head off his shoulders. Fortunately she did not have to reply to him.

Mrs. McTeale cried, from the veranda, “Well, look who’s back! Come on in for a drink, Steve. You’re just in time!”

CHAPTER THREE

Peg w
as more than relieved next mornin
g
when Dr. Passfield came over to check up on a couple of cases he had recently released. She went with him to the workers’ huts and found her mind so occupied with what she met there that it had no time to get busy on anything else. By lunch-time, she had come to the conclusion that the life of a plantation worker on Motu was the ideal. They had small thatched houses of two rooms which needed very little attention. Their bathroom and laundry was the river and the river bank was their club. Their gardens and orchards were the natural growth around them; they kept chickens and pigs and except for sugar, flour and salt, they needn’t spend a penny on food.

The women wore sarongs and blouses, and coiled their thick hair in the nape. They weren’t good-looking, and through inter-marriage they were very much alike, but they apparently had a strong sense of humour which was often expressed at the expense of their menfolk. Not many of the men were about that morning; they were working among the palms. On the whole the men were more sophisticated than the women, though they found sarongs comfortable for wear and only donned a shirt and trousers for special occasions.

Peg loved the children, with their big dark eyes and cropped black heads, but she wondered whether the lazy life were good for them. Dr. Passfield said no.

“Laziness is the islander’s chief trouble,” he said. “Through it, they have no real
s
tamina
and when some bug hits them it hits them hard. They die of things like enteritis and island fever.”

“What is island fever?”

“It’s caused through a fly-bite and is similar to malaria in symptoms, though it doesn’t recur. Not afraid of infections, are you?”

“Not a bit. I’m interested in them from the children’s angle. Your wife has helped me to identify many of the milder ailments, but she didn’t tell me much about the fever.”

“That’s because you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it but call the doctor. Well, I must get along. You might dress that boy’s leg wound for me tomorrow and watch for inflammation. Thanks. Goodbye.”

Peg went home and ate lunch with her father; cold pickled fish with sweet co
rn
and a squashy fruit salad of papa
y
a, orange sections, banana and bits of fibrous pineapple. Lunch was a monotonous meal. There was always cold meat or fish with small tomatoes or buttered sweet com, and the fruit salad hardly varied.

Nosoap cooked only at dinner time, and though he was not imaginative he made an excellent job of it. His curries, variations of a famous Singapore curry which Mrs. McTeale had included in his repertoire many years ago, were delicious, and he deligh
t
ed in serving them with an array of condiments: fresh milky grated coconut, finely chopped tomato and onion, banana chutney, sour-apple butter and a flaky karzi biscuit which, when broken over the whole helping, added a delicious flavour.

That night his curry was made from lean beef and he tinted the rice with a hint of saffron. He had made a mould with
tinned
fruits and gelatine and opened a new tin of cheese which emerged in a soft lump that Peg could mould into a small Cheddar shape. Instead of celery he would serve bamboo tips - more of a luxury on Motu than one might imagine, for there was little jungle to encourage the swift tender growth of the bamboos.

Peg put on a white silk jersey dress which was sleeveless and had a plain square neck. A non-committal sort of dress, she thought, and that was how she wanted to be this evening with Steve. She heard him arrive, her father’s, “This is where we get back to normal, eh, Steve? What will you have?” She heard Steve’s tones, “I can wait for Peg, if you can.”

She squared her shoulders and walked into the living room, said good evening with a pleasant but distant s
mile
and asked for lime and soda.